I am running ubuntu xenial (legacy version) on my orangepi zero 256Mb version and using it as a web server with light torrenting. The SoC temperature reading in armbianmonitor reaches above 80C easily. When i log in via ssh after boot the temperature reads usually 60-65 C and normal operations easily cross 70C. This is my first SBC so I am not sure if this is normal? Can anyone tell me if these temperature readings are notmal or do i need heatsink to cool down my system? Thanks in advance. 

Adding or improving passive cooling on any SBC is ALWAYS a good idea.

It doesn't requires any technical knowledge.

It can save you a lot of time.

Could you use armbianmonitor -m to see if the card is throttling ? 

Could you use armbianmonitor -m to see if the card is throttling ? 

If you mean cpu usage its usually around 10% at 912 MHz with 50% cpu usage. Here's a sample output:

Time        CPU    load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq   CPU

18:21:02:  912MHz  0.22   1%   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%   68°C

18:21:07:  240MHz  0.20   3%   1%   1%   0%   0%   0%   69°C

18:21:12:  240MHz  0.19   9%   2%   0%   0%   6%   0%   69°C

18:21:18:  240MHz  0.17   9%   2%   0%   0%   6%   0%   68°C

18:21:23:  240MHz  0.16   3%   2%   1%   0%   0%   0%   68°C