Maybe I didn't properly explain: different chips have different acceptable ranges of temperatures that they can operate in. Or more specifically, they have different ranges of temperatures that they can operate in *according to their own temperature sensor*. All chips basically use the same materials: polysilicon, phosphorous, boron, aluminum, etc.. They all have the same specific heat, etc. for the same material. It's not like Intel can legitimately say they have superior phosphorous atoms to AMD's phosphorous atoms (although I have no doubt they would try).
But the temperature sensor is a design. They rely on the same universal laws of physics, but the designs are specific to the company. Usually it comprises of a voltage divider, reed sensor, etc. of some sort, and that analog voltage gets fed to an ADC (analog-to-digital converter). The sensor causes something to output a different voltage depending on what temperature it is, and that voltage gets converted into a digital number. The company can calibrate that any way they want. They can convert 35 millivolts into a 0 or a 16376, and they can interpret that 16376 to be any temperature they want (although if they ever interpreted it to be a negative Kelvin temperature, I think it's safe to say that design is definitively wrong). The most logical choice is to calibrate it to output the temperature of THAT temperature sensor itself. Which probably runs a good 17C cooler than the cores are running at that very moment. So you may be reading 30C on the console, but the part of the chip you actually care about is running at 47C. But that's okay--you already have an acceptable range in your head that the computer can reliably run at, and that is based on the temperature you are reading. Your upper limit may be 90C, when we actually validate the CPU to run at 110C in-house (110C is a very common upper limit for non-military grade).
Personally, I think an accurate chip temperature sensor needs to reflect the WORST-CASE temperature on the CHIP. But that is bad marketing. If your AMD computer reads 30C and their Intel computer reads 50C, everyone's going to buy the AMD computer. Even though they are running at the same temperature.
