- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Location
- Bakersfield, CA
Towards the end of 2018, I noticed that memory and SSD prices had reached the level that it became irresistible for me to build a new machine. The 9th gen Core chips had come out, but I saw that there was a lone binned 8086k on Siliconlottery.com calling my name. It was specced for 5.2GHz on water and an obscene 1.4+V. I had already acquired a case, PSU and the necessary gear for a new custom water cooled loop, but I decided to see how far air cooling had come. Leave it to me to buy a new case and power supply with nothing to put in or power it.
Specs:
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master - selected for the beefy power section, ESS Sabre DAC, gold plated audio connectors, dual 8-pin CPU power, and front USB-C. Very good aesthetics, integrated IO plate.
Intel 8086K - Silicon Lottery re-lidded chip.
2x16GB G.Skill Ripjaws 3200CL14 - tight timings, good OC headroom as stated by Woomack. Recent price drops made this attractive.
HP Ex920 1GB M.2 NVMe - good upper end mainstream SSD, nailed it for around $170.
Nvidia RTX2080Ti Founders Edition - I wanted to call this a pseudo-budget build because of the memory and SSD, but who am I kidding. I preordered this card on release day. I tend to hang on to GPUs a very long time, and before it got swapped into this machine I benched at the upper end of Sandy Bridge systems with it. I'll take it.
Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4 - pricey but very capable air cooler, if the reviews were to be believed. I intended to test it.
Seasonic Prime Titanium 1000W PSU - a bit overkill, but very nice unit.
Fractal R6 Gunmetal case - selected for low noise characteristics and water cooling expandability. Utilizing all the stock fans.
Windows 10 Pro - finally had to surrender to this operating system unfortunately.
The end results are pretty amazing. The system is far quieter than my water cooled Sandy Bridge 2600k, which has a watercooled CPU and power regulator section. On idle it is the quietest thing in my office. My NAS is noisier. On 100% load, with all the fans on automatic control, the noise level is very low hum. If gaming you would never notice it. The noise output is so good that I will not let the audio side of it go to waste at all. The Dark Rock mounts far more solidly than I would have expected for a two pound heatsink. Temperatures on non-AVX loads are very impressive. I'm still tuning the AVX side of the stress testing, but it will do 5.0GHz on non-AVX easily. I think 5.2GHz will be easily done on .1V less than Silicon Lottery specced it for.
Water cooling components waiting in the wings:
Optimus water block - super tight fin spacing modern block. Heavy and capable.
HWLabs Blackice Nemesis GTX 280 - tests really well for low and high speed fans
Array of Noctua 140mm 2000rpm Industrial PWM fans for push/pull on the radiator
Pics (don't ask me why, Irfanview is not saving my rotated photos....frustrating)
Specs:
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master - selected for the beefy power section, ESS Sabre DAC, gold plated audio connectors, dual 8-pin CPU power, and front USB-C. Very good aesthetics, integrated IO plate.
Intel 8086K - Silicon Lottery re-lidded chip.
2x16GB G.Skill Ripjaws 3200CL14 - tight timings, good OC headroom as stated by Woomack. Recent price drops made this attractive.
HP Ex920 1GB M.2 NVMe - good upper end mainstream SSD, nailed it for around $170.
Nvidia RTX2080Ti Founders Edition - I wanted to call this a pseudo-budget build because of the memory and SSD, but who am I kidding. I preordered this card on release day. I tend to hang on to GPUs a very long time, and before it got swapped into this machine I benched at the upper end of Sandy Bridge systems with it. I'll take it.
Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4 - pricey but very capable air cooler, if the reviews were to be believed. I intended to test it.
Seasonic Prime Titanium 1000W PSU - a bit overkill, but very nice unit.
Fractal R6 Gunmetal case - selected for low noise characteristics and water cooling expandability. Utilizing all the stock fans.
Windows 10 Pro - finally had to surrender to this operating system unfortunately.
The end results are pretty amazing. The system is far quieter than my water cooled Sandy Bridge 2600k, which has a watercooled CPU and power regulator section. On idle it is the quietest thing in my office. My NAS is noisier. On 100% load, with all the fans on automatic control, the noise level is very low hum. If gaming you would never notice it. The noise output is so good that I will not let the audio side of it go to waste at all. The Dark Rock mounts far more solidly than I would have expected for a two pound heatsink. Temperatures on non-AVX loads are very impressive. I'm still tuning the AVX side of the stress testing, but it will do 5.0GHz on non-AVX easily. I think 5.2GHz will be easily done on .1V less than Silicon Lottery specced it for.
Water cooling components waiting in the wings:
Optimus water block - super tight fin spacing modern block. Heavy and capable.
HWLabs Blackice Nemesis GTX 280 - tests really well for low and high speed fans
Array of Noctua 140mm 2000rpm Industrial PWM fans for push/pull on the radiator
Pics (don't ask me why, Irfanview is not saving my rotated photos....frustrating)
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