CPU Temperature is taken from the Proximity Sensor

[BourgonLaurent]

Issue

The current values of the temperature for the CPU is taken from the Proximity sensor (located on the CPU Cooler). Obviously, the CPU Cooler is cooler than the CPU die. Overheating and temperature throttling is related to the temperature of the cores. This is why Intel Power Gadget is using the values from the cores (I think it is making an average since each core has its temperature but it is only showing one value). Unless it is under serious work, the Proximity sensor will always be lower by 5-20°C.

Configuration

Running macOS Catalina 10.15.6 on MacBookPro16,2

Behaviors

Current behaviour

> ./osx-cpu-temp
45.4 °C

Expected behaviour

It should return the temperature of the GPU

> ./osx-cpu-temp
55.3 °C

Possible Fix

Change the SMC key to one of the cores, preferably the first or second one to ensure compatibility on dual-core processors (or take the average of all the cores available).