Alternative non conductive fluid for waterloop and dual 1/4hp chiller

[Totalfreq]

Hi,

New here. Need some advice on a new build. Ive got:

i9-9990xe
64gb (4x16gb) Trident Z Neo 3600mhz 14cas
2x EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 ULTRA
ASUS Rog Rampage VI Extreme Encore x299
2x Intel Optane m.2 in PCIE Bifurcator Raid 1 setup
4x WD 10TB Enterprise Gold HDD Raid 10 using LSI card
1600w Thermaltake PSU
1100w Dell T7500 PSU
Thermaltake 20XT case

Originally I planned tonrun 4x 480mm Alpha Radiators with Noctua Fans in a push pull config. But was warned that the cpu when pushed can hit 500w, and with 2x 3090s my heat will be significant. I want to stay above dewpoint so im not looking at phasechange refrigerant. So I was told by more than one person that I should consider a chiller.

I have 2 issues:
1. I hate water (actually designed a datacenter utility patent as a water free cooling solution).
2. A single chiller would have to be quite large without inline radiators, and unless i find a 100% duty cycle scientific/industrial chiller, I likely would be better with a dual variable speed compressor system or 2 seperate chillers (doubling capacity and redundancy).

If i add up all the power at full OC im probably going to be around 1700w before cooling solution. I plan to run the GPUs off the 1100w PSU and the rest off the 1500w.

I believe a 1/2hp chiller wont be enough. Im consodering using 2x 1/4hp hp to keep the loop running at all times at least at 1/2 capacity, or Id need to use a remote insulated tank to cover the lockout time before the compressor kicks back on. I actually think doing a hybrid solution will work best though, using the chilled water directly on the CPU, board, vrm, ram, HDD bay using say 1/4hp chiller, then 2x 480mm radiators to strip some heat, then put another 1/4hp inline before the GPUs, with 2x more 480mm radiators before reentering chiller 1. Id use some sort of timer to set the chillers to not both cycle off at the same time sonat least i have 50% chilling capacity along with the radiators to halve the rate of rise. Should i oversize the chillers to dual 1/3hp so Im not completely loading them or is that overkill?

Secondly id prefer to not use water. Id love to find a non conductive, low viscosity refrigerant that has similar heat absorbtion to water or i can oversize a pair of pumps in the chillers to compensate.

Ive played with mineral oil immersion for crypto mining but unless i use industrial oil pumps i dont see that as a viable solution. But what about low viscosity gear oil (mineral oil),, or some engineered fluid like Novec 7500? With the cost in this system already, buying a 12lb bottle of novec isntgoing to beeak the bank...though id prefer a cheaper option if possible. The Novec is also fine on copper and plastics.

If anyone has ideas or suggestions Im all ears. I still wonder if i cant just use 4x 480mm and then run the GPUs with hybrid aio kits in the front and rear, but with the money ive already got in this Im not looking for a shortcut now.

 

[EarthDog]

You won't need a chiller to keep that system cool. 3x480 would be plenty for the CPU and GPUs with a solid rad and fans.

Also worth noting is that you should be able to run off of one PSU (1600W). The GPUs are 350W each (400W overclocked due to power limit restrictions) and even if that CPU is running 500W (this is AVX-512 instructions only it seems?) That's 1300W total leaving over 25% of the CPU left for overclocking and/or headroom. Are you shunt modding the cards? How did you come up with 1700W? Unbless you go chiller you'll be thermally limited by the CPU and its ability (inability) to get all that heat away.

If it was me, I'd ditch the Optane setup (unless you need it for your work which is what I assume this rig is for) and run multiple M.2 drives instead. What does R1 on OPtane do? Optane is a scratch memory so I don't understand the need for redundancy on that data.

Non-conductive fluids are kind of a marketing thing. Once contaminated (dust, etc) it becomes conductive. When I was new to the water scene I used this product below. After my first loop, I just went with regular water and got over the fear and risk.
http://www.xoxide.com/primoice-nonconductive-fluid-clear.html

That said, don't let me scare you away from your idea.... but want to let you know you don't need a chiller, or dual PSUs. I cooled a 10980XE with 3x120mm and ran it around 4.7 GHz (all cores/threads) without issue. It wasn't cooling capacity that was the issue, but getting the heat out of the CPU fast enough.

 

[mackerel]

In my (limited) experience with running a water chiller, it bought me 100 MHz more overclock compared to a non-chilled water system. Not worth it for a 24/7 system. Barely worth it for an OC run (just throw some ice in a bucket).

If it was me, I'd ditch the Optane setup (unless you need it for your work which is what I assume this rig is for) and run multiple M.2 drives instead. What does R1 on OPtane do? Optane is a scratch memory so I don't understand the need for redundancy on that data.

Without knowing exactly the models involved and the intended use case, it is hard to advise further.

Optane is the "best" non-volatile storage in a PC right now. In a budget is no limit build a pair of them in raid 0 will be sweet for redundancy, and also give practically no noticeable benefit in regular use over high end flash SSDs. It's strength only shows in low QD random reads. I say that as a user of a 900p for OS here. Building today I'd just go 980 Pro, which is what I did on my latest gaming build.

 

[Totalfreq]

You won't need a chiller to keep that system cool. 3x480 would be plenty for the CPU and GPUs with a solid rad and fans.]
.

Hi thanks for all the info. I messed up in the post, optane will be raid 0 with cache enabled, hdds raid 10. I need the speed on the front end and the safety on he back end storage for rendering.

I kept thinking that 4x 420 or 4x 480 should be enough as long as i had a good pump and resevoire but i had 3 different people tell me that this hedt processor would need a chiller id prefer to not run a chiller due to power and heat plus its not constantly on, sonid need a double conoressor or 2 chiller setup...you just saved me a fortune.

I bought the 1500w PSU thinking it would hold everything. Then i started adding up the ram (50w), drives (40w), mobo (50-100w), and the cpu (500w) and gpus (400+400) and was getting pretty close to the edge if at full load. This has a peak 1600w surge but still pretty tight. I pulled the dell 1100w from a system i have....actually have a storage unit full of precision workststions so i figured id split the load on the gpu as it doesnt care where its power comes from. If i can get away with just the 1500w i will, but the case can take 2 PSUs as its a double wide. I guess ill see when i get there. If i could have got my hands on a 2000w supernova or non mining 1800w i would have, butbthe price was right on this 1500w and at the time inwas counting around 1300w.

As for the xoxide, how did it become contaminated if its a closed loop? Did it eventually wear some of the copper or aluminum down and become conductive? The $13 price tag is attractive, the Novec 7500 comes in a 12lb bottle for over $1,000. How often did you have to change the fluid and was there a way to scrub or filter it or just toss and refill? Does it evaporate or begin to boil off? Up until now ive run the gpus and an i7-8086k @5.1ghz all off AIO so i never had to mess with the fluids. I was going to just buy an arctic freezer ii 420mm aio for the chip and then the people i talked to acared me into an extreme system. And with hiw rare this chip is (ie non replaceable), i listened mkre than used logic. My current setup uses 3x 240mm and stays around 60c. I had only one friend tell me what you did. He also suggested water with biocide...i just dont like water near my electronics when avoidable.

Unless somebody else steps in i think im going to try the all radiator setup first, i was going to buy 4 anyway. I can watch the temps and if things get messy then always add a chiller in front of the pump resevoire.

One other question, i see the distribution plates everwhere. Do the help, are the necessary, im not going for looks i actually am going to kill the rgb and run dark other than my keyboard. It looks like those are for making shorter runs for hardpiping, but im also runnjng ram and vrm blocks so i think ill need more than a stanard distro plate but again this is all new to me.

 

[Johan45]

You might want to look at something like this to save some plumbing. I have one and it's been an awesome rad fo
https://www.amazon.com/Phobya-Xtreme-SUPERNOVA-1260-Radiator/dp/B0067M1QWG

 

[EarthDog]

RAM won't use 50W, even 8 sticks (~3W /8GB stick is a good average). The HDDs may peak up there, but unless they are grinding writes, it's much lower... and the mobo is much closer to 50W than 100 (even that one, I have the Omega). I'd at least check things with one PSU and if you're uncomfortable after knowing exactly how much power the system pulls for your work, you can go from there. I don't know many cases where all your components are running 100%... Get an accurate idea of use first.

Contamination will cause it to be slightly conductive. Any impurities you can get from the funnel you pour it with to inside the loop.

Toss and refill. That isn't a liquid that 'boils off' it isn't getting that hot in a PC loop and the boiling point is similar to water I'd assume.

Distro plates clean the look up, but aren't necessary.

Water cooling your RAM isn't necessary (~3W /stick)... save some restriction and skip a RAM water block. Zero gains... more restriction and cost... no thank you.

 

[Totalfreq]

I do 3d modelling in Revit and CAD (BIM), then port to Unity3d for VR. I also use Blender and CS6 as well as do some AV work. When rendering, vectoring or using VR preview mode before the geometry is massed and textures are blended, it will completely saturate my drives, 256gb cachecade, 32gb cas 14 ram, both GPus and my i7 Hexacore at 5.1ghz. That said, 14 cores at 5.0-5.1ghz, 64gb cas 13 ram (OC'd), and a 2x256gb optane raid 0 vroc CPu direct cache will definately more than double my real capacity so it may not stress the system like it does now. But short of benching, this is pribably as close as most people get to a resource intensive application. The models blend the architecture,.MEP engineering, look and feel, and everything past LOD 500 and then build a unity game engine for VR/AR training, simulation and realtime remkte response.

As for the ram I never considered them restricting the flow rates ans yoy are 100% right..i have a set of corsair fan coolers, so if my OC gets warm wheni push them to 4200mhz cas 13 @ 1.49v those will be sufficient if the heatsinks arent enough, so thanj you for saving me some bucks and a bottleneck in the system. If i find the vrm cooler, corsair m.2 waterblocks and such also becone reatrictive ill either look for fans or maybe run a second loop for the smaller/lower heat accessories.

I thought about the conductivitybthing quite a bit last night. Im going to buy a second storage resevoir and install amp probes into the top of the resivoire where the pressure will be lower. I hope to permanently power off a 5v or 12v lead and reloacate the lcd and buzzer somewhere clean. Ill set the probe to continuity testing and when the liquid gets conductive i will get both an audible alert or some chirping and readings to know when its time to change the fluids.

Thank you for the expertise, its been very insightful.

 

[EarthDog]

hat said, 14 cores at 5.0-5.1ghz, 64gb cas 13 ram (OC'd

I think you'll be under 5 GHz and that RAM speed/CL rating using that much RAM. Something around 3800 CL14 is more realistic on that platform. IIRC, anything over 4000 wouldn't be expected.

I think you're digging into the minutia worrying about the water becoming slightly more conductive with use. It's water, know the risks, and have fun using it. Change the fluid every year is a good rule of thumb.