Cooling Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Air v Water

[lexluthermiester]

Yes, they are server grade CPU's, tighter tolerances to run cooler, uses less power while running. I used that CPU for a decade, not a few months.. I didn't hurt it. I ran high voltage all the time because I could cool it. I did hurt PSU's with that system though. Its like comparing my X3360 to my Q9550. My X3360 ran cooler across all cores, and used less power.. and overclocked a little better. My X5690 ran cooler and scaled further than my 970 did. My 970 was better with memory because dividers are awesome.

Fair enough. I'm just advising caution, that's all. I'd hate to see someone kill a CPU with high voltage.

 

[freeagent]

Fair enough. I'm just advising caution, that's all. I'd hate to see someone kill a CPU with high voltage.

Honestly man, the CPU will let you know. If it’s running hot, and you cannot control it, you shouldn’t be running it that fast. And at some point you will reboot and get hit with an OTP message. A way around that introduced on later generations was the AVX offset. So those guys can run at 5GHz but their cooling won’t let them do it with all loads..

And if it’s too much voltage, the motherboard will hit you with an OVP message

 

[Tomgang]

We all have our own opinions and preferences to what we want. Before I build my new machine in June this year. I dit consider if I should go air as I have used for all my previous builds or aio/custom water loop.

I ended up with a dual system built all aircooled. While the little aircooler on the 5600X dosent leaves much headroom for overclock. However my 5950X with the noctua nh-d15 chromax.black on it. Managed a pretty decent all core oc of 4.65 ghz at 1.375 volts and that can hold the cpu at 85C (stock it sits at around 53C in Cinebench runs) in Cinebench r20/r23 runs. Better results than I had ever hoped for with aircooling and besides I am not comfortable with giving 5950X 1.375 volts for every day use any way. So I have rolled voltage back a bit. With air cooling on my 5950X, I managed to get cinebench scores right up in league of scores with custom water loops. So I am fairly pleased with my choice on going aircooling.

I will say a proper made custom water loop can look apselutely great in a pc. But it's more expensive, more things that can go wrong and frankly having water close to electricity is not a thing I am comfortable with.

For those interested. My system can be seen here and my cinebench runs as well.

Tomgang´s project 2 systems in 1 case. All air cooled.

I was asked to make a build log for my new project 2 systems in 1 case. You can see all parts that goes in to this build in the link: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/the-show-off-your-tech-related-purchase-thread.225885/post-4537865 The first image of the mini-itx system up and...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Deleted member 24505]

A well setup loop, can be as reliable as an air cooler. It can probably be left alone for at least 6mths with no need to touch it.

 

[FireFox]

A well setup loop, can be as reliable as an air cooler. It can probably be left alone for at least 6mths with no need to touch it.

I don't touch my Custom Loop for at least a year or so because the coolant i use can be changed every 2 years.

 

[lexluthermiester]

And at some point you will reboot and get hit with an OTP message.

And if it’s too much voltage, the motherboard will hit you with an OVP message

These depend on the motherboard and not all do that. Still your point is understood.

 

[freeagent]

These depend on the motherboard and not all do that. Still your point is understood.

Ahh sorry, I am used to Asus..

I spent so much time using and abusing that rig.. if anything, its demise was specter/meltdown mitigation related. I literally watched them shave Gflops off of the performance of my 3770K as well.

 

[AusWolf]

We all have our own opinions and preferences to what we want. Before I build my new machine in June this year. I dit consider if I should go air as I have used for all my previous builds or aio/custom water loop.

I ended up with a dual system built all aircooled. While the little aircooler on the 5600X dosent leaves much headroom for overclock. However my 5950X with the noctua nh-d15 chromax.black on it. Managed a pretty decent all core oc of 4.65 ghz at 1.375 volts and that can hold the cpu at 85C (stock it sits at around 53C in Cinebench runs) in Cinebench r20/r23 runs. Better results than I had ever hoped for with aircooling and besides I am not comfortable with giving 5950X 1.375 volts for every day use any way. So I have rolled voltage back a bit. With air cooling on my 5950X, I managed to get cinebench scores right up in league of scores with custom water loops. So I am fairly pleased with my choice on going aircooling.

I will say a proper made custom water loop can look apselutely great in a pc. But it's more expensive, more things that can go wrong and frankly having water close to electricity is not a thing I am comfortable with.

For those interested. My system can be seen here and my cinebench runs as well.

Tomgang´s project 2 systems in 1 case. All air cooled.

I was asked to make a build log for my new project 2 systems in 1 case. You can see all parts that goes in to this build in the link: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/the-show-off-your-tech-related-purchase-thread.225885/post-4537865 The first image of the mini-itx system up and...

www.techpowerup.com

Congrats on the build. My 5950X also did around 3.8 GHz on stock in Cinebench, but it also got fairly warm with a Corsair H100i (240 mm AIO). When I turned the ASUS Optimiser on, I got stable clocks around 4.2-4.4 GHz, though with a power consumption of around 170-180 W, temperatures were totally uncontrollable. Hence the downgrade to the 11700. It can easily maintain an all-core boost of 4.4 GHz with exactly the same power consumed and easily manageable temperatures.

Edit: At first I commented on the extremely low 3.2 GHz clock speed I saw, but I didn't see it happened in Prime95. Honestly, I would suggest everyone against using Prime95. The stress it puts on a CPU is just mad, and it's nothing like anything you do with it in real life. Sort of like running your car's engine at redline all the time. Doesn't make any sense.

 

[Tomgang]

Congrats on the build. My 5950X also did around 3.8 GHz on stock in Cinebench, but it also got fairly warm with a Corsair H100i (240 mm AIO). When I turned the ASUS Optimiser on, I got clocks around 4.2-4.4 GHz stable, though with a power consumption of around 170-180 W, temperatures were totally uncontrollable. Hence the downgrade to the 11700. It can easily maintain an all-core boost of 4.4 GHz with exactly the same power consumed and easily manageable temperatures.

Edit: At first I commented on the extremely low 3.2 GHz clock speed I saw, but I didn't see it happened in Prime95. Honestly, I would suggest everyone against using Prime95. The stress it puts on a CPU is just mad, and it's nothing like anything you do with it in real life. Sort of like running your car's engine at redline all the time. Doesn't make any sense.

If you mean below baseclock on the first image before i put the hardware inside the case. I ran Prime95 on it´s hardest settings and most power hungry to. That means the cpu runs below baseclcok because it´s power limit. No limit by cooling. With cinebench R23 it stay at around 3,8 to 4 Ghz stock on all cores. stock my cpu sits a 53-55C so well below thermal throttle od 90C. First with an all core oc of 4,65 ghz manuel at 1,375 my cpu hits 85C and gets close to thermal trottle piont,

But the image you see with 5600X/5950X. They run below base clock is because of prime95 and power limits. Not by cooling or to high temps. The cooler on 5950X actually does a prety great job compared to even custom water loops. Look at cinibench runs in the tread and try compare them with other 5950X. Then you will my scores are in the good end.

 

[AusWolf]

If you mean below baseclock on the first image before i put the hardware inside the case. I ran Prime95 on it´s hardest settings and most power hungry to. That means the cpu runs below baseclcok because it´s power limit. No limit by cooling. With cinebench R23 it stay at around 3,8 to 4 Ghz stock on all cores. stock my cpu sits a 53-55C so well below thermal throttle od 90C. First with an all core oc of 4,65 ghz manuel at 1,375 my cpu hits 85C and gets close to thermal trottle piont,

But the image you see with 5600X/5950X. They run below base clock is because of prime95 and power limits. Not by cooling or to high temps. The cooler on 5950X actually does a prety great job compared to even custom water loops. Look at cinibench runs in the tread and try compare them with other 5950X. Then you will my scores are in the good end.

That's exactly what I mean. In my opinion, Prime95 is a rubbish program to test any modern CPU. It pumps so much power into your CPU that it will never be able to achieve its practical clock speeds. With my 11700, it pumps well above 200 W into it for no good reason. That's the only situation I lose its 4.4 GHz all-core because the motherboard's over-current protection kicks in. It is also the only situation it comes close to thermal throttling with a 240 mm AIO. How useful is that, really? No, I always test with Cinebench. It's a nice, evenly balanced all-core or single-core workload, kind of the same thing you can expect in real life.

As for the 5950X, your temps are really good! I was around the same level cooling it with the H100i, albeit with the lowest possible rpm settings on both the pump and fans, so the system was near silent.

 

[Tomgang]

That's exactly what I mean. In my opinion, Prime95 is a rubbish program to test any modern CPU. It pumps so much power into your CPU that it will never be able to achieve its practical clock speeds. With my 11700, it pumps well above 200 W into it for no good reason. That's the only situation I lose its 4.4 GHz all-core because the motherboard's over-current protection kicks in. It is also the only situation it comes close to thermal throttling with a 240 mm AIO. How useful is that, really? No, I always test with Cinebench. It's a nice, evenly balanced all-core or single-core workload, kind of the same thing you can expect in real life.

As for the 5950X, your temps are really good! I was around the same level cooling it with the H100i, albeit with the lowest possible rpm settings on both the pump and fans, so the system was near silent.

i have no complains about temp on 5950X. Actually i achieved better overclock than i had hoped for.

 

[freeagent]

Me too, but with 5900X.. this thing rips. And its pretty easy to cool if you don't live in a sauna.

 

[AusWolf]

i have no complains about temp on 5950X. Actually i achieved better overclock than i had hoped for.

I didn't have complaints, either (on stock with PBO at least). The actual reason for my downgrade is that I wanted to go SFF in a slim case with only 8 cm fan mounts, so an AIO wasn't an option anymore, and neither was a tower cooler. I did try a R5 3600, but it ended in a disaster. I couldn't even cool it on stock with a be quiet! Shadow Rock LP. I was lucky that a friend of mine was looking for an upgrade, so I could ditch the 3600 basically straight away. Switching to 11th gen Intel was a bold move, but worth it. The Shadow Rock LP did a good job cooling it, and I even managed to do some PL1 tweaking up until about 100 W. My conclusion is that Ryzen is much more dependent on case airflow for some reason, and its heat transfer to the cooler is much worse than Intel's (probably due to the heat density of the 7 nm chiplets).

You can read all about this experience in my build log (link in my signature) if you're interested.

 

[FireFox]

@Gruffalo.Soldier

I don't know which CPU you have.

 

[AusWolf]

Ok, let's fire up the war machine again!

I had an idea of maximising case airflow for better GPU thermals in my Corsair 280X by swapping my 240 mm AIO to a 280 mm one, and installing bigger case fans if possible (I might be short on space with the bigger rad). I was browsing for a 280 unit that doesn't come with a hundred million cables like my Corsair H100i Platinum, and my eyes caught the be quiet! Silent Loop 2. Nice, simple unit, it comes with just one (ONE!) ARGB cable which is a huge plus for me - no USB bollocks and proprietary connectors and software.

But... my eyes also caught the be quiet! Dark Rock TF2. I used to love top flow coolers in the early 2000s, and with no back exhaust on my case, I think it would make more sense than a tower. Normally, I wouldn't think about air cooling, but while I'm trying to sell my H100i, I've got my Shadow Rock LP installed. With the Intel stock power limits on the 11700, it's not even half as bad as I remembered. The only thing I still need is better case airflow. So...

Which one should I go for?

1. The Dark Rock TF2 with 4x 14 cm case fans, or
2. The Silent Loop 2 with 2x 14 cm case fans, one of which I may or may not be able to install depending on how long the new radiator is.

 

[Valantar]

Ok, let's fire up the war machine again!

I had an idea of maximising case airflow for better GPU thermals in my Corsair 280X by swapping my 240 mm AIO to a 280 mm one, and installing bigger case fans if possible (I might be short on space with the bigger rad). I was browsing for a 280 unit that doesn't come with a hundred million cables like my Corsair H100i Platinum, and my eyes caught the be quiet! Silent Loop 2. Nice, simple unit, it comes with just one (ONE!) ARGB cable which is a huge plus for me - no USB bollocks and proprietary connectors and software.

But... my eyes also caught the be quiet! Dark Rock TF2. I used to love top flow coolers in the early 2000s, and with no back exhaust on my case, I think it would make more sense than a tower. Normally, I wouldn't think about air cooling, but while I'm trying to sell my H100i, I've got my Shadow Rock LP installed. With the Intel stock power limits on the 11700, it's not even half as bad as I remembered. The only thing I still need is better case airflow. So...

Which one should I go for?

1. The Dark Rock TF2 with 4x 14 cm case fans, or
2. The Silent Loop 2 with 2x 14 cm case fans, one of which I may or may not be able to install depending on how long the new radiator is.

 

[AusWolf]

If you tell me how to mount 2 coolers on 1 CPU, I'll buy both of them, I promise.

 

[claes]

I’m still of the mind that you get a new case

 

[AusWolf]

I’m still of the mind that you get a new case

I see your point. The issue with that is that there's no case out there in such a compact size with similar functionality. I'm a small form factor freak just as much as a silence freak. Full tower ATX has no appeal to me.

 

[Valantar]

If you tell me how to mount 2 coolers on 1 CPU, I'll buy both of them, I promise.

I was thinking more among the lines of "buy both, test them, return the one you like the least", but ... I'm sure there's some way of using them both at once

 

[Tatty_Two]

I see your point. The issue with that is that there's no case out there in such a compact size with similar functionality. I'm a small form factor freak just as much as a silence freak. Full tower ATX has no appeal to me.

I am a Phanteks fan, I had one of these matx cases last year until I upgraded my system and went ATX, I had the old model of this but it served me well.................

Phanteks Innovative Computer Hardware Design

 

[mtcn77]

I am a Phanteks fan, I had one of these matx cases last year until I upgraded my system and went ATX, I had the old model of this but it served me well.................

Phanteks Innovative Computer Hardware Design

Wish we had Phanteks over here. They have everything inhouse from fans to cases and they do it with stellar fashion. Been a fan of theirs since reading 120XP reviews.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I am a Phanteks fan, I had one of these matx cases last year until I upgraded my system and went ATX, I had the old model of this but it served me well.................

Phanteks Innovative Computer Hardware Design

That's a nice mATX case, I love Phanteks too.

 

[AusWolf]

I was thinking more among the lines of "buy both, test them, return the one you like the least", but ... I'm sure there's some way of using them both at once

Ah, that explains it! That's an option too, I guess (albeit, a bit expensive one).

Edit: It's decided. Reason: link. For now, I'll just upgrade my case fans to quieter units, and keep the rest of the setup as it is until I get bored again and buy a bigger AIO. It's fun to unlock power limits on my 11700, and I can definitely see myself do that in the future, but with current games and my RTX 2070, I don't need to just yet.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Well here's a pic of my loop. Delete if not in topic
View attachment 215247

You added a reservoir! Nice.
Seems that's an older picture and you have taken it out.. Why'd you take it out?