3930k build with over the top radiators (plus pics and numbers)

[QBobWatson]

My previous build was all about designing a case specifically for watercooling, i.e. around where to put the radiators. That turned out well performance-wise, but despite my best efforts it was a royal pain to tinker with -- among other things, it was very hard to bleed the pumps.

This build is all about being easy to play around with. And looking good. Oh, and the over-the-top external radiator setup:





That's 9x120mm fans and 9x140mm fans. I scavenged the three MCR320's and the nine Scythe gentle typhoons from my last rig and mounted them on a Phobya external 9x120 stand. Since I already had two pumps and enough space, I threw in a Phobya Supernova 9x140 radiator mounted on its own stand with nine Thermalright TY-140 fans. With this much raddage I can keep the fans at their startup voltage, so it ends up being significantly quieter than just the 9xGentle Typhoons at full speed inside a case.

Now, lest you think I'm one of those "price-is-no-object-but-can't-be-creative" types, I'd like to point out that I mounted all of the fans using two-sided mounting tape (partly because it's excellent at absorbing vibration, partially because the TY-140's came with 120mm and not 140mm holes), and that I'm using air-conditioner filters for the radiators, which cost $2.50 each at the hardware store. The pumps are mounted with velcro and zip ties.

So there are the parts that keep everything cool; here are the parts that get hot:






Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D
PSU: Enermax Revolution85+
Mobo: Rampage IV Formula with the EK mosfet block
CPU: Core i7-3930k with my old Apogee XT (X-Socket FTW!)
RAM: 4x4GB Mushkin 993996 DDR3-2133
GPU: Radeon HD 5970 with the EK full-coverage block

I used all Primochill tubing, anti-kink coils (for decoration), and hose clamps on the interior (the hose clamps are a HUGE pain; I recommend getting one size OD larger!), with Bitspower fittings. The water enters and exits the case through Koolance VL3N quick-disconnects, which I highly recommend for their ease of use and relatively high flow. This makes bleeding (and draining) pretty easy: first you plug the hoses from the rads into each other (cutting the case out of the loop and decreasing restriction) to bleed the rads and pumps, then you plug them back into the case once the pumps are bled and push all of the air from the waterblocks and case tubes directly into the reservoir. Draining and refilling only the case is very easy -- from now on I'm always separating the pumps with quick disconnects.

I also put a Lamptron FC5 fan controller in a cheap 5.25" external housing so I could easily see the readouts from the temperature sensors:

I went with the FC5 because it supports 30W per channel, and the set of 9 fans on each radiator is on one channel each.

One more picture with tri-finity (2x24" and 1x30" monitors) in all its glory:


Overclocking / benching numbers and temperatures to follow shortly; give me a little while to reboot into Windows to take some screenshots.

EDIT: made the pics smaller

 

[Modz 4 Higher]

Nice set up man. Looks really good

 

[Neuromancer]

Very nice whats your load delta... like 5c?

 

[EarthDog]

Awesome build, but umm what are load temps? Im dieing to know!

 

[QBobWatson]

Obviously this rig only has one loop, but as I realized after building a two-loop system, you only benefit from multiple loops if (1) you don't have way too many radiators, or (2) you have a low flow rate. This build does not suffer from either of those problems.

The processor overclocks to 4.9GHz at 1.4V pretty easily using the excellent guidelines found on the ROG forums. I've run LinX and Prime95 overnight at 4.9 with no problems, so I consider this a solid 24/7 overclock. (It survives several hours of LinX at 4.95GHz and even a few minutes at 5GHz.) I have the memory clocked at DDR3-2133 at its XMP settings of 9-11-10-28 with no problems. The rig draws 540W from the wall while running LinX, with the processor reporting 230W power draw It draws about 225W from the wall at idle even with all of the C* power states enabled. I can get it to draw just over 1kW when running Prime95 and Furmark at the same time.

As for temps, the cores mostly stay under 70C even under extended stress testing. I once saw 73C on one core after leaving it on LinX overnight and waking up to find that my new 540W space heater had made my office over 80F The massive radiators work as expected -- after giving the rig enough time to heat the 3/4ths of a gallon of circulating distilled water (i.e. overnight), I have temperature deltas of around 2C, and that with the 140mm fans around 800rpm and the 120mm fans at about 1200rpm. The CPU cores idle around 30C (maybe 1C over room temperature).

On the other hand, the memory and bottom-side VRMs on the mobo will push 60C under torture testing as measured by a couple of thermal sensors placed underneath the heat spreaders. It's a good thing I put a block on the top-side VRMs; anyway I think these readings are nominal. Both temp probes read 35-40C at idle.

I haven't upgraded my 5970 for a couple of years. I'm running it with a 900/1200 overclock at 1.25/1.1V (using a modified BIOS). The GPU core temps stay under 45C; the sadly inadequate VRMs however will push 100C if you torture them with Furmark. I may upgrade the graphics hardware in the future, but for the moment I'm not playing anything too graphics intensive, so I'll probably wait a few months for 7970 prices to drop.

Here's the Screenshot with all of the Benchmarks And Torture Tests Still Open so that you know I'm For Real:


The most important benchmark (for me) is using CPU-only Luxrender for raytracing. When rendering this scene on my old i7-2600k at 4.5GHz I'd get about 130k samples/sec; now I'm closer to 220. In case any of you were wondering, this is why one would want a 6-core hyperthreaded overclocked i7: so that you can make realistic mockups of your next computer build

Questions and comments are welcome!

 

[QBobWatson]

Very nice whats your load delta... like 5c?

The 2C delta I quoted was for a sustained load of 540W from the wall running CPU stress tests. The CPU package reports around 230W draw; I'm not sure how much the VRM block is picking up, or how much the GPU draws at idle. Let's say 300-350W ballpark that the rads have to dissipate.

I can get the rig to draw 630W when playing Shogun 2: Total War. Much of that is the GPU, which has a full-coverage block, so presumably a larger portion of that heat would go to the rads. I haven't seen more than a 2C delta, but I've only run the Shogun 2 benchmark for a few minutes, and 630W is the peak, which is far from the average. It's conceivable that I could find a game that would sustain 650W+ draw and that I'd play for hours on end; if that happens, I'll post the deltas. ATM I'm playing X3: Terran Conflict, which doesn't even register on the GPU usage meter

 

[QBobWatson]

Nice set up man. Looks really good

Thanks Modz! This time around I figured I'd try to make it look as fast as it runs. Given my extremely poor understanding of design, I figured I should stick with the ROG red and black color scheme so that I couldn't screw it up

 

[Diggrr]

9 Pics over 1.5M each?
Should have spent money on editing software instead of rads.
I don't have to time to wait and see...

Ciao

 

[Modz 4 Higher]

Diggr, what Internet are you running? My iPhone loads them instantly on '3G'

@op, red black is the only way to go bro it looks super dope. Do you have any more plans for it, or you gonna leave it alone for a little while?

 

[QBobWatson]

9 Pics over 1.5M each?
Should have spent money on editing software instead of rads.
I don't have to time to wait and see...

I should spend money on editing software when I can use the GIMP for free to carefully select scale and jpeg quality settings to come as close to the 2MB limit as I can? (Just kidding, I used the netpbm tools.)

Seriously though, I always want to see the high-res shots.

 

[QBobWatson]

red black is the only way to go bro it looks super dope. Do you have any more plans for it, or you gonna leave it alone for a little while?

Thanks! I don't have any immediate plans, but eventually I'll want to upgrade the graphics card, probably to a pair of 7970s if the price ever comes down. Or if I ever get to 100 posts so I can look at the classifieds Of course I'll throw a couple of EK blocks on those too.

None of this will significantly change the look of anything though. Did you have something in mind?

 

[Modz 4 Higher]

Nope, didn't have anything in mind I just know that us computer builders are actually never "finished"

 

[jameseboy]

I should spend money on editing software when I can use the GIMP for free to carefully select scale and jpeg quality settings to come as close to the 2MB limit as I can? (Just kidding, I used the netpbm tools.)

Seriously though, I always want to see the high-res shots.

+1 for the higher res shots, i hate looking at pictures that look like soup, even though most of mines do cause i dont have the money for a better camera.

 

[Axtenar]

That's some serious sh$# bro, are you going to operate an oil-drill ?

10/10

 

[xander89]

*cough* 5ghz *cough* u still got plenty of overhead, hehe. 30ghz...*drool*

 

[QBobWatson]

*cough* 5ghz *cough* u still got plenty of overhead, hehe. 30ghz...*drool*

I actually have it set to clock 1-2 cores at 5 GHz, at which it will happily run two threads of prime95 for over 24 hours. So I'm counting myself in the 5 GHz club, even if they don't want me

 

[rwmc33x]

Very Nice!

 

[xander89]

I actually have it set to clock 1-2 cores at 5 GHz, at which it will happily run two threads of prime95 for over 24 hours. So I'm counting myself in the 5 GHz club, even if they don't want me

nice nice im gona push for 5ghz on my 2700k when i get water cooling next month. The loop im installing handled a 950 @ 4.6 ghz with 1.47 Volts running through it at around 73 load with only 1 360 rad. Pretty excited hehe