New to LN OC. Need expertise from veteran OC's. Preferably Matt.

[EarthDog]

Yes I am willing to spend a few thousand on a microdosing machine,

For your use, this is absolutely the definition of more money than sense. The gains you get for the activities are an asinine expense to mortals. That said, we're here to help!!!

I thought the phase change cooler did that for me but apparently from what you are stating I need that unit as well as a microdose unit ?

No. They are as different as Apple pie and Shepard's pie, lol. The commonality between them is they cool sub ambiently. Otherwise, they are two different things. One uses LN2 to make it REALLY cold, the other uses phase change (and electricity) to do the same thing. Totally googleable things (phase change cooling and LN2 cooling) to see additional differences.

LN2, manually poured and through a machine, is A LOT colder than a single stage. If you look at the specs of the one Johan linked, it says it can keep -30C at the head (which doesn't mean your CPU will be that low) against a 320W load. LN2 is almost -196C. Depending on the pot used, the amount of LN2, CPU used, and load against it depends on the temps you'll actually see. Some of the really power-hungry chips will often go positive degrees during short intense runs, for example.

You probably will use less in a microdosing situation. But let's say it lasts a week (I don't think it will with a few several-hour sessions /week)... that's (at least) an extra $250 a month for what amounts to very little on the performance front.

EDIT: See all of these threads.......



They are in the same section as yours, but above it. They answer about 75% of your questions so far. Take a look them. Twice. Maybe three times, and see what you come up with after.

 

[Woomack]

I didn't read all posts, but ~350W phase change unit is good only for a ~250-300W CPU, and is not power bill friendly to run it 24/7. Most units from stores are rated at 300W/-30°C or something near, so they are not the best for new CPUs. I mean -30°C on the evaporator, so the new 270W Intel CPU will still go up to +30-50°C under load. Overclockers are not using it anymore for new CPUs or graphics cards because of too high wattage and overall results are not much better than on good water cooling. You make a cascade, but it's big and uses even more power ... or get a good water chiller. The point is that a water chiller has a higher thermal capacity, so you can put into the loop a CPU+GPU. Alphacool has some of those, and there are other brands too.
I still have my old single stage, which was rated at 350W/-55°C, and it was pretty bad with newer CPUs and GPUs, so I stopped using it. Some guys from the team had not much worse results on large water cooling and CPUs/GPUs with larger dies (X series Intels, Radeon HD 7k, and newer).

In short:
- single stage phase change cooler = no because of too low thermal capacity for new CPUs, or older 10 core+ CPUs (250-300W limit)
- large custom water cooling will be the cheapest and easiest to maintain
- water chiller will give you the best results at a lower cost for 24/7 CPU+GPU cooling because of the high thermal capacity
- LN2, dry ice, helium = it's only for short benching sessions, as it was already said

 

[CousinSMooth]

Wow thanks so much guys. Got it. So the verdict is do the custom water cooling for less stress and best bang for my buck, the water chiller for best results which will require more maintenance/cost but be better than a customer water loop system from what you say, or microdose with LN for the absolute best performance and most stable OC I can get the hardware to operate with and accept the fact it'll cost me $250-$300 a week just to maintain that rig at the OC I prefer versus the opposite cheaper water system. How expensive is a water chiller to run weekly ? Just curious. I'm guessing it's just electricity really and is it closed loop or do you change the water ever, or never.

 

[Zerileous]

I was going to come in here and say, in simple terms, just don't.

Microdosing LN2 - Here is the thing, this thread has really focused on the hardware, possibility of doing this. Please spend some more time on youtube (linus tech tips, Jayztwocents, Gamer's Nexus) watching people actually run these LN2 machines. The issue you're having with the X99 board, these guys are dealing with troubleshooting multiple issues of greater complexity each session. The temperature has to be actively adjusted depending on the load. The temperature that the system benchmarks at is literally too cold for it to boot up. ED's analogy of moonshot is not an exaggeration. You're going to waste a ton of money and be very frustrated unless you want this to be like a full time job for at least 6 months of learning. I know of literally one automatic LN2 cooler in existence, and that isn't even practical for daily use (and is no longer in working order).

Hobby LN2 - this sounds like a great idea. As ED said, your new system (given the approximate budget mentioned) will easily handle everything. You want a dedicated system that you can tear down and put in a box when you're not using it. It is not trivial to switch from XoC to daily use, but if you want to start learning about extreme overclocking this is (probably, we still are not sure) an excellent opportunity to do so. This is the kind of LN2 overclocking you see on the videos, pour it onto a metal jar fixed to the CPU, run some overclocks, crash, stuff not working right, tear it down, let it dry out, try again another day. Learn a lot and have a great time doing on it, but don't rely on it in any way.

Chiller - You're risk running a 24 h chiller of having condensation problems is not worth the reward in performance. You can already buy the best performance out there that will blow your mind on the newest games (we'll leave the details to another thread), don't worry about trying to get 1-5% better performance in daily use that will literally require perfect planning and frequent maintenance. While there are people (here even) who daily chilled / sub ambient systems, they are not beginners and have a lot of experience with the risk and risk mitigation required.

Custom loop - you get the satisfaction of a project, you get notably improved cooling with minimal risk (assuming everything is assembled correctly and properly leak tested - check stickies on this) and only minimal maintenance. Can be as infrequent as every 6 month, more frequent if using dyes or opaque coolants which look cool but are not recommended for use outside of short term showcases (despite what the manufacturers may claim). I agree with ED that this is the perfect balance of hobby and usefulness and achievability. It will still require tons of research, planning, and effort, but once you're done you can be satisfied that you built something that looks awesome, has a moderate performance advantage, but doesn't require constant dedication to prevent disaster.

 

[CousinSMooth]

I was going to come in here and say, in simple terms, just don't.

Microdosing LN2 - Here is the thing, this thread has really focused on the hardware, possibility of doing this. Please spend some more time on youtube (linus tech tips, Jayztwocents, Gamer's Nexus) watching people actually run these LN2 machines. The issue you're having with the X99 board, these guys are dealing with troubleshooting multiple issues of greater complexity each session. The temperature has to be actively adjusted depending on the load. The temperature that the system benchmarks at is literally too cold for it to boot up. ED's analogy of moonshot is not an exaggeration. You're going to waste a ton of money and be very frustrated unless you want this to be like a full time job for at least 6 months of learning. I know of literally one automatic LN2 cooler in existence, and that isn't even practical for daily use (and is no longer in working order).

Hobby LN2 - this sounds like a great idea. As ED said, your new system (given the approximate budget mentioned) will easily handle everything. You want a dedicated system that you can tear down and put in a box when you're not using it. It is not trivial to switch from XoC to daily use, but if you want to start learning about extreme overclocking this is (probably, we still are not sure) an excellent opportunity to do so. This is the kind of LN2 overclocking you see on the videos, pour it onto a metal jar fixed to the CPU, run some overclocks, crash, stuff not working right, tear it down, let it dry out, try again another day. Learn a lot and have a great time doing on it, but don't rely on it in any way.

Chiller - You're risk running a 24 h chiller of having condensation problems is not worth the reward in performance. You can already buy the best performance out there that will blow your mind on the newest games (we'll leave the details to another thread), don't worry about trying to get 1-5% better performance in daily use that will literally require perfect planning and frequent maintenance. While there are people (here even) who daily chilled / sub ambient systems, they are not beginners and have a lot of experience with the risk and risk mitigation required.

Custom loop - you get the satisfaction of a project, you get notably improved cooling with minimal risk (assuming everything is assembled correctly and properly leak tested - check stickies on this) and only minimal maintenance. Can be as infrequent as every 6 month, more frequent if using dyes or opaque coolants which look cool but are not recommended for use outside of short term showcases (despite what the manufacturers may claim). I agree with ED that this is the perfect balance of hobby and usefulness and achievability. It will still require tons of research, planning, and effort, but once you're done you can be satisfied that you built something that looks awesome, has a moderate performance advantage, but doesn't require constant dedication to prevent disaster.

Okay you sold me. I wanna build the custom loop system then for the future gaming rig. If you can message me any links to good examples and teachings(I'm still new to the site and not sure which threads and where exactly) if you know any threads already I'd genuinely appreciate it.

 

[Janus67]

Check the water/liquid cooling sub-forum, tons of great relevant guides in there.

Ultimately, and this is not to poo-poo the whole plan, the difference in performance that one gets from a custom built system versus an off-the-shelf water cooler is minimal. That said, you can to some incredible builds with custom setups, I particularly love the look of the solid/hard pipe water cooled builds, but they require a hell of a lot more planning and work than running some normal tubing.

Basically, as others said earlier in the thread, we are happy to help point in the right direction and give advice, but we also try to be realistic in terms of the results and experience to expect. Many of us here have done extreme cooling for benchmarking contents [I haven't for several years though] and it's a blast, but it is an absolute hair-pulling experience at times and certainly nothing more than something you run for a couple hours until you run out of LN2/Dry Ice and then have to dry everything out and clean up. It's there to try to set records on hwbot [for example] not to play Modern Warfare.