-Post pics of your computer-

[Dungeoncrawler]

From what I read the h70 want to have intake on the back for max cooling on the cpu. Of course this will raise gpu temps a bit (unless you flip that side fan).

Thanks; that is the orientation I have going in the pics.

[BababooeyHTJ]

From what I read the h70 want to have intake on the back for max cooling on the cpu. Of course this will raise gpu temps a bit (unless you flip that side fan).

The difference in a case with good airflow is minimal. Just a couple of degrees. It's not worth pumping all the heat from the cpu into the case to heat up the rest of the components for that imo.

[moshpit]

From what I read the h70 want to have intake on the back for max cooling on the cpu. Of course this will raise gpu temps a bit (unless you flip that side fan).

Corsair indeed DOES recommend this. It did NOT work well at all for me. I had to reverse the fans to act as exhaust to get good performance out of the H70. I'm positive though it's purely a matter of the positioning of the front intake fans that spoiled Corsair's recommended direction.

[moshpit]

The difference in a case with good airflow is minimal. Just a couple of degrees. It's not worth pumping all the heat from the cpu into the case to heat up the rest of the components for that imo.

The difference for me was tremendous. Nearly a 10C difference. But against Corsair's recommended direction. Your suggestion is more accurate in my situation at least, then it may be for others. But it wasn't a matter of dumping heat into the case, it was a matter of conflicting air flow.

[nycdarkness]

Luckily I can mount mine at the top for the time being. Eventually I will have to move it to fit a rad there.

[Dungeoncrawler]

So far the cpu is sits pretty stable at 34c (idle).

[Trunks0]

It is just the recommendation, doesn't mean it is going to be the optimal setup for all PC cases. I don't imagine having it blowing into the case would work very well on Silverstone's Fortress or Raven series cases either.

[caveman-jim]

How in the world do those cards cool themselves?

They have a spinny fan on them. Surprisingly, if you're running 3 $250+ cards, you typically have a fairly good airflow case. Turns out that forethought on cooling is required. Mosh has a hateon for the amd reference cooler design, but I can't find any other independent evidence its a problem, but we'll see how it works out.

[nycdarkness]

They have a spinny fan on them. Surprisingly, if you're running 3 $250+ cards, you typically have a fairly good airflow case. Turns out that forethought on cooling is required. Mosh has a hateon for the amd reference cooler design, but I can't find any other independent evidence its a problem, but we'll see how it works out.

It is a problem. It forms a perfect sealed lid at the end if I don't jam a piece of paper or something between the cards at the ends. Granted I saw this coming since that's what pretty much anyone else running trifire with 3 cards is doing is jamming something there till watercooling. Creating that little gap does change temps by several degrees on 2 of cards for me. The design is flawed and mosh isn't the only one who has a severe issue with it. Several review sites have pointed it out and so have many end users who have a tri setup or have 2 cards on top of each other.

[moshpit]

They have a spinny fan on them. Surprisingly, if you're running 3 $250+ cards, you typically have a fairly good airflow case. Turns out that forethought on cooling is required. Mosh has a hateon for the amd reference cooler design, but I can't find any other independent evidence its a problem, but we'll see how it works out.

REALLY? So 3 people reporting the same thing on your MOST visited forum isn't evidence beyond my own? Wow, cavey. Open the eyes, man. This is an issue. Also, try google. Evidence of this issue is WIDE spread and closing your eyes and saying "I don't believe it, I don't believe it" isn't working. I was only the FIRST to report this issue on this forum, but hardly the first internet wide. People are complaining all over the place about crappy air flow on AMD cards due to inconsiderate design on AMD's part.

Edit: And what forethought are you babbling about???? OH, you mean don't use AMD cards in a board that will use Nvidia cards fine? Not acceptable for an answer, Cavey, at all. I can run a pair of GTX 590 easier then I can run ANY modern AMD card in multi-GPU on 2 of the VERY nice motherboards here in this house. 2 6870's? Run warmer then 2 GTX 590's, that's unacceptable and wrong of AMD to allow to happen. While my newest motherboard wouldn't be made to suffer problems with AMD, my other 2 previous boards, a Gigabyte X58-UD3R and a EVGA P55 SLI handles ANY choice of Nvidia card just fine. The Gigabyte board came to market with Crossfire and without SLI support and is STILL better with SLI then Crossfire, thank you AMD.

[moshpit]

For reference, here's who all has complained about this issue causing them direct problems in JUST THIS THREAD ALONE.

1. Me - Moshpit
2. junglist1996
3. nycdarkness

I'm pretty sure 3 witnesses counts for SOMETHING as evidence, Cavey? This HAS to count. You're outnumbered now, and a quick Google search is just chock full of evidence. You haven't seen much evidence because you're intentionally not looking for it, is my theory. I believe you want to believe it's a "user-error" issue. Let me assure you, it's not. AMD makes no mention that you cannot use perfectly good Crossfire certified motherboard for Crossfire with any higher end modern card of theirs without hoping there's a third party cooling solution. This is on AMD, not us, we picked Crossfire certified motherboards. I really think you should quitting pointing the finger back at us. Instead, maybe consider SOME of us know how to research and build a computer just fine, and AMD screwed up by not considering serious thermal issues that their cards will face in their own certified multi-GPU configs.



Nycdarkness' PC makes a GREAT example here. We're looking at one of the industries TOP enthusiast motherboards from Gigabyte, the UD7, in this picture. That's a bloody EXPENSIVE motherboard! The very best of Gigabyte's P67 line in fact! If you want triple GPU, it's this or the Asus Maximus. There is no other option for Sandy Bridge + triple GPU/triple card except lesser known brands like Asrock and such.

Yet look at it. How can you sit here and deny this, Cavey? LOOK AT IT. He had to stick paper in there (adding stress to the slot, btw) to make it gap enough for ANY airflow. Is that Gigabyte's fault? Nope. Stick 3 Geforces in there and there's no problem. Stick 3 Radeons in there and pray they don't burn each other up.

VISIBLE EVIDENCE!

[caveman-jim]

Easy dude, you're gonna blow out a capillary!

This is how to cool a card - http://bit.ly/iM727C

[moshpit]

Easy dude, you're gonna blow out a capillary!

This is how to cool a card - http://bit.ly/iM727C

Very nice third party cooling, and well suited to this task. But, the problem remains, stock cooling on AMD cards is poorly thought out for use in a broad range of certified compatible motherboards.

Edit: And cavey, you should know I have THICK capillaries by now, they don't pop easy

[shadow001]

I fully agree on this and have my own experience with a pair of HD5970's in quad crossfire....The top card would run noticably hotter and the fan turn quite a bit faster(and louder) for that card when under load, mainly because a lot of airflow is being blocked by the lower card...



Fact is that with the pissing match going on between Nvidia and ATI on who builds the fastest cards, the power consumption is steadily going higher as each new generation is introduced, both companies include protection circuitry and driver optimizations to recognize certain applications and automatically throttle them down to keep temperatures, noise and power draw under control, that at least for multi GPU users that have multiple cards in their systems, it's becoming problematic to keep it under control, even with good case ventilation, while keeping the PC from sounding like a vacuum cleaner when it's running under load.


I took the next step and moved to water cooling....I'll be installing it over the next few days now that the water loop for the CPU's is done...





The vertically mounted radiators at the front will be the ones cooling the video cards....I was just doing some mesurements and pre fitting them to see how it'll work out.

[moshpit]

NICE looking system, Shadow!

So here's the updated list of those complaining about this issue directly affecting them, in this thread alone:

1. Me - Moshpit
2. junglist1996
3. nycdarkness
4. shadow001

Shadow, was the dual 5970's setup on your SR-2 motherboard or a previous build, and if so, what motherboard was it setup on if I may ask?

Edit: And I bet that was one HELL of a heavy lift to get that case up on the table

[Dungeoncrawler]

Easy dude, you're gonna blow out a capillary!

This is how to cool a card - http://bit.ly/iM727C

Hi Cavey - Could you even get three of those cards on a mobo?

[moshpit]

Hi Cavey - Could you even get three of those cards on a mobo?

I believe the answer should be yes, but it's also VERY notable that this cooler has cut outs along the top sides of the cooler that allow air to flow into the fans when there's another card right on top of it. HMMMMMMM! Seems even third party coolers consider Nvidia's little trick to be valid while AMD seems to ignore it all together.

[Ristogod]

Hmmm... I didn't mean to start a war on the issue. I was really just looking at the picture and wondering. I had heard of some others complaining about it before.

I'm very interested in a 3 card solution in the future and I'd rather not run into those type of issues. My guess is that AMD is going to have to address the issue in the future as these multi-card solutions are some what more feasible in terms of cost.

I wasn't trying to rip on AMD cards or anything. They are definitely in the running for my next set of cards, just based on current trends and not actually knowing what they are going to release, along with not knowing about the competition is releasing.

In any case, I'm already anxious to see what's next on the high end.

[shadow001]

NICE looking system, Shadow!

So here's the updated list of those complaining about this issue directly affecting them, in this thread alone:

1. Me - Moshpit
2. junglist1996
3. nycdarkness
4. shadow001

Shadow, was the dual 5970's setup on your SR-2 motherboard or a previous build, and if so, what motherboard was it setup on if I may ask?

Edit: And I bet that was one HELL of a heavy lift to get that case up on the table

No, they were on an first generation X58 board, the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5, but just like the above picture of the UD7, the X16 PCI-e slots only had a 1 slot spacing between them, so both cards were right next to eachother like the UD7 picture once they were installed....


The problem would be reduced quite a bit if using motherboards if the slot spacing between the main X16 PCI-e slots can be set with a 2 slot gap like this model:




There's 7 full lenght PCI-e slots, so 3 cards could be installed in slots 1, 4 and 7(counting from the CPU socket) while leaving a 1 slot gap between each card(slots 3 and 6), so that the fans on the video cards aren't blocked in the least, but boards like these are expensive(500$), and require the use of an XL ATX case like the cooler master HAF-X.


And yes, the case is heavy as hell despite being aluminum with all that stuffed in it(it's probably close to 100 Lbs right now), and going to get heavier still once the water loop for the video cards is done and more wire management is completed...


But i built the water loops to handle a lot of heat and the one for the video cards can dissipate nearly 1500 watts of heat while the GPU's will never exceed 65*C under full load and remain quiet, so there's a lot of wiggle room, and from now on i'll buy next generation video cards and only have to get the water block for the card....The rest of the cooling gets re-used(radiators, pumps, fittings, reservoirs, fans).


It's the jackhammer aproach and there's a lot of work to set it up, but it solves the heat and noise issue once and for all...

[moshpit]

Aluminum is heavy stuff! Sure, it's lighter then steel, but that's only a relative statement.

[shadow001]

Aluminum is heavy stuff! Sure, it's lighter then steel, but that's only a relative statement.

It started out pretty light....When the case was empty that is...


Did quite a lot of modifications from custom screws, to making my own mounting hardware and modifying other types of mounting hardware for uses they weren't originally intended for....I really had to use my imagination in some problem areas


But the CPU's are now rolling at 4.0 Ghz even at 200Mhz BCLK and all 24 GB of ram at an umbelievable 1950Mhz with low timings, with full load temps never hitting 60*C....It was a lot of work and cheap it isn't, but it's kicking butt and was a good learning experience..


Now let's see how far i can take the video cards and fully realise all the potential of the system....

[BababooeyHTJ]

I will be interested in hearing about the temps that you see under full load once you get everything set up.

Also what do you plan on using for fans and for fan control?

[shadow001]

I will be interested in hearing about the temps that you see under full load once you get everything set up.

Also what do you plan on using for fans and for fan control?

Well you already see the 4 fans in the picture bolted to the radiators....There's 4 scythe fans each rated to up to 110 CFM at 2000 RPM's with decent static pressure...


Pump wise for the GPU loop is just above the radiator in that last 5 1/4 bay....A koolance RP 1000 BK pump/ reservoir combo wich uses koolance's higher flow and pressure PMP 400 pump.





Space is at a premium in this build and this is pretty much the most powerfull and compact pump/ reservoir out there....Outputs about 2 1/2 gallons per minute....Costs a little over 200$.


Fan controler wise, there's this:



Touch screen fan controler with 6 independent temperature sensors and the ability to shut down the system directly even when i'm not there, if temperatures peak past a certain point or the water pump fails(unlikely, but you never know)....

[Auric]

I just noticed my cat at the bottom right !

I like how kitteh is peeking into frame à la Pedobear.

[Dungeoncrawler]

I've still got my 2600k running at stock. Could I get some settings for OC'ing this puppy plz? I'm running it under the H70; thanks.

[moshpit]

I've still got my 2600k running at stock. Could I get some settings for OC'ing this puppy plz? I'm running it under the H70; thanks.

Yes. Set multiplier for "44" and set nothing else. You are now running 4.4Ghz. Stability test it with the standard fare of Prime95, IBT, or OCCT, whichever you like. It should pass with flying colors at that low of an OC, but if not, nudge a hair more vcore into it. If you want more then that, a little more tweaking is involved, but try that first and see if it doesn't sate any needs for more power. If not, we can always go further.

[shadow001]

Getting closer and closer to completely done.....Just waiting for 3 of these:

[moshpit]

I'll be honest wit ya, Shadow, to have built such a rig and NOT enable your system specs tab is almost just sad. I know you've listed the specs here on Rage3D and even other forums, but wouldn't it be nice to not make people go digging them up when you talk about this beasty? It's so pretty, you should put up that system specs tab as a constant method of showing off your beastly build! Let them read it and weep

And, even as I absolutely LOVE your build's quality and total overkill approach, I still think you'll find it quite difficult getting everything out of that monster that it's capable of unless you have some INSANE databases to crunch WHILE gaming on triple monitors. And I'm not talking lowly MS Access DBs, I mean full on massive SQL/SAP database searches and reorgs.

I THINK I could actually get all 24 threads flying at 100% (constructively, not silly benchmarks) on your rig, but not on any kind of home use situation. Do you do any kind of heavy workstation work like professional 3D rendering or something similar beyond just gaming and benchmarking? If not, maybe consider getting into something like that, you'll feel like your getting your money's worth for sure.

[Dungeoncrawler]

Yes. Set multiplier for "44" and set nothing else. You are now running 4.4Ghz. Stability test it with the standard fare of Prime95, IBT, or OCCT, whichever you like. It should pass with flying colors at that low of an OC, but if not, nudge a hair more vcore into it. If you want more then that, a little more tweaking is involved, but try that first and see if it doesn't sate any needs for more power. If not, we can always go further.

Kewl; thanks mosh

Getting closer and closer to completely done.....Just waiting for 3 of
these:

Question: Indulging a water-nOOb, what is the schematic on your loop (waterflow)? Do you setup a seperate loop for the proc and the gpu's or does the whole thing fit together?

[shadow001]

I'll be honest wit ya, Shadow, to have built such a rig and NOT enable your system specs tab is almost just sad. I know you've listed the specs here on Rage3D and even other forums, but wouldn't it be nice to not make people go digging them up when you talk about this beasty? It's so pretty, you should put up that system specs tab as a constant method of showing off your beastly build! Let them read it and weep

And, even as I absolutely LOVE your build's quality and total overkill approach, I still think you'll find it quite difficult getting everything out of that monster that it's capable of unless you have some INSANE databases to crunch WHILE gaming on triple monitors. And I'm not talking lowly MS Access DBs, I mean full on massive SQL/SAP database searches and reorgs.

I THINK I could actually get all 24 threads flying at 100% (constructively, not silly benchmarks) on your rig, but not on any kind of home use situation. Do you do any kind of heavy workstation work like professional 3D rendering or something similar beyond just gaming and benchmarking? If not, maybe consider getting into something like that, you'll feel like your getting your money's worth for sure.

Apart from audio and video encoding, archiving and compressing/decompressing files, wich really use all the cores i can throw at them, the system is used to also game even if it's completely overkill for it, and yes, also crazy benchmarking sessions with multithreaded applicatons....A guy i know wants to use it to crack the windows rainbow table(the system windows uses to create passwords.. )


Btw, i found out just by sheer coincidence that 3Dmark 11 can actually use more than 12 threads in the physics and combined rendering tests, as i score higher in those last 2 than a 980X running at 6.4 Ghz using liquid nitrogen cooling...Here's a hint.....Over 50 FPS in each of those test runs, and i think that once the video cards have their coolers installed, a P20000 score is doable....


It's the do anything, anytime and do it extremely well machine....No corners cut in this build and i've been putting it gradually together for nearly a month now as the parts slowly arrive....I'll enable the system specs tab once the beast is completely put together.

[moshpit]

Kewl; thanks mosh

Which motherboard is with it? I ask because Asus creates a little multiplier confusion. There's 2 separate places to set it, and you have to be careful about not setting it incorrectly. On the Asus AI page in the eUFI, it allows you to set the multi for the Turbo boost, and also allows you to pick the standard single core allowed to reach that speed or all cores allowed. BUT, on the Advanced page, the REAL multiplier is also changeable. But this is NOT the Turbo speed, setting this multi removes your CPUs ability to run the middle speeds between it's lowest 1.6Ghz and it's highest 4.4Ghz. Using the Turbo multi instead, along with setting to All Cores means the CPU will actually have a nice mid-way point it turbos up to when the cores are busy, but not totally slammed (<100% on any core). It saves the top speed for when any of the cores starts nailing 100%.

The only game I have that pushes my CPU up to it's full 5Ghz speed is Civilization V. It's the only one that makes any of the cores actually nail the full on 100% needed to kick Turbo to max. I play Civilization V on the very largest maps, with a mass number of city states and 2 other large empires to battle against. Needless to say, a massive CPU loaded game, and really the ONLY reason I've kept my CPU overclocked so high as it's practically useless for the CPU to be this fast in most other games.

[shadow001]

Question: Indulging a water-nOOb, what is the schematic on your loop (waterflow)? Do you setup a seperate loop for the proc and the gpu's or does the whole thing fit together?

Seperate loops for the CPU's, chipset and VRM's...Goes like this:

Top radiator---> pump---> CPU 1----> rear radiator---> CPU 2---> motherboard block---> CPU 2 VRM block---> top radiator.


Video card wise it's like this:

Reservoir---> Pump---> GPU1--->GPU 2--->GPU 3---> front radiator---2nd radiator behind the first---> reservoir.


They're seperate loops basically...

[moshpit]

Apart from audio and video encoding, archiving and compressing/decompressing files, wich really use all the cores i can throw at them, the system is used to also game even if it's completely overkill for it, and yes, also crazy benchmarking sessions with multithreaded applicatons....A guy i know wants to use it to crack the windows rainbow table(the system windows uses to create passwords.. )


Btw, i found out just by sheer coincidence that 3Dmark 11 can actually use more than 12 threads in the physics and combined rendering tests, as i score higher in those last 2 than a 980X running at 6.4 Ghz using liquid nitrogen cooling...Here's a hint.....Over 50 FPS in each of those test runs, and i think that once the video cards have their coolers installed, a P20000 score is doable....


It's the do anything, anytime and do it extremely well machine....No corners cut in this build and i've been putting it gradually together for nearly a month now as the parts slowly arrive....I'll enable the system specs tab once the beast is completely put together.

That's a good workload then. If you do a LOT of encoding, I can see it being more useful. I'm a little stunned by how much encoding you must be doing though if your slamming THAT many cores. Hours upon hours upon hours, and in parallel with other encoding projects running simultaneously.

The reason I say that is, one can crunch a blue ray movie into an H.264/AVI in around 15-18 minutes if done using a CPU based trancoder on my i7 920 at stock, and around 5-7 minutes if done using one of the buggy, but BRUTALLY fast GPU based transcoders.

edit: The reason I used the i7 920 as an example, and not my SnB, is because my 920 handles all media duties for my home LAN. I've never tested my SnB with any transcoding jobs.

[shadow001]

The only game I have that pushes my CPU up to it's full 5Ghz speed is Civilization V. It's the only one that makes any of the cores actually nail the full on 100&#37; needed to kick Turbo to max. I play Civilization V on the very largest maps, with a mass number of city states and 2 other large empires to battle against. Needless to say, a massive CPU loaded game, and really the ONLY reason I've kept my CPU overclocked so high as it's practically useless for the CPU to be this fast in most other games.

Yup, civilization likes CPU's that much is for sure...


The main benefit for water cooling, considering the cost and the amount of work setting this up(patience and being methodical is a must here), isn't just the potential overclocks it can allow, but the silence even when running at these extreme speeds and that at least CPU wise, it never goes above 55*C with all 12 cores/24 threads floored to 100% load...

That's 40*C under the point where the CPU throttles down to protect itself under normal scenarios, and it's not even close to hitting that....


I want as close to the same thing for the GPU's once that loop is finished, so no more 90*C under hard loads for them too, or having to put up with fan noise of any kind coming from the stock coolers... Powerfull and extremely quiet is the name of the game

[moshpit]

Yup, civilization likes CPU's that much is for sure...

Indeed, and my current mods to Civ V make it a CPU abuse-fest. All the mods out there supposedly attempting to lock unit maintenance to 1GP per unit per round are broken, by round 500 you're paying 100+GP per unit already. I finally fixed that and now by round 500, I'm still only paying 1GP per unit per round. This means the map has MASSIVE forces moving all over it, fighting it out and nuking the smack out of each other. Brings CPUs to their knees

[shadow001]

Further improved the layout and wiring as well as i found a neat solution for a tubing problem i was having, but here's all that's needed to know





4.18Ghz clocks on both CPU's at 1.35 volts, using LinX with maximum memory amount, wich in this case means 17+ GB of it, full load temperatures with all cores at 100% for 40 minutes is averaging 60*C.....Fans spinning at only 60%, wich is only 1300 RPM and pretty quiet, so i could lower the temperatures further by increasing the speed with the fan controlers....


Keep in mind that i might have to do just that once summer rolls in, and we have those really hot days when even A/C's struggle to keep the room cool, but it's nice to know that the cooling in the PC has enough wiggle room for those worst case scenarios, and assuming i load up all the cores to 100%....

[Dungeoncrawler]

Which motherboard is with it?

I have the Asus MaximusIV Extreme P67 B3.

[moshpit]

I have the Asus MaximusIV Extreme P67 B3.

Then just keep in mind the points I made above about Turbo multis versus normal multis.

[demo]

I love your rad set up shadow, looks leet

[CurrentlyPissed]

M17xR3

Here are Pics of the new Laptop.. Alienware M17xR3.

Specs: Intel i7 2630QM 2.0ghz/2.8ghz Turbo (Sandy Bridge), AMD 6970m 2GB, 4GB 1333mhz ram, 1920x1080 WLED LCD.








And here is a video of the color change I made for the keyboard. You will have to excuse the music lol. It was a commercial or something on TV.

[yt]11pEE0UGQbU[/yt]