Best DICE pot that won't kill my coin?

[MX5J6]

So I am looking into building 2 systems. One for gaming and one for benching. For my benching system I am looking to get into DICE cooling though most of the pots I see are for ln2, can they be used the same way? Or is there a pot made for DICE specifically that is decently priced. As in under $300?

Random question but for extreme cooling is a larger psu needed? Couldn't find that answer anywhere so I figured I'd ask while I was making this thread.

 

[moocow]

Ln2 pots can usually be used for Dice. Dice pots on the other hand usually aren't very good at ln2 due to a lack of mass.

Finding one for under $300 isn't very hard. If you don't mind buying one used they can be found for $200 and under for an F1 or a similar pot.
If you want one new for that price, lots of European builders will do custom stuff at very reasonable prices. Ryba makes some solid stuff for the price.

 

[MX5J6]

How good are the dragon F1 line from Kingpin? Those are under $300 but idk what kind of quality KPC has. Or what kind of mass they deal with.

If the Dragon is good which should I go with? Because I would probably dealing with a 3770K so what would be my best option?

 

[dejo]

kpc for all intents and purposes is top-o-the-line. Vince is usually at the front of the technology and the craftsmanship is second to none. He is also very good with acc stuff as well, no worries with his gear. I think the dragon is older, and the f1 just seems to fit more stuff better.

 

[MX5J6]

So maybe the Dragon F1 Gemini 2.0 Anodized whatever color would do?

 

[dejo]

would work, but I personally would rather have the f1 pot. unless there is a substantial difference in prices

 

[MX5J6]

The Dragon is an F1 from what I can see?

 

[Bobnova]

There was the dragon evo and the dragon f1, then there was the f1ee.
The evo is round.
The dragon f1 is square and has F1 carved into the base (fine tuned he says, lol).
The F1EE has round holes drilled in the base instead.

 

[MX5J6]

Ah I see, I just read somewhere that the Fi Extreme Dark is something like the F1EE? Is that right or maybe i misunderstood what i was reading?

 

[Bobnova]

Yeah the F1 Extreme Dark is a F1EE (Extreme Edition) that has been nickle anodized to make it look nice and cost more.

The gemini is an aluminum tube with a copper base.
Plus side: Multiple bases.
Minus side: Less mass, base can fall out, DIce/acetone will leak out if you don't seal it.

 

[MX5J6]

Don't want to spring a leak, I may just go with the Extreme Dark. So when OC with DIce do you need more power from your PSU because speeds and whatnot are increasing? Will that add up to more power being drawn? because i was trying to decide between a 750 or 850 for the bench system.

 

[Bobnova]

Power draw definitely goes up. You're unlikely to do more than double it on DIce.
So CPU wise, 77w to 154w.
All due to CPU speed and vcore of course.

 

[MX5J6]

Hmm maybe I should look into getting more than 850, not too sure.

Also would you suggest I start off with the top components I can afford to start or should i buy something a little less expensive like a P67 and maybe 25/2600K?

 

[ChanceCoats123]

F1 Extreme Dark is a GREAT pot (from what I know, it's internally identical to the original F1EE, which I have).

I would also go 850watts just so you have room to upgrade your benching parts as well (as long as the PSU is a good make).

 

[MX5J6]

Was planning on getting a Corsair TX850 V2. I was looking at something like this.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit OEM
Case: Lian Li T60B Test Bench
MoBo: ASRock Z77 OC FORMULA LGA 1155
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LP Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
SSD: SAMSUNG 830 Series 128GB
HDD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200RPM
PSU: Corsair Enthusiast Series TX850 V2
ODD: LG DVD Burner OEM

Not sure if this needs a GPU or not? I don't know if people generally cool with just a processor or if they usually get a card and cool that too. What is the norm, if there is a norm for this kind of thing?

 

[ChanceCoats123]

Haha, when it comes to sub-zero cooling, pretty much everything is out of the norm. KPC also has VERY nice (the best in the world) graphic card pots for sub-zero cooling. But then you would need a gpu for sure. It appears that that board does not need a gpu, but you HAVE to use HDMI as your connection to a monitor or TV since there are no other video out ports. I would definitely recommend getting a graphics card though. The 7xxx series from ATI/AMD are very nice cards.

 

[Janus67]

Hmm maybe I should look into getting more than 850, not too sure.

Also would you suggest I start off with the top components I can afford to start or should i buy something a little less expensive like a P67 and maybe 25/2600K?

850 should be fine for all intents and purposes until you would start pushing video cards under cold. CPUs still don't draw that much, so with the possibility of doing dual 7970s and then only a CPU under cold you will be fine.

I'm really excited to see this subzero benchmarking momentum

As others said, KPC makes pretty much the top-of-the-line setups that are available, but for DICE they are a bit overkill as they are mostly made for liquid nitrogen (not that they won't work for DICE, just not as ideal)

For a good cheap DICE pot you can keep an eye out for a (used) Koolance v1 or v2 generally available for around $100-$125 when they pop up. I've used (and sold) both for DICE (before I started using LN2 and bought a Gemini) and they both worked quite well for that purpose, although I wouldn't use them for LN2 unless it was a last resort.

A great experimental setup for going cold is socket 775, tons of CPUs (dual core and quad core) and almost all of the hardware can be found relatively cheaply in various classifieds sections - you won't be pushing global points, but hardware points shoot up when going cold.

Of course, feel free to ask us any questions!


Oh, and saw your plans to have a benching station. While I really love having my system on a benching station, a cheap (free?) alternative is to just run it on a piece of neoprene sitting ontop of a mobo box. Lastly, I would make sure that (if you decide to get the benching station) that the Formula fits onto the bench, I'm unsure if it is standard ATX or EATX, it looks like the benching station that you posted is ATX/mATX.

 

[MX5J6]

Haha, when it comes to sub-zero cooling, pretty much everything is out of the norm. KPC also has VERY nice (the best in the world) graphic card pots for sub-zero cooling. But then you would need a gpu for sure. It appears that that board does not need a gpu, but you HAVE to use HDMI as your connection to a monitor or TV since there are no other video out ports. I would definitely recommend getting a graphics card though. The 7xxx series from ATI/AMD are very nice cards.

I may just go with another 7970 for the test system then. Or maybe I'll go a little cheaper and go with a 7950 or 7870. Not sure yet. Also I should get my main rig before my benching rig, correct? because i am not sure how much I can do frm a test bench? or for how long I can do it for that matter.

850 should be fine for all intents and purposes until you would start pushing video cards under cold. CPUs still don't draw that much, so with the possibility of doing dual 7970s and then only a CPU under cold you will be fine.

I'm really excited to see this momentum

For a good cheap DICE pot you can keep an eye out for a (used) Koolance v1 or v2 generally available for around $100-$125 when they pop up. I've used both for DICE (before I started using LN2) and they both worked quite well for that purpose, although I wouldn't use them unless it was a last resort for LN2.

A great experimental setup for going cold is socket 775, tons of CPUs (dual core and quad core) and almost all of the hardware can be found relatively cheaply in various classifieds sections - you won't be pushing global points, but hardware points shoot up when going cold.

Of course, feel free to ask us any questions!

I will consider that too, thanks. i'll make a secondary list i guess with that socket and see how things come out when I have the money for one of them, be it my main rig or one of the test setups.

That is safe to do? lol I was just looking at a benching station to keep things clean otherwise i'd have to find a place or a way to keep all the components dust free. This way they are together and i can just unplug it and put it away somewhre if i won't be using it for a while, which probably won't happen. Just an example.

As for it fitting, it should I think. lol it is an SSI CEB which is just wider than an ATX board. So since it isn't longer it nshouldn't be a problem. However if i can run the system without a bench and still have a way to keep it dust free (suggtions) how would you recommend I go about that. Also do you have to remove the pot and everything from the mobo when you are done for the day benching? Or does it stay on the board?

 

[MX5J6]

Should I CFX the GPU? If i do i may go with a 7870 instead of a 7970 just to save some money. If I do CFX whould I buy the CFX pot so I cna add the second GPU later? Or will that not work and i have to buy the single GPU pot and the CFX pot later?

 

[Bobnova]

My thoughts on the general setup:

That board looks like it'll be absolutely glorious. I haven't seen any reviews yet though.

That chip is the one to get for extreme cooling on a modern platform. Be aware that without LN2 you won't get too much in the way of hardware points with it. You'll get global points though.

It's worth reading through Woomack's memory testing articles/posts/threads ram wise, it (memory) makes enough of a difference to be worth an extra $30 to get good stuff IMO.

Disk wise, you really only need one disk for a benching system. Having two can be nice just so you can have a set of installed OS's on the other one in case you fry an install or two. I just have one benching SSD, personally. A thumbdrive (fastish) is very, very useful.

Some sort of test bench is nice, I use a cut apart and re-welded case, or a stack of rags. I'm a cheapskate though.

An optical drive is useful, they're cheap anyway so you might as well get one.

You're going to want some kind of GPU, running off the onboard video drops CPU overclockability somewhat. Even a 4350 will do the trick from that standpoint.


A last thought on the initial setup, from the standpoint of extreme cooling: It's easier to bring yourself to brutalize cheap parts.
You may want to buy a socket 775 setup to brutalize. A totally reasonable motherboard costs ~$50, chips run $8 to $100, tons in the $20-30 range that make good points. Best ram out there runs $40.
That's how I started.

PSU wise, a really good 600w will do you better than a good 850w as far as CPU only benching goes. The difference isn't likely to be very large until the absolute ragged edge though, so you can worry about that later. That 850w will do you just fine for most anything, up until you start wanting to run multiple GPUs in benching/cold mode.

I second the motion as far as a koolance v2 goes, if you can find one for $100ish grab it, they're fantastic on Dry Ice and not bad at all on LN2 if the chip doesn't have a coldbug (good 3570k/3770k chips lack coldbugs).

You won't go wrong with a F1EE though, you can sometimes find them with extension (good/needed for DIce) for $200ish used.

Second to lastly: Get used to buying used, it's way cheaper for a lot of this stuff, and many of the "best" parts aren't sold new anymore.

Lastly: I'm excited to see your excitement about getting into benching! It's grand fun


EDIT:
I'd steer clear of CFX for now. Due to how the points at HWBot are set up, a single top end GPU gives far more points than 2-3 lower grade GPUs.
Right now, just grab a 7970. Or grab something older like a 8800 series card and go for hardware points rather than globals. They're also nice because voltmod guides are everywhere and you can find the cards for $20-$40.