Cooling upgrade help

[toyo]

Hello everyone,

First, specs, with few more details compared to the profile.

8700k (not delidded, I really don't wanna pay 50EU just for the tools), MSI Gaming Plus Z370, Meshify C, ADATA Dazzle RAM (4.73cm height see for details), 2 HDDs in the cage in front of the PSU (which is sadly quite long, a SuperFlower Leadex II Gold 650W, the cables kinda press on the HDD cage, and the HDDs kinda get toasty in summer (42C max) - so I can't really go 360mm in the front. I have 2x120mm fans front pulling, 2x120mm fans top pushing, and 1x120mm fan on the back as exhaust, and a cheap Zalman CNPS10x Optima CPU cooler. There's also a 850 EVO SSD and a Gigabyte 1070ti Gaming 8G OC (the one and only factory OC 1070ti whoo) that's 280mm long. See link for gfx card, it's a 3xWindforce classic Gigabyte design.

OK, so it's been almost 2 years since I built this and even though the current cooling is satisfactory, in summer things get toasty. The card can get to 73C, and the 3 small fans are somewhat noisy at the approx. 50-60% rpm. The CPU doesn't really care much in games, with rare spikes towards the 65C, mostly stays around 55C, stresstesting is completely another thing though, the cooler can handle like 135W with 90C, local 35C summers are pushing beyond that though. The power draw this motherboard can hold is somewhere around 150W because of the flimsy VRM, which is also why I'd love to stuck a fan on top. The 1070ti doesn't require me to push the CPU clocks for the games I play, but I'll probably buy a RTX 2070/2080 Super equivalent next year which is likely to require 5GHz for 1080p.

So my plan was to buy an EVGA CLC 280 and deal with the (alleged) noise, and mount some sort of fan on top of the VRM. Meshify C is too small for top 280mm. Front yes, but to me it's kind of weird having hot air from the radiator blown in the case. I kinda don't want that, I've heard it will be dusty (and my apartment is quite dusty, it's bottom floor near a street), also not optimal cooling. Second plan was to buy a NH D15, but it looks like my 2 RAM sticks are too high, and the case might be too small for the first fan that I'd need to elevate over the RAM. Obviously I don't want to buy other RAM. I'm also unsure about a 240mm top AIO, will it be able to deal with the 8700K properly after I OC?

Any suggestions? Yes I realize I complicated things for myself with the case and RAM and even the motherboard which is likely to require a fan over the VRM, but they were cheap and I was running out of money. NZXT and Corsair AIOs cost quite a bit more than EVGA and the other weirder corporations like Deepcool and the like I kind of don't trust. Should I try a NH D15S and add a 120mm fan? Possible? Do I lose significantly on the temps? Or should I just go with one fan.

Meshify C has 170mm CPU cooler height tolerance. I wonder if it would allow me to use the full D15. I kind of wanna try it, and if the first fan is too high form me to close the side panel, I'll just use it on the case, I guess?

Any suggestions appreciated.

EDIT: I wonder if it's possible to put the CLC 280 front with the fans first mounted to the case, as intake. I suppose that would heat up the GPU more, but I'll keep 3 exhaust fans, 2 top and 1 back. Is the CLC so noisy that's unbearable? An AIO would allow me the option to put a fan over the VRM. If anyone has the CLC 280 I'd appreciate some opinions on the noise.

For now, I'm leaning towards buying a D15 from Noctua and 4x140mm NF A14 PWN fans to replace my cheap 120mm fans front and top, so 2x140mm intake, 2x140mm top exhaust, 1x120mm from Fractal Design in the back exhaust. No, I don't wanna buy a 120mm Noctua fan for the back, they're really pricey IMO, the Fractal Design stock fans are decent. If the first fan doesn't fit, well... I guess I'll remain with one additional fan.

Next year, I'll probably buy a delid kit with all the liquid metal and reseal glue, and delid and OC to 5GHz and buy a RTX 3080 or whatever Intel/AMD come with that has RT. I'm kind of worried though that with the big D15 air cooler i won't be able to cool my VRM which will get kinda toasty at 5GHz until I get the stresstesting, games shouldn't be an issue. VRMs get to 82 in the summer for 110W drawn for example and that will rarely happen in gaming on the 8700k, problem will only be to get it fully stable.

 

[Divide Overflow]

D15S is 160mm tall with 65mm clearance for RAM. From the review here you only sacrifice a degree or so with only one fan, so it's not that much of a compromise.
Airflow thru the case should take care of your VRMs.

 

[eidairaman1]

Look at Scythe, Thermalright.

 

[toyo]

D15S is 160mm tall with 65mm clearance for RAM. From the review here you only sacrifice a degree or so with only one fan, so it's not that much of a compromise.
Airflow thru the case should take care of your VRMs.

The difference in price where I found them is less than how much a 140mm fan would cost, and basically the D15s is just a D15 without the front fan (or am I wrong?).

Look at Scythe, Thermalright.

Which models exactly? I know the FUMA is pretty close to the D15. The 8700K is quite annoying to cool though and mine is not delidded, and will remain like that for a year. Even 2C is a lot when you're spiking in the 90s.

There's also the thing that the 8700K runs even without a cooler as shown by der8auer, just dropping clocks to 800MHz at 100C. Intel deems 100C "safe". Personally, I don't like even 80.

 

[Divide Overflow]

The difference in price where I found them is less than how much a 140mm fan would cost, and basically the D15s is just a D15 without the front fan (or am I wrong?).

The D15s is different from the D15. It's heatsink has an asymmetrical design that offers more room for graphics cards and it has higher clearance for system memory.

Noctua NH-D15S Review

With a simple design change, Noctua has reinvented the NH-D15. The new NH-D15S has that same awful color scheme, but now features better memory and expansion-slot clearance, all thanks to its new asymmetrical design.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[toyo]

The D15s is different from the D15. It's heatsink has an asymmetrical design that offers more room for graphics cards and it has higher clearance for system memory.

Noctua NH-D15S Review

With a simple design change, Noctua has reinvented the NH-D15. The new NH-D15S has that same awful color scheme, but now features better memory and expansion-slot clearance, all thanks to its new asymmetrical design.

www.techpowerup.com

OK I've dug a bit more into the D15s and it turns out it comes with clips for a second fan. I could buy a 120mm fan for that since it's shorter and will probably fit into the case just fine.

So what I'm thinking of is: 2x140mm front, 2x140mm top as exhaust, D15s+1xNF-A12 120mm fan in front. That should make for decent airflow including some over the VRM, probably still insufficient, but hey, that was my budget.

How does it sound? Are there cheaper fans of similar performance? The Noctua fans are annoyingly expensive.

EDIT:

Anyone knows if I can add this to the front of D15s? It's cheaper than the NF-A12 and looks to be a bit better suited for radiators and has higher performance, at the cost of being a bit noisier.

NF-F12 industrialPPC-2000 PWM

Conceived for industrial heavy duty applications that require enhanced cooling performance and advanced ingress protection, the NF-F12 industrialPPC (Protected Performance Cooling) is a ruggedised high-speed version of the award-winning retail model. Thanks to the outstanding aerodynamic...

noctua.at

Thanks!

EDIT no. 2:

I've went with a Noctua D15S (adding an extra NF-A12x25 PWM fan to the front, that should fit on top of the RAM and in the case still) and 4xNF-A14 PWM for the case, 2 front intake, 2 top exhaust.

Decided against the AIO as I don't trust the pump reliability and its longevity in general. The big fan should last a decade with ease, can take it out and wash it, doesn't leak, and performance should be near the 280mm AIO. The big 140mm fan in the mid of the fan should blast some air over the VRM too.

The NF-F12 fan probably would have fit OK but for +6EU, meh, I just went for the "normal" Noctua color scheme and fan.

Hopefully this should solve my cooling for years.

 

[toyo]

If anyone is interested about an update, I got the D15s, slapped it in with some difficulties because of Meshify C being kind of restrictive, had to take the top fans off to get the fan clip in.

The cooler is very quiet indeed and packaging was high quality. I used the NTH1 paste.

The cooling is OK I think. The 140mm fan seems to be able to blow enough air over the VRM keeping it at 90C (it's 31C inside) at 155W power draw, running P95 1344 inplace FFTs without any AVX. CPU temps spiked to 98, one core throttled for 2 secs, 5GHz@1.35V. Averages around 90C. AVX crashes on the spot with this though, ewww. I wonder what kinda voltage it would require to get it stable at 5GHz with AVX2, but this cooler can't cool it for sure. Small FFTs/max power draw at stock, 4.3GHz boost, with AVX2 will run into 135W. Undervolted (-0.075V) 120W. It's insane how much power AVX2 draws, and I imagine AVX512 will draw even more.

There are pretty significant deltas between cores, like 8-9C, Core 2 is the hottest always, I assume the TIM is crap, thanks Intel. Will do until next year until I delid after the 3 years warranty is over.

This was done with just a fan on the D15s as the additional fans didn't arrive yet, and with the cheesy Arctic/Fractal Design old fans. Maybe with the 4 140mm fans and the additional 120mm on the cooler I will gain 1-2 more degrees, but I'm not really setting my hopes up.

All in all modest differences in cooling vs the very cheap Zalman CNPS10x Optima - maybe 7-10C depending on load.

All in all I don't think I'll be able to properly stress test @5GHz with AVX2 and small FFTs until I delid. Even then I guess it would draw too much for my VRM, so I will have to settle with the non-AVX stresstest, which annoys me, as from experience I always had (very rare) game crashes and even extremely rare BSODs until I properly stresstested with AVX2/Small FFTs.

 

[phanbuey]

If anyone is interested about an update, I got the D15s, slapped it in with some difficulties because of Meshify C being kind of restrictive, had to take the top fans off to get the fan clip in.

The cooler is very quiet indeed and packaging was high quality. I used the NTH1 paste.

The cooling is OK I think. The 140mm fan seems to be able to blow enough air over the VRM keeping it at 90C (it's 31C inside) at 155W power draw, running P95 1344 inplace FFTs without any AVX. CPU temps spiked to 98, one core throttled for 2 secs, 5GHz@1.35V. Averages around 90C. AVX crashes on the spot with this though, ewww. I wonder what kinda voltage it would require to get it stable at 5GHz with AVX2, but this cooler can't cool it for sure. Small FFTs/max power draw at stock, 4.3GHz boost, with AVX2 will run into 135W. Undervolted (-0.075V) 120W. It's insane how much power AVX2 draws, and I imagine AVX512 will draw even more.

There are pretty significant deltas between cores, like 8-9C, Core 2 is the hottest always, I assume the TIM is crap, thanks Intel. Will do until next year until I delid after the 3 years warranty is over.

This was done with just a fan on the D15s as the additional fans didn't arrive yet, and with the cheesy Arctic/Fractal Design old fans. Maybe with the 4 140mm fans and the additional 120mm on the cooler I will gain 1-2 more degrees, but I'm not really setting my hopes up.

All in all modest differences in cooling vs the very cheap Zalman CNPS10x Optima - maybe 7-10C depending on load.

All in all I don't think I'll be able to properly stress test @5GHz with AVX2 and small FFTs until I delid. Even then I guess it would draw too much for my VRM, so I will have to settle with the non-AVX stresstest, which annoys me, as from experience I always had (very rare) game crashes and even extremely rare BSODs until I properly stresstested with AVX2/Small FFTs.

AVX is a totally different instruction, much faster than normal function, so testing with just avx will limit your overclock substantially. You want to offset avx (just becuase you don't need it to be at 5GHZ - avx workloads 4.7Ghz is plenty fast for that). Delidded you can easily be 5ghz - 5.1 Ghz @ with a 4.7Ghz or 4.6ghz avx with dynamic voltage step downs.

 

[toyo]

AVX is a totally different instruction, much faster than normal function, so testing with just avx will limit your overclock substantially. You want to offset avx (just becuase you don't need it to be at 5GHZ - avx workloads 4.7Ghz is plenty fast for that). Delidded you can easily be 5ghz - 5.1 Ghz @ with a 4.7Ghz or 4.6ghz avx with dynamic voltage step downs.

Yeah, I know.

The issues with AVX, OCs and offsets (for me) is that nowadays almost every game uses AVX. I remember testing maybe a year ago and if you OC to 5GHz and add a -3AVX offset, inside the game you'll see how the CPU flips between the two speeds, which is quite annoying at least to me. It's also makes it quite hard to stress test OCs properly unless you delid. My experience has been that testing without AVX, for example unchecking it in P95, can result in 12 hrs of stability... only to get a game crashing, and then if I'd run a AVX enabled stresstest, that'd crash too/workers would stop. Undervolting my 8700K didn't get fully stable (i.e. no game crashes for more than half a year now, no BSODs at all) unless I would run the Small FFTs with AVX and pass 10-12 hrs on that. Even stock and undervolted it still draws a crazy 120W on the test.

"Luckily" with my 1070ti there's really no need to OC. But next year it's delid and a 3070 or something, and that will likely require an OC to run at 90%+ utilization unless you RTX it to death or run 1440P/4K.

 

[phanbuey]

Yeah, I know.

The issues with AVX, OCs and offsets (for me) is that nowadays almost every game uses AVX. I remember testing maybe a year ago and if you OC to 5GHz and add a -3AVX offset, inside the game you'll see how the CPU flips between the two speeds, which is quite annoying at least to me. It's also makes it quite hard to stress test OCs properly unless you delid. My experience has been that testing without AVX, for example unchecking it in P95, can result in 12 hrs of stability... only to get a game crashing, and then if I'd run a AVX enabled stresstest, that'd crash too/workers would stop. Undervolting my 8700K didn't get fully stable (i.e. no game crashes for more than half a year now, no BSODs at all) unless I would run the Small FFTs with AVX and pass 10-12 hrs on that. Even stock and undervolted it still draws a crazy 120W on the test.

"Luckily" with my 1070ti there's really no need to OC. But next year it's delid and a 3070 or something, and that will likely require an OC to run at 90%+ utilization unless you RTX it to death or run 1440P/4K.

I mean your chip at stock is faster than mine at 4.7Ghz in games and im 100% GPU bound 7/10 games (far cry 5, deus ex etc.) at 3440x1440p on a 2080ti - that chip has years and years left in it esp with an OC. It's faster than any of the zen 2 line up and those chips are just now being bought by gamers to last the next 1-2 years as the high end.

 

[toyo]

My last update. Got today the 2nd part of the order with the 4 140mm fans and the 120mm fan for the fron of the D15s cooler. Took a picture too, 2 exhaust top, 2 intake front, last fan in the back I left one from Fractal Design because they're decent enough and this shit was way too expensive.

The thermals improved maybe with 2-4C. Maybe. The stupidly hot 970 Evo Plus SSD seems to profit the most (I'll be damned if I spend even more on an SSD heatsink), and after that the GPU. Now it's maxing at 71 instead of 74 or so. The motherboard PCB/sensors also get 5-7C cooler when the fans spin hard enough.

The fans are very quiet at lower RPM. When they're spinning close to the max though they're just as loud as my previous Arctic fans which were the cheapest I've found with PWM.

All in all, a stupidly expensive endeavor for gains of around 5-8C in average. I'll give it to Noctua their packaging is amazing and build quality looks incredibly solid. But I'm pretty sure this is the last time this decade I'm spending on cooling if I can help it. Cheap crap like my Zalman CNPS10x Optima and the dime a dozen Arctic fans are almost as good as 215USD worth of cooling stuff.

Here's a picture of my shitty low effort PC setup with the Noctua stuff. I like the look more than I like the temps.

https://imgur.com/X6ARjKj