HELP with super silent custom loop oc I7-8700k/2080ti

[superhero]

Hi, guys need your help to improve my current setup.

At the moment this is my setup:

Lian li o11 dynamic case
i7-8700k
Aorus gaming 7 z370 motherboard
Aorus RTX 2080ti 11g waterforce WB (it already have waterblock)
PSU Thermaltake toughpower iRGB 1050w
2x 8gb Corsair vengeance
Primary disk: m.2 Western Digital Black 500gb

Cooling:
EK-FB GA Z270/Z370 GAMING RGB Monoblock
Alphacool UT60 360 bottom, intake with 3x Thermaltake riing plus 12
Alphacool UT60 360 upper exhaust with 3x Thermaltake riing plus 12
Waterway distro bykski RGV-LAN-O11 with DDC pump
Primochill LRT soft tubing
Alphacool fittings

and this is my temps with an ambient temperature around 23degree (celsius):
(CPU it is not overclock for now, but I like to OC it at 5000mhz if I can raise the current temps. GPU is overclocked by gigabyte by default until 1920mhz)

noise, max speed in gaming
Inside case temp 40-37
liquid 38-34
cpu 60-55
gpu 55-53
pch 54-52
vrm 48-47
fan 1500
pump 1800-5000

silent, low speed in gaming
inside case temp 52
liquid 51
cpu 77-80
gpu 68-71
pch 65
vrm 64
fan 600
pump 1800

In idle with fan speed at 500 I have temp:
CPU 37-40
GPU 32-38


I try to open the case, but the temps don't change more than 2-3 degrees.
500 rpm fan speed and 1800rpm fan is quiet to me.
from 2000 pump become to be noisy, I already try to set the pump faster than 1800rpm but how I aspect the pump speed don't matter for temps until you have flow.
1800 is the minimum speed but I can see to have sufficient flow, so like to stay like this.
The fan are ok at 500, but more than 800rpm start to be pretty audible, since I try different fan models before choice this, and I like to keep them.


Now, I already buy the new Lian Li 011 XL for some clearance issues with the GPU. and I plan to buy a new 45mm for the top because the 60mm don't fit.
So I won't take this chance to improve my cooling.
First of all, are you according to me that my temps are too high????
I try to OC CPU to 5ghz but it reach more than 90degree so I give up, and I keep it stock for now, and not very feel the need to OC.
For the GPU, I want the best I can do it for performance, but I like the current gigabyte stock OC.


My thinking...
How about adding a third 360 radiator intake on the side instead of the waterway int he new case? (I have already an alphacool d5 pump with reservoir, that I prefer for silent).
Do you think 3 360 radiators give the chance to run the 9 fans at 500-700rpm max when gaming?
Or a third radiator dont offer enough gain, so it is not worth it?
If it is worth it, I like to do it.
if a third radiator just changes some degree then I prefer to stay as is because 3 radiators in the lian li start to look a little bit busy in the case.

Also, I think about, how if I keep only 2 radiators (360 45mm + 360 60mm) but I put in the new case the top radiator intake too so it can take fresh air? and use the 1 rear fan for exhaust.

Also, since I need to buy new radiators, do you advise to stay with alphacool or go for EK?


Please give me some advice, and remember priority is super silent build, thankyou

 

[superhero]

No one can give me some advise?

 

[superhero]

I think I just buy an alphacool 45mm + 45mm, and put them both intake and try to keep the fan at 500 idle, 700 in game.and instead a third radiator I keep the waterway until (if) EK make a front waterway for the lian li xl.
Since I cant find any solution to my situation online so I just try by myself something because I need to hurry a little bit to fix this build in the next 2-3days. thanks anyway.

 

[Blaylock]

First of all Welcome to OCF Superhero!!

Sorry for the delay but sometimes it takes a couple days for someone to see your post that is able to reply with suggestions.

It's unlikely that additional radiators will help with your temps as you are running 2x360mm radiators for a single CPU and GPU. The most beneficial way to improve your CPU temps will be a delid. Please keep in mind this will void your warranty and, if done wrong, can ruin your CPU.

I'll be back later with more suggestions.

 

[EarthDog]

The difference between case temps on low and high is a lot... that case isnt great for airflow iirc. If you want quiet a case with better airflow and room for the rads.

I dont believe adding more radiator will help.

As is you are sending warmed air into the case to mix with more heated air inside coming of the GPU etc and then going into the top rad as warmer air. Flip the rear fan to intake may help a bit.. but the case and what you have going on there just isnt optimal for quiet.

 

[superhero]

thankyou for the advice guys.
well if add the third radiator don't help, I prefer to stay with 2 so the build looks cleaner. adding tube for the third radiator makes the build a little messy, even if my priority is silence, not aestetics.
Well, so I try to put all the 2 radiators bottom and upper intake and use only 1 rear fan as exaust, and yes, I think I should delid... maybe I do it in the next days, since this cpu has more than 1 year so the warranty shoul finish I think.
I am not doing the third radiator to improving the temps since it should be fine like this? but more for let me run the fan at low speed. I heard about more rads mean the fan can run lower or even passive.

 

[EarthDog]

There is a point of diminishing returns with more radiator... you're about at it.

 

[Blaylock]

I am not doing the third radiator to improving the temps since it should be fine like this? Yes it will be fine. You have more than enough radiator for 1 CPU and 1 GPU. but more for let me run the fan at low speed.
I heard about more rads mean the fan can run lower or even passive. This is true for the most part. Many fans will not let you slow them down enough to stop, but IIRC there are a few out there that can work this way. Something else to consider, as Earthdog mentioned, there is a point of diminishing returns with number and size of radiators. Meaning at a certain point you will no longer notice any meaningful benefit. However, adding another 360mm radiator will also add another 3 fans, which in turn adds more noise.

IMHO, If your #1 priority is silence, run it with the 2x360 that you currently have installed with the fans as low as possible keeping your temps in check. If you have a little headroom for OC then go for it.

You mentioned wanting to hit 5.0Ghz. It is possible with some of these CPU's but you will notice a lot more heat, even with a delid. There will be a sacrifice by way of noise as you will need to speed up your fans. For my purposes the best way to manage this was to have two OC profiles in the BIOS. 1) for 24/7 silence running a very mild OC and all the fans at low/idle speeds. 2) 4.9Ghz OC (my max) with fans at 100% that I used only when doing extensive CPU crunching via Handbrake for hours.

You mentioned pump speed and noise in the first post. So long as you are getting in the ballpark of a gallon per minute flow rate you will be fine. Flow rate has little to do with sustained temps so long as your not going too slow. If your pump speed is easily adjusted like mine this is a very easy thing to work with too. Run your pump at half speed while monitoring temps for about 20 minutes during a heavy load (P95, Aida64, etc) then start incrementally slow the pump down. giving enough time between adjustments for the water to thermally re-balance. When you get really low speed , if there is a spike in temps then you've gone too far and bump it back up a bit.

 

[superhero]

Thanks again guys,
so from your advice, I make a decision to my next step, remember I now move everything inside a Lian li o11 XL

I buy 2 new rads from EK, the PE of 45mm (even if at the bottom I can put a 60mm, but I think for low fan speed 45 is better right? or do you think I should go with a 60mm one int he bottom?)
I buy the new waterway EK G1 with the DDC 3.1 pump (is this pump silent or better to change it with another DDC?) to have a more clean build.
Like now I have bottom intake and upper exhaust fan, but in the new case, I want to put both, bottom and upper intake and use only 1 fan in the rear as exhaust, how about it?
(probably the upper intake take a lot of dust but I have the filter and try to clean it every time I can).
I delid my CPU.
I want still OC the GPU at 2000Mhz, but seem fine. I don't have necessity to OC the CPU, so delid to the new fan orientation maybe can raise the temps, let see.


Optional aesthetic (just an idea for now): because in the rear of the Lian Li o11 XL, the only necessity of the hole in the rear panel is for the PSU, that in my case, work mostly with zero fan, I think about to add a glass panel in the back too, for show PSU and retro of the waterway.
I think when the PSU fan speed, it doesn't look like it needs so much air, and this can be taken from some hole around, do you think it is a bad idea???

I post soon some pics.

thanks


edit: I know see that the CPU should have 3 years of warranty, so I still have 1 year, so not very sure if I want delid. how many drop in temp I can have with delid? it is worth it?

 

[Blaylock]

So this is going to take a minute to go over. Please be patient.

Comparing the EK Coolstream PE 360 to the Alphacool UT60 360, the EK has 19 fins per inch (FPI) compared to the UT60 at 10 FPI. At lower fan speeds the EK will marginally out perform the UT60, but as soon as the fan speed gets above 1300 RPM the UT60 pulls away performance wise. (Source) So the EK will work slightly better when your fans are ramped way down, but if they need to speed up to cool the system then the UT60 will be the better choice. In my opinion I would go with the UT60 for it's overall performance. In addition pushing air through the more open fin spacing, in theory, should be quieter. I have no scientific proof of this, just a hunch. (I do own the UT60 360 though and love it).

Both DDC and D5 pumps are fantastic designs and last a long time. The DDC pump has a higher head pressure but runs at a lower flow rate. Running only a Monoblock and a single GPU you will not need the extra head pressure, even if you had 2 GPU's. The D5 pump is a little larger than the DDC but runs a bit quieter. The D5 has a higher flow rate at a lower pressure. You really don't need a high rate but if you're looking to maximize silence (minimize noise) then the D5 would be the right choice. If you already have the DDC pump I wouldn't go out a buy a different one, but if you are planning a completely new build then I would say the D5 is the right choice for your application.

As far as you airflow goes, I agree with you. I would intake from the top and bottom and just try to keep your filters as clean as possible. The filter on the top is not the best, but it's better than nothing for sure. My only concern with running it in this configuration would be getting adequate exhaust. A single 120mm fan for vent 2160mm worth of intake could create less than ideal positive pressure in the case. The best way to alleviate this is with a higher speed fan at the rear (yes, higher than your Riing fans).

So on to fans. The Riing Plus fans look great and they are decent case fans. The issues with them? They are not silent and they aren't great for radiators. If Silence and cooling are truly you priority than the Noctua NF P12 redux are a much better option. At max speed they are slightly louder at 25.1 dB but deliver a whopping 2.83mm-H₂O compared to the Riing plus at 1.54mm-H₂O at 24.7 dB and since you wont be running them at full speed they are a massive improvement. I know, I know, they aren't RGB!!! Well, priorities. If you must have RGB then at least make sure to get the High Static version of the Riing fans. They are just as loud as teh Riing plus, but at 2.01mm-H₂O are a much better fan for radiators.

IIRC Delidding an 8700K should net anywhere from 5-15°C improvement. There really is that much discrepancy at Intel. A lot will depend on how high you OC it and at what voltage. If you dont plan to OC the CPU and you max temps are 80°C as you stated in you first post, I would not risk a delid.

As far as the glass panel at the back of your case, will anyone even see it? That's more of a personal decision.

EDIT: Someone recently wrote a fairly decent article about building the quietest rig possible. Let me see if I can locate it, oh, here it is.

 

[superhero]

Thanks for your accurate info!!

please note that the lian li xl unfortunately can't fit a 60mm on the top, but only on bottom.
So I cant have 2 60mm radiator anymore.
Right now, I have 2 UT60 from alphacool, and happy with them, but... I decide to don't support that company anymore..
Actually I love alphacool products, but aquatuning make me so disappointed, for being short, i order time ago a water block, and it come to me cleary used with a green messy (algae?) inside and I show them the pics, I ask for change it but hey need to pay the return cost, or make me a partial refund and I keep it as is, they accept the partial refund, but never really refund and when I send email for check the situation they just stop to reply.
Anyway, my was maybe a single episode, I don't want advice people to dont buy from them or something else, I just decide based on my personal experience, and how I say I like alphacool products but not happy with the selling department (aquatuning?).
sore for the OT.
BTW right now I buy 2 EK radiators classic from EK, the PE with 45mm.
How about the pro and cos from Ek and alphacool about the 45mm version?

about the noctua fan, I can renounce the RGB, it is not a problem, but actualy I own 2 of this fan, it is true that they are a little bit less noise at 500rpm, but it looks for me no much different at 700-800, so this is why time ago I decided to stay with the Thermaltake riing plus (they are not optimized for radiators?).
But if you think the difference in noise is more than I notice, I want give them another try.


edit: I mind about another thing. where you guy put the monitor temp of the fan?
I mean, do you speen the fan based on CPU temp? GPu temps? 1 and 1?
I mind because with my mobo it is possible to speen the fan based on the temp of the liquid, can be this a good idea?


here pic with more 750 idle rpm aggressive fan profile and under load... but actually in this gigabyte software the cpu temps is 10 degree less than msi afterburner (afterburner declare 88-90degree)... who I need to beleave?

idle

load

 

[Blaylock]

I understand your concern with aquatuning. I haven't had to deal with their customer service. I don't have experience with EK radiators, but I do have a pump and waterblock from them and love them. I've also used their customer service and it was pleasant.

I haven't compared the Thermaltake side by side with the Noctua, but I know the noctuas are completely silent at low speed. They'll produce a little noise mounted on a radiator but are one of the best fans for this application.

CPU and GPU are the important temperatures, water temp is only nice to know but not important. Personally I would monitor both for a period while gaming too see which gets closer to your thermal threshold and base your fan speed off of that.

 

[Zerileous]

I know I'm late to the party, but I'll chime in. I have a very similar setup (see sig) and while gaming yes I do see my fans ramp up quite a bit. I think you actually will want a lot *more* rad if you want a high OC + low fan RPM at load. Your liquid temp shoots way up with the 500rpm fans. You're temps are great at higher RPM.

Looking to the extremerigs test linked above, even the 360mm rads are dissipating less than 200w per 10C delta T at 750rpm. Now applying this does require some rather substantial extrapolation and I've been known to overthink things, so please correct me if I'm mistaken. Once coolant temps start to rise much over 10C or 15C deltaT, component temps start to suffer. We see this in the 500rpm results in the OP, with a deltaT well over 20C.

In other words a UT60 can take 174W before deltaT goes over 10C at 750rpm. That's also going to depend on fan (the test was probably done with a better fan - Gentle Typhoon IIRC - than the TT ring, but I'm not personally familiar with that fan) and airflow (some exhaust from the bottom rad is recycled to the top rad). So let's be a bit generous and say we can handle 300W with the 2x UT60s at 750rpm. Well the GPU alone does that so the heat from the CPU can only be dissipated by increasing the coolant deltaT.

For a normal system I totally agree that the OP has enough rads. But if he wants a high OC on both components (5GHz CPU and 2GHz GPU) and 500rpm fan speed, I believe he absolutely needs 3 rads, and even that might not be enough. If you're okay with your fans going 1500rpm under load, then 2 should be enough.

If you're concerned about pump noise, a D5 is the way to go. Radikult (store on eBay) makes some panel reservoirs for this case that use a D5 pump instead of the DDC. I have one and it's awesome.

 

[EarthDog]

More rad will just take more time for the same thing to happen though. The issue is getting the heat out of the chip. 6x120mm is plenty for quiet operation of these CPUs. I really believe it is an airFLOW issue inside that case.

Did I miss something?

 

[Zerileous]

He has the 2080Ti on water too. Still plenty?

Airflow issue could be solved by setting the 3 side fans as intake and leaving both rads as exhaust. I have the same case with bottom intake and top exhaust. Yes the GPU sits right over two of the fans for the bottom rad, but I wouldn't say it has a serious airflow problem. Of course if front panel reservoirs / distribution plates were available for the case when I built it, I would have done that and used the 3 side fans as intake, rather than blocking that area off with the pump and panel res. I think the O11D tends to have pretty good airflow.

 

[EarthDog]

A general rule of thumb is 100W /120mm of radiator.... He's got 6x120mm, right? With that CPU and GPU, he isn't putting more than 400W (give or take) through it overclocked.

I think he's just going to have to play with it, honestly. I also don't really know where this case gets fresh intake air from. As I said earlier...the bottom intake is going through a rad, then past a GPU emanating a lot of heat off the back, plus the mobo etc then that warmer air goes through the top rad with some out the back.

The low speeds and airflow allow the temps in the case to go up. That distribution plate or w/e doesn't help much. I don't know what the right answer or best answer is if the case can't bring in fresh air. My suggestion was to flip the rear exhaust to intake to cool off the case air hitting the second radiatior up top.

 

[Zerileous]

I was thinking that fan speed plays a big role in rad effectiveness. From the extremerigs review we can see that most rads will do half of that (50w per 120mm??) at 750rpm (with gentle typhoons) and 10C deltaT. Of course we can tolerate a somewhat higher deltaT, but not 50c. (spoiler alert, I was mostly wrong, intake air temps seems to have a bigger impact than RPM).

I decided to do some testing to see the relationship between air coming off of the bottom intake rad and air entering the top exhaust rad at different RPMs. This isn't super scientific in terms of exact probe placement, loop saturation etc. Its challenging enough to reach around inside a running system, and have killed hardware this way in the past, so I'm not going to stress over the perfect placement of the probe. The probe is usually towards the front of the case. This is both further from the obstructions and heat sources, but also further from the ventilation at the rear of the case. This was done with the right side panel off (should not impact airflow) and the top panel off (this will improve airflow of the exhaust rad, but is consistent throughout testing). Loop temp is not to be compared directly to the air temps, as the probes are not calibrated to each other. Testing was done with Heaven looped. Not because it's the most stressful, but because it's easy to run in windowed mode. Temps as reported per HWiNFO64.

The results at 500rpm are not to be compared to other RPMs. I got nervous watching temps continue to rise and stopped the test prior to the loop being fully saturated. (the loop was warm from gaming prior with PWM fan curves). This is why the 750rpm temps are higher than the 500rpm.

Spoiler

-Ambient 20.3c
-Bottom rad exhaust 40.5c
-Top rad intake 38.8c
-Top rad exhaust 48.7c
-Loop temp 47.5c
-CPU temp Max 82.1c, Avg. 65c
-GPU temp Max 59c, Avg. 52.5c

750rpm - stabilized

Spoiler

-Ambient 20.3c
-Bottom rad exhaust 44c
-Top rad intake 43.7c
-Top rad exhaust 49.8c
-Loop temp 48.5c
-CPU temp Max 85c, Avg. 72.9c
-GPU temp Max 60c, Avg. 58.7c

1500rpm stabilized

Spoiler

-Ambient 20.1c
-Bottom rad exhaust 31.3c
-Top rad intake 30.2c
-Top rad exhaust 35.8c
-Loop temp 33.1c
-CPU temp Max 82.1c, Avg. 62.4c
-GPU temp Max 60c, Avg. 50.9c

750rpm no side panels, stabilized

Spoiler

-Ambient 20.3c
-Bottom rad exhaust 34.8c
-Top rad intake 24.2c
-Top rad exhaust 41.3c
-Loop temp 36.7c
-CPU temp Max 72.4c, Avg. 58.8c
-GPU temp Max 50cc, Avg. 48.2c

What have we learned? The no panels test clearly demonstrates that I was wrong. The no sides test was the only test where the GPU didn't reach throttling temp of 60C. Even though the loop temp was higher, I'm not fully trusting that probe as it has been acting funny. The component temps were notably better without side panels. Period. We did see the top rad doing work, even with the warmed air intake, but it is much more effective with cooler air.

What this means for the OP: I would suggest using the side area as intake for cool air, and the top and bottom rads as exhaust. In other words, the "sandwich" setup using the bottom as an intake and the top as an exhaust is making the bottom rad do 90 percent of the work. You can brute force performance with airflow (as I have been doing, I think I see 1800rpm or 2000rpm in games at times), but you need ambient / fresh air getting to the top rad in order to get the most out of both rads.

 

[superhero]

This topic start to be very intersting, thankyou guys

Just an update:
the EK radiators arrive, so I check them.
Since I never use ek radiators until nos, but only alphacool.
The first think that I noted it was not about performance, but about the smell.
I am little sensible to noise but to smell as well.
Yeah I know, I am not so tough boy..
Anyway, the (paint?) smell it is pretty noticiable in ek radiators, and I dont like to have my room smell of chimicals stuff, so I already order 2 alphacool radiators 1 45mm + 1 60mm.
Since I never notice strong smell in alphacool radiators.
I am iper-sensible or someone can relate with this?

 

[Blaylock]

I've never heard of anyone being sensitive to the smell of a radiator. Lol

I have no doubt that the smell is from the manufacturing process and will go away after the necessary rinsing (we call it the rad dance) and some time.

Eitherway, I'm sure both rads will suit your needs.

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

Which DDC pump do you have? I've run them all. I think the sweet spot is the 10 watt pump.

6 watt - pretty much silent at any speed. Pretty weak flow at 100% though.
10 watt - near silent at full speed on a shoggy sponge. Nice flow for a 2-3 block setup. This is my favorite. Bolted to a case it will be a bit noisier. Runs warm but not hot even on the sponge.
18 watt - noisy little snot at full speed. High pitched whine. Runs hot at full power. Noise is tolerable at low speeds. Insane flow rates.