Cooling Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Air v Water

[mtcn77]

pic is looking down, front is marked, left is thin rad, thick is right.

But your intake is rear, not the usual front.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

But your intake is rear, not the usual front.

Intake is 240 rad left side, out is 280 rad right side, front is 2x140. i have rotated the pic to better illustrate this.

 

[AusWolf]

Well you can. I was looking at some Chieftec power supplies years ago and they seem to be quite a bit cheaper due to being a local brand and their stuff is seemingly similar to more expensive brands. It's not the cheapest stuff, but for quality that you get it very well could be.

I have also found some FSP power supplies and it turns out that they are a major OEM of PSUs and most of their units are very decent. And there are many brands that most people haven't heard of, mostly due to their lack of advertising, sponsoring and etc or some are just simply too local to be known well. This is where you can get a great deal, if you are smart or you know how to find some less well known information.

Chieftec and FSP used to be major players on the PSU market. I had an FSP about 10 years ago. I didn't know they still made units with their own brand name.

Anyway, what I said is you can't expect top quality with cheap products. You may get something acceptable, or you may not.

Perhaps, but I'm still curious how well they fare or what their power use is. And nowadays, Pentium G6400 is actually not too bad CPU even for gaming. By that I mean that most games are playable on it. It makes sense to buy Pentium, if you play older titles and expect to pair it with RX 560 level card.

Anyway, my comment isn't about Pentiums and Celerons, but merely about cheap product reviews. When I bought my current motherboard, I also couldn't find any reviews and it wasn't cheap board, it's a lower mid tier B460 board. For few months it was sold for really low price (just like many Gigabyte products in my country for some reason) and I bought it. Turns out that it's good for i5 non k. And all I paid for it was 86 EUR (78 UK pounds). Similar boards from other brands sold for 20-40 EUR more, so I managed to save some cash by taking a small risk.

Gaming is not what Celerons are made for, and most people know that. Not many people would be interested in such a review. There are youtube channels like RandomGamingHD that deal with such things, though I think it's more of a niche, techy thing than serious reviews for serious gaming purposes. I also like getting the most out of old or low-end hardware, but for my main rig, I prefer not to cut on expenses vs quality.

With that said, I found exactly no review of my Core i7-11700 (non-K) before I bought it, though things like these are easily extrapolated from reviews of surrounding products, like the 11700K.

The thick rad has fans, 2x140 on thick, 2x120 on thin. so could i remove front fans?

Ah I see! If your temps and noise are ok, I'd leave things as they are. I usually prefer rads as exhaust, but if you did that with your system, you'd have some awful low pressure inside your chassis, I guess.

 

[skizzo]

Interesting. Why the thick rad? Wouldn't a thin one with fans be better?


I don't know physics enough to know how dBs add up. All I know is that I can't hear my AIO pump on its lowest rpm setting, because my silent case fans make more noise. What more do I need? You can keep telling me all day how noisy AIO pumps should be, I will still rather believe my own ears.


Well, you can't expect top notch quality if you're buying the cheapest of the cheapest, can you? As for Pentiums and Celerons, if you're looking at such CPUs, I'm guessing that you either don't have money for more, or you just need a basic CPU for basic tasks. Pentiums and Celerons are exactly that. That's all the review you need.

In quick layman terms about audio adding up, its kinda like frequencies added up. For more details, imagine sound source A has 100Hz at 10dB and sound source B has 1KHz, also at 10dB. You don't necessarily add up to now having 20dB of noise. You have 10dB of low end noise at 100Hz and 10dB of mid range noise at 1KHz. But usually sound doesn't have just one exact pitch/frequency going so what happens is the frequencies that overlap from one sound sorce to the other create a hump if you were to look at it with a frequency analyzer graph. For example, maybe a PC has 10 fans in it and they are quiet themselves, but if they all run at same speed and have the same exact EQ curve, those frequencies stack on top of each other and that is where the perceived volume increase comes from. If they all have different EQ curves things would fit better, less stacking, therefore less perceived amplitude/volume/dB level. This comes from working in recording studios recording bands. When you make mixes generally you use EQ to "carve out" space in the EQ curve for say a kick drum to fit in the space the bass guitar is also occupying. If we didn't do this instruments would mask one another, you could hear the kick drum fine if the drums are playing by themselves, but when the bass guitar plays at the same time it would sound like the kick drum is "buried in the mix". It why modern recordings sound so crisp and clean compared to stuff from decades ago.

 

[The red spirit]

Cheftec and FSP used to be major players on the PSU market. I had an FSP about 10 years ago. I didn't know they still made units with their own brand name.

They exist, I have one unit and until now it served me for 7 years well. I just replaced it with another PSU that I had, which happens to be Chieftec A-90. Yes, they are still alive and making new PSUs. You might not have recognized FSP, because their main brand name is Fortron. FSP is abbreviation of Fortron/Source corp. or Fortron/Sparkle corp. FSP is still a major actual PSU maker, they supply PSUs to maybe 20% of PC OEMs and makes PSUs for brands like Antec, SilverStone, OCZ (now dead), Thermaltake, Zalman and some other lesser names. Since they mostly don't brand their stuff to be sold directly, they keep low profile, but they still exist and still make decent PSUs. I remember than some Fortron units were in random Dells, HPs. They seemingly continue to operate without problems, but nobody talks about them.

As for Chieftec, I know that they were big players in early 2000s, their Dragon case and various power supplies were really popular, but ever since then they sort of faded out. They never truly died, but again they have near zero publicity.

Anyway, what I said is you can't expect top quality with cheap products. You may get something acceptable, or you may not.

True, but you can get similar qualities for less.

Gaming is not what Celerons are made for, and most people know that. Not many people would be interested in such a review. There are youtube channels like RandomGamingHD that deal with such things, though I think it's more of a niche, techy thing than serious reviews for serious gaming purposes. I also like getting the most out of old or low-end hardware, but for my main rig, I prefer not to cut on expenses vs quality.

I understand that, but I said that Pentium was actually surprisingly good. It's not perfect, but for some specific needs, it's can be something really decent.

With that said, I found exactly no review of my Core i7-11700 (non-K) before I bought it, though things like these are easily extrapolated from reviews of surrounding products, like the 11700K.

Some things sure, but some really specific things like maximum all core boost frequency isn't stated in Intel spec sheet and you really need a review to know that. My i5 is rated for 4.3Ghz maximum boost, but on all cores it can only do 4GHz and that's without AVX. With AVX, it is limited to 3.1Ghz, I think.

 

[mtcn77]

Intake is 240 rad left side, out is 280 rad right side, front is 2x140. i have rotated the pic to better illustrate this.
View attachment 215277

I might be a bit too unsettled by this suggestion, why do you want to kill both radiators by exerting undue heat stress? I'm sure you know by now, intake is the best fan spot and cooler the better for radiator fluid antirust protection?

 

[AusWolf]

In quick layman terms about audio adding up, its kinda like frequencies added up. For more details, imagine sound source A has 100Hz at 10dB and sound source B has 1KHz, also at 10dB. You don't necessarily add up to now having 20dB of noise. You have 10dB of low end noise at 100Hz and 10dB of mid range noise at 1KHz. But usually sound doesn't have just one exact pitch/frequency going so what happens is the frequencies that overlap from one sound sorce to the other create a hump if you were to look at it with a frequency analyzer graph. For example, maybe a PC has 10 fans in it and they are quiet themselves, but if they all run at same speed and have the same exact EQ curve, those frequencies stack on top of each other and that is where the perceived volume increase comes from. If they all have different EQ curves things would fit better, less stacking, therefore less perceived amplitude/volume/dB level. This comes from working in recording studios recording bands. When you make mixes generally you use EQ to "carve out" space in the EQ curve for say a kick drum to fit in the space the bass guitar is also occupying. If we didn't do this instruments would mask one another, you could hear the kick drum fine if the drums are playing by themselves, but when the bass guitar plays at the same time it would sound like the kick drum is "buried in the mix". It why modern recordings sound so crisp and clean compared to stuff from decades ago.

Thanks for this, it's really interesting and informative.

As for the topic at hand, whatever noise my AIO pump makes at its lowest speed setting is so low in volume that it doesn't make any perceptible difference over my case fans - this is what matters when we talk about silence, I guess.

Some things sure, but some really specific things like maximum all core boost frequency isn't stated in Intel spec sheet and you really need a review to know that. My i5 is rated for 4.3Ghz maximum boost, but on all cores it can only do 4GHz and that's without AVX. With AVX, it is limited to 3.1Ghz, I think.

If you have an Android phone, I recommend an app called CPU-L. It's a database of essentially all Intel and AMD CPUs ever released. It also lists things like Intel spec max frequencies. My 11700 for example, is rated for 4.4 GHz all-core, which I think is a good trade-off for around £60 less compared to the 4.6 GHz of the 11700K.

 

[freeagent]

If you have a new AIO, and a CPU that puts out under 150w or so, and have a nice controlled ambient, you should get a few years out of it. If you are pushing 250w or more constantly in uncontrolled ambients chances are you are going to be looking for a replacement within a year or two. They work great when things are good.. lose a third of your coolant to permeation and you are hooped.. unless you can top it up.

X5690 @ 4400 1.4v and higher is a force to be reckoned with.. might not be strong by today’s standards but but it is a fucking thermal beast. Mine was an E.S. but it scaled right to 1.6v. My 5900X cannot pull the same power the e.s. could.

 

[mtcn77]

If you are pushing 250w or more constantly in uncontrolled ambients chances are you are going to be looking for a replacement within a year or two.

Couldn't agree more. If you are going to put it in any serious workload, just dump the plastic aio and get a solid metal construction air cooler, or a multiphase cooler - but they are few and far between and also pricing restricted. Nothing means business like a solid hunk of metal attached to the pc board.

 

[The red spirit]

If you have an Android phone, I recommend an app called CPU-L. It's a database of essentially all Intel and AMD CPUs ever released. It also lists things like Intel spec max frequencies. My 11700 for example, is rated for 4.4 GHz all-core, which I think is a good trade-off for around £60 less compared to the 4.6 GHz of the 11700K.

I just installed that app and it shows me that your all core speed should be 4.6GHz, not 4.4GHz.

 

[Fangio1951]

hi all,

I went to water cooling on my old i7-4700K then i7-4790K then i7-7700K.

The pic below is my current i7-7700K + Gigabyte Z270X Gaming 9 mobo in a Thermaltake P5 open case which I rotated 180 degrees so that all the water cooling was at the very bottom = if there was any leaks then the water would just drop on the floor.

 

[freeagent]

Now that I am trying to tame 7nm with some additional voltage, I wouldn’t mind checking out some actual liquid cooling gear. I almost bought a new AIO like 20 times since November, I just can’t bring myself to do it lol. I get decent results with Thermalright coolers. Though my TS140P was a bit of a letdown.. not as good as my LGMRT, which is not as good as FC140, but all of them are still excellent

 

[mtcn77]

I get decent results with Thermalright coolers

You need to find out about the compatibility of their fan duct accessories. It really makes a huge difference when possible. One review was mentioning almost -10°C if not mistaken, nobody should run a fan without ensuring a direct access path to a straight line intake duct.

 

[lexluthermiester]

1.4v and higher

I can't recommend that. Intels VID spec, 1.35v, is my recommendation for upper limit to avoid damage.

 

[AusWolf]

I just installed that app and it shows me that your all core speed should be 4.6GHz, not 4.4GHz.

That's the 11700K. I have the non-K 11700.

If you have a new AIO, and a CPU that puts out under 150w or so, and have a nice controlled ambient, you should get a few years out of it. If you are pushing 250w or more constantly in uncontrolled ambients chances are you are going to be looking for a replacement within a year or two. They work great when things are good.. lose a third of your coolant to permeation and you are hooped.. unless you can top it up.

X5690 @ 4400 1.4v and higher is a force to be reckoned with.. might not be strong by today’s standards but but it is a fucking thermal beast. Mine was an E.S. but it scaled right to 1.6v. My 5900X cannot pull the same power the e.s. could.

My recipe is always the same: The largest AIO your case can fit + a non-K Intel CPU with unlocked power targets, or a Ryzen with no overclock, just PBO enabled - done. This gives you optimal performance without putting too much heat stress on your AIO / whole system. Overclocking modern hardware isn't worth it anyway, as current CPUs and GPUs are pretty much at the top of their efficiency curve by factory default. You have to increase power consumption and heat by a significant margin for a couple hundred MHz that you don't even feel real-life.

Applying this recipe to my 11700, I get around 160-170 W power consumed in Cinebench R23 multi, which is something my H100i can easily cope with. Max temp is around 75-77 °C. It's interesting to note that the 5950X easily exceeded 80 °C with the same AIO under similar power consumption.

 

[Vayra86]

AIOs are for people like me - who want the advantages of water, but are too lazy to build a custom loop. Their maintenance cycle / failure rate isn't as bad as advocates of air tend to believe, imo. There's a reason why some of them come with 5 or so years of warranty.

Can get into that, a big part of my aversion is also the uncertainty; more moving parts is more chance of failure. Im a guy who loves mitigation I guess

 

[AusWolf]

Can get into that, a big part of my aversion is also the uncertainty; more moving parts is more chance of failure. Im a guy who loves mitigation I guess

 

[The red spirit]

That's the 11700K. I have the non-K 11700.

It's definitely non K i7. Here's another source:

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core%20i7%20i7-10700.html

CPU World says 4.6GHz all core boost.

 

[AusWolf]

It's definitely non K i7. Here's another source:

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core%20i7%20i7-10700.html

CPU World says 4.6GHz all core boost.

Ah, that's the 10700, not my 11700.

Intel's naming at this point is confusing as hell. I wish they switched to something simpler.

 

[The red spirit]

Ah, that's the 10700, not my 11700.

Intel's naming at this point is confusing as hell. I wish they switched to something simpler.

Intel's naming is fine. I did a mistake here, I really thought you had i7 10700, not i7 11700. AMD's naming is a lot worse.

 

[AusWolf]

Intel's naming is fine. I did a mistake here, I really thought you had i7 10700, not i7 11700. AMD's naming is a lot worse.

It was a lot worse with the 4000 series that's actually an extension of the 3000 series. Or with the 3000 series APUs that were actually 2000 series. I think they've come to their senses with the 5000 series.

 

[freeagent]

I can't recommend that. Intels VID spec, 1.35v, is my recommendation for upper limit to avoid damage.

I went by 1.375 as stock voltage because that is what they rate the i7s at, and 1.55v was their rated max on 1366..

I get around 160-170 W power consumed in Cinebench R23 multi

That’s not bad, let me know when you cross 300w

My H100 did not appreciate that

 

[AusWolf]

That’s not bad, let me know when you cross 300w

Never. All I did was flick the ASUS Enhancement on which applies a 200 W PL1 instead of the stock 65, and a 250 W PL2 instead of 228. The only time I saw the chip get anywhere near the magical 200 W limit was in Prime95, but when the temperature crossed 90 °C, I shut it down.

Everybody seems to be crying about 10 and 11th gen Intel and the "ridiculous power consumption and heat", but in real world scenarios, the 11700 is quite a modest chip. With around 30-is % usage in games and well above 4 GHz clocks, it barely even comes close to its factory TDP of 65 W. As for heat, my 5950X was a lot hotter when configured to consume the same power. 7 nm at TSMC might be the most advanced node there is, but it sure is a lot harder to cool than Intel's good old 14 nm. Now's the time to throw stones at me.

My H100 did not appreciate that

My H100i did not appreciate the same power consumed by the 5950X, but it has no trouble keeping the 11700 cool - unless I fire up Prime95 of course, but who cares about that.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I went by 1.375 as stock voltage because that is what they rate the i7s at

Um, the Intel ARK data would like to have a word..

Intel® Xeon® Processor X5690 (12M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI) Product Specifications

Intel® Xeon® Processor X5690 (12M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

While the i7 line and the Xeon line share some similarities, there are some very important differences that set them apart, which is why Intel defined a different voltage range. The tolerances are different.
I'm not saying the voltage you've stated can not be done, just saying that it's taking a risk and not one people really need too for a daily driver.

 

[freeagent]

Um, the Intel ARK data would like to have a word..

Intel® Xeon® Processor X5690 (12M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI) Product Specifications

Intel® Xeon® Processor X5690 (12M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

View attachment 215357
While the i7 line and the Xeon line share some similarities, there are some very important differences that set them apart, which is why Intel defined a different voltage range. The tolerances are different.
I'm not saying the voltage you've stated can not be done, just saying that it's taking a risk and not one people really need too for a daily driver.

Yes, they are server grade CPU's, tighter tolerances to run cooler, uses less power while running. I used that CPU for a decade, not a few months.. I didn't hurt it. I ran high voltage all the time because I could cool it. I did hurt PSU's with that system though. Its like comparing my X3360 to my Q9550. My X3360 ran cooler across all cores, and used less power.. and overclocked a little better. My X5690 ran cooler and scaled further than my 970 did. My 970 was better with memory because dividers are awesome.