Getting a little too toasty for my liking

[agnes]

I've got 2x 360 PE radiators, each with 3x Noctua NF-A12x25's, under gaming load the fans spin at around 1500rpm and the pump is at 3000rpm. I'm cooling an overclocked Asus 3090 Strix OC and a OC i9-9900k (5.0ghz all cores). Previously, I used to cool a 2080 ti which sat around 60 and the water temps sat around 38C.

Now however, I can see my liquid creeping ever closer to 45C and my GPU hovers around 70C with the 3090...

Should I be looking at bringing in an additional radiator or maybe some more fans to bring in cooler air into the case? I'm running a Lian Li PC-011 XL, and like everyone else and their dog with this case, top and bottom rad, air in at the bottom, out at the top. With the rear exhaust pulling fresh air in (mainly to create a positive pressure), which is again the same fan as the rads.

Room temp is around 22C. You can see the stats below for each item.

As you can see here, the fan curve never really goes above 60%, but again, it never really went above 50% previously and I'm finding it hard that the 3090 should be adding that much heat into the loop. And if it is expected, what best to do next.

 

[wookiee87]

need to run your fans at higher rpm's i had a very similar setup fan and rad like you and found my noctua's needed to run minimum 1700rpm and ideally around 1900-2000rpm when my pc was under load, that was with a 5950x and a fe 3090 all under water, i have still got my ek pe 360mm rads still but have noctua pcc industrial 3000rpm fans which are a bit better than the nf-a12 i was running and you are running
I have my noctua pcc's runing around 1100-1300 at idle and ramp them upto around 1800-1900rpm max which does get a bit loud but it does keep my card around 54 degrees and thats with a gpu oc of +100 core and +1000 memory, plus i have my 5950x set to a all core 4.65ghz clock (temp never goes above 70 in games) and have my mobo vrm's in the same loop.

all in a lian li pc-011 dynamic case, if you still have bad thermals gpu wise it's worth taking ther block off and checking the thermal paste is making good contact, if not that may explain your horrid temps your seeing

 

[agnes]

need to run your fans at higher rpm's i had a very similar setup fan and rad like you and found my noctua's needed to run minimum 1700rpm and ideally around 1900-2000rpm when my pc was under load, that was with a 5950x and a fe 3090 all under water, i have still got my ek pe 360mm rads still but have noctua pcc industrial 3000rpm fans which are a bit better than the nf-a12 i was running and you are running
I have my noctua pcc's runing around 1100-1300 at idle and ramp them upto around 1800-1900rpm max which does get a bit loud but it does keep my card around 54 degrees and thats with a gpu oc of +100 core and +1000 memory, plus i have my 5950x set to a all core 4.65ghz clock (temp never goes above 70 in games) and have my mobo vrm's in the same loop.

all in a lian li pc-011 dynamic case, if you still have bad thermals gpu wise it's worth taking ther block off and checking the thermal paste is making good contact, if not that may explain your horrid temps your seeing

Thanks for the insight mate, I think the block is fine, with a hefty OC, I'd expect the 10C increase on the GPU core with the liquid being 5-7C higher than previously. I'm gonna crank up the fans a bit more. And I'm gonna get 4 more and do partial push pull config. Won't look good, but performance and silence are what I'm aiming for.

I might also get a smaller res, I've got a EKWB flat res that takes up the entire fan section on the right front area. So if I reduce that to a 120 size rather than the 360 size, I can get a bit more fresh air coming in.

 

[wookiee87]

Thanks for the insight mate, I think the block is fine, with a hefty OC, I'd expect the 10C increase on the GPU core with the liquid being 5-7C higher than previously. I'm gonna crank up the fans a bit more. And I'm gonna get 4 more and do partial push pull config. Won't look good, but performance and silence are what I'm aiming for.

I might also get a smaller res, I've got a EKWB flat res that takes up the entire fan section on the right front area. So if I reduce that to a 120 size rather than the 360 size, I can get a bit more fresh air coming in.

have you increased the power target of your card, i can go upto around 365w before i see temps spike up to around 60 under water, if i crank it to 115% that allows my fe card to pull 420w and yeah my card does get warm soo i stay clear, my fans ramp up over 2000rpm and it gets loud which isnt fun

i run a ek distro plate in my 011 dymanic on the right side and not noticed any real heat issues tbh, well after i replaced the ddc 3.1 10w pump that shipped with the plate, that thing was really bad so i bought a ddc 3.2 18w and the diffrence is massive

 

[maddog]

I had the same with 9900k 3090 in the o11 xl, I added a third rad with 10 fans total, it made little difference, only took 2c off water temp.
If you want overclocking and silence you need a proper airflow case or mount your rads outside of case.

 

[TT158]

I assume you're using the full 500W that the Strix allows, and the cpu is maybe 100W while gaming (I'm assuming that's what you're doing here)?

I've just put together an O11D XL, 5800x and 3090 FE with 64, 54, and 30mm thick rads. Less power than you're dealing with, but water temp is around 32 while stress testing (approx 550W) at what I guessed to be around 22 degrees earlier in the week, that's with 14 fans on the rads at 1,500 to 1,700 rpm. Lots of air but not a bad sound (unlike the coil whine). GPU temp at about 43 degrees.

I would think an extra rad could really help you when you're pushing the limit of those two PEs and your water temp is so far from ambient.

I'd be curious to know what the GPU temperature is if you limit it to 400W, as that delta between water temp and GPU temp is a lot higher than I've experienced.

I think some people do a flat 120 res on the rear fan mount, which would free up your side mount for a rad. Quite a lot of change though. Hopefully more fans and more rpms helps out.

 

[hlennie]

why on earth would u use PE rads their far to slim for your needs even in the 011 air I used 2 x 54mm rads side and top and now using the xl as i wanted the front distro plate 54mm top and bottom side intake fans

 

[Drumroll]

If the coolant is getting that hot, I would discard GPU block contact issue. The heat is being transferred.
The issue is the OCed GPU. Would be much more heat than the 2080TI.
Faster fan would help at some degree, but wouldnt be as efficient helping your temp as more rad area would.
If you were running your fans at 40%, 50%, running slightly faster would help, but if you're already at 60%, going faster won't be a night and day difference.
Had previously 3 Alphacool XT45 360 using the same case as you O11 XL. Top and rear exhaust, bottom and side intake.
The best scenario was the loop order, which shouldn't affect a lot, but at least for me did.
Pump/reservoir, bottom rad, GPU, Monoblock, top rad, side rad, pump/reservoir.
The reason is because the coolant would be hotter after the blocks, them exhausted by the top rad. The other two rads would be mainly reducing the coolant temperature as much as possible.
Tried to do different orders, but them the top rad would at some scenarios would even warm the coolant (leaving hotter than it entered).
Loop order doesn't matter, at some extent. But if the coolant temperature is too close to.ambient (had a delta 5ish C), if the rad before the blocks is using hotter air, their efficiency would be affected.
If really going for 3 rads, may be a lot of headache deciding how to run your tubing, but totally ignore the need of one rad between blocks (maximum difference of coolant temperature I was able to measure, in and out was 2C, and maybe running the pump faster would be less). Try to run to your blocks, them to the exhausting rad, and use the other rads as intake to reduce the temperature even more and brig cooler air inside the case, than you would if the rad after the blocks were dumping all the hot air inside the case.

 

[agnes]

have you increased the power target of your card, i can go upto around 365w before i see temps spike up to around 60 under water, if i crank it to 115% that allows my fe card to pull 420w and yeah my card does get warm soo i stay clear, my fans ramp up over 2000rpm and it gets loud which isnt fun

i run a ek distro plate in my 011 dymanic on the right side and not noticed any real heat issues tbh, well after i replaced the ddc 3.1 10w pump that shipped with the plate, that thing was really bad so i bought a ddc 3.2 18w and the diffrence is massive

I had the same with 9900k 3090 in the o11 xl, I added a third rad with 10 fans total, it made little difference, only took 2c off water temp.
If you want overclocking and silence you need a proper airflow case or mount your rads outside of case.

I assume you're using the full 500W that the Strix allows, and the cpu is maybe 100W while gaming (I'm assuming that's what you're doing here)?

I've just put together an O11D XL, 5800x and 3090 FE with 64, 54, and 30mm thick rads. Less power than you're dealing with, but water temp is around 32 while stress testing (approx 550W) at what I guessed to be around 22 degrees earlier in the week, that's with 14 fans on the rads at 1,500 to 1,700 rpm. Lots of air but not a bad sound (unlike the coil whine). GPU temp at about 43 degrees.

I would think an extra rad could really help you when you're pushing the limit of those two PEs and your water temp is so far from ambient.

I'd be curious to know what the GPU temperature is if you limit it to 400W, as that delta between water temp and GPU temp is a lot higher than I've experienced.

I think some people do a flat 120 res on the rear fan mount, which would free up your side mount for a rad. Quite a lot of change though. Hopefully more fans and more rpms helps out.

If the coolant is getting that hot, I would discard GPU block contact issue. The heat is being transferred.
The issue is the OCed GPU. Would be much more heat than the 2080TI.
Faster fan would help at some degree, but wouldnt be as efficient helping your temp as more rad area would.
If you were running your fans at 40%, 50%, running slightly faster would help, but if you're already at 60%, going faster won't be a night and day difference.
Had previously 3 Alphacool XT45 360 using the same case as you O11 XL. Top and rear exhaust, bottom and side intake.
The best scenario was the loop order, which shouldn't affect a lot, but at least for me did.
Pump/reservoir, bottom rad, GPU, Monoblock, top rad, side rad, pump/reservoir.
The reason is because the coolant would be hotter after the blocks, them exhausted by the top rad. The other two rads would be mainly reducing the coolant temperature as much as possible.
Tried to do different orders, but them the top rad would at some scenarios would even warm the coolant (leaving hotter than it entered).
Loop order doesn't matter, at some extent. But if the coolant temperature is too close to.ambient (had a delta 5ish C), if the rad before the blocks is using hotter air, their efficiency would be affected.
If really going for 3 rads, may be a lot of headache deciding how to run your tubing, but totally ignore the need of one rad between blocks (maximum difference of coolant temperature I was able to measure, in and out was 2C, and maybe running the pump faster would be less). Try to run to your blocks, them to the exhausting rad, and use the other rads as intake to reduce the temperature even more and brig cooler air inside the case, than you would if the rad after the blocks were dumping all the hot air inside the case.

Thanks all for the responses, I've spent the weekend away from the PC so didn't do any testing, the only thing I've done is adjust my fan curves to spin up to speed quicker and more aggressively. This is a bodge for now though, back when I had the 2080 ti, the rads were enough. To respond to the question, I've maxed GPU voltage and also run at zero gain on voltage as well and the difference is around 6-8C. My tests have only been in a couple of games, this week I'm going to run some proper numbers with true ambient recorded at the same time and I'm just gonna add another sensor onto the aquasuite for external temp.

I have been thinking about the PC whilst out and about this weekend, one thought crossed my mind. With the flat res (it's not a dedicated distro res, just this oh and I have also upgraded the pump as the original one that came with the res started to fail and it was not that great to begin with) I might actually remove it entirely, and instead fit another 360 rad there and have a tube res/pump combo mounted to the front of said rad... I don't know, I need to sit down and work out what is best. But again, thanks for the responses, it gives me an idea of where to start looking and testing.

Oh, additionally, I have the same loop order:

Res > Pump > Bottom Rad > GPU > CPU > Top Rad > Res. Bottom fans intake from the bottom, rear fan intakes for positive pressure and a bit of fresh air for the top rad. And top rad exhausts.

why on earth would u use PE rads their far to slim for your needs even in the 011 air I used 2 x 54mm rads side and top and now using the xl as i wanted the front distro plate 54mm top and bottom side intake fans

It took me several attempts to read through the beginning of your sentence until I understood what you was saying, maybe work on basic gramma? Join in the conversation next time rather than come in guns blazing

 

[Evil-I]

Sounds like your loop is just not really setup for the extra heat the 3090 kicks out. Depending on your OC and Vbios I think the strix can pull 500 watts and all that heat has to go somewhere... Others correct me if I'm wrong but I think the 2080ti only pulled about 250-280 watts? So the 3090 is like running 2 x 2080's...

I'm not really familiar with your rads or your case, but on a quick google it certainly looks pretty restrictive on air flow. Maybe you either need thicker rads or a less restrictive case (or just faster moving fans to create more air flow in the case...)

To put it in context I've got an overclocked Ryzen 9 5950x and the Asus RTX3090 EK edition and with the current overclock the GPU consistently boosts above 2000Mhz (2100 most of the time) with over 10050 memory but my temperature never goes above about 45 after a prolonged gaming session (I think the power limit on my card is a fair lump lower than the strix though at 380watts?). The difference is I've got both a 480 and 560 Black ice SR1 radiator (pretty fat old rads) and a very good airflow case running 4 x 140mm fans an 8 x 120mm.

Another thought, i also use an aquero and aquasuite, after trying many different ways of controlling things I've found using the value from a temperature probe on the front of intake fans subtracted from the water temperature as my fan controller temp (so a virtual sensor). Basically delta t (difference between ambient temp and water temp). That's set between a minimum of 0 to maximum of 7 on mine and I pretty much never get above 3 degrees delta.

My pump (PWM D5) runs from a combined and averaged temp (another virtual temp sensor) between my cpu and gpu, so that starts to ramp up if both are being hit pretty hard but less so if only one is.

After about 5 years of running this loop setup and control I've found that the best balance of cooling control versus noise.

Oh and on loop order, it's nowhere near as important as people think. If you're running a decent pump and haven't got a ridiculously restrictive loop the flow speed of the water makes order pretty irrelevant. People like Jayz 2 cents and various others have shown this on lots of videos and I agree. My loop order is D5 pump res combo --- rtx3090 --- 5950x/ Mobo monoblock --- 480 rad --- 560 rad -- and back to pump res. I used to run various water temp sensors and only saw about a 1-2 degree increase in temp between the outlet of my second rad and inlet on my first (hottest point). Now i just run the one water temp for my delta for fan control.

 

[Evil-I]

Never able to get image linking working on OC...

Pic of my aquasuite controllers below...

HERE

E-I

 

[agnes]

Sounds like your loop is just not really setup for the extra heat the 3090 kicks out. Depending on your OC and Vbios I think the strix can pull 500 watts and all that heat has to go somewhere... Others correct me if I'm wrong but I think the 2080ti only pulled about 250-280 watts? So the 3090 is like running 2 x 2080's...

I'm not really familiar with your rads or your case, but on a quick google it certainly looks pretty restrictive on air flow. Maybe you either need thicker rads or a less restrictive case (or just faster moving fans to create more air flow in the case...)

To put it in context I've got an overclocked Ryzen 9 5950x and the Asus RTX3090 EK edition and with the current overclock the GPU consistently boosts above 2000Mhz (2100 most of the time) with over 10050 memory but my temperature never goes above about 45 after a prolonged gaming session (I think the power limit on my card is a fair lump lower than the strix though at 380watts?). The difference is I've got both a 480 and 560 Black ice SR1 radiator (pretty fat old rads) and a very good airflow case running 4 x 140mm fans an 8 x 120mm.

Another thought, i also use an aquero and aquasuite, after trying many different ways of controlling things I've found using the value from a temperature probe on the front of intake fans subtracted from the water temperature as my fan controller temp (so a virtual sensor). Basically delta t (difference between ambient temp and water temp). That's set between a minimum of 0 to maximum of 7 on mine and I pretty much never get above 3 degrees delta.

My pump (PWM D5) runs from a combined and averaged temp (another virtual temp sensor) between my cpu and gpu, so that starts to ramp up if both are being hit pretty hard but less so if only one is.

After about 5 years of running this loop setup and control I've found that the best balance of cooling control versus noise.

Oh and on loop order, it's nowhere near as important as people think. If you're running a decent pump and haven't got a ridiculously restrictive loop the flow speed of the water makes order pretty irrelevant. People like Jayz 2 cents and various others have shown this on lots of videos and I agree. My loop order is D5 pump res combo --- rtx3090 --- 5950x/ Mobo monoblock --- 480 rad --- 560 rad -- and back to pump res. I used to run various water temp sensors and only saw about a 1-2 degree increase in temp between the outlet of my second rad and inlet on my first (hottest point). Now i just run the one water temp for my delta for fan control.

Never able to get image linking working on OC...

Pic of my aquasuite controllers below...

HERE

E-I

This is super helpful! Never thought of the delta idea in Aquasuite, I've got a bunch of temp probes sat spare, so I'll try this out over the week. And I'm running the same clocks on my 3090 as well, a little higher memory but that's by the by. I've just been playing games for the past 4-5 hours and my GPU is averaging around 70C and liquid temps at 41.5C. Room is around 21C I'd say, so yea, the rads are just not up to snuff for this build I'd say. The fans have great CFM so I'm not concerned they are falling short.

I think my best bet at this point, is to add a 3rd radiator. Push pull is something I'll consider, but seeing as it's only really beneficial at high rpms, I'll probably skip.

 

[hlennie]

@agnes Was not guns blazing it was a serious question? from the reviews every one knew that the 3090 was little bit of a bonfire hence the need for larger rads. so wondered why u went for small rads when u can clearly fit larger ones in.

push pull only good for rads 60mm plus unless u like jet engines. u could put a 54mm in the side.

For reference my 10900KF 5.1 all cores with my 2080ti @ no more than 43C, water temp never higher than 30C with 2 x 360mm x 54mm rads 21C ambient.

my bad thought it read u had non XL in that case 54mm every where so yeah i would get that extra rad in side with fans in-taking.

have u thought of the front distro plate expensive i know but well worth it?

 

[agnes]

@agnes Was not guns blazing it was a serious question? from the reviews every one knew that the 3090 was little bit of a bonfire hence the need for larger rads. so wondered why u went for small rads when u can clearly fit larger ones in.

push pull only good for rads 60mm plus unless u like jet engines. u could put a 54mm in the side.

For reference my 10900KF 5.1 all cores with my 2080ti @ no more than 43C, water temp never higher than 30C with 2 x 360mm x 54mm rads 21C ambient.

my bad thought it read u had non XL in that case 54mm every where so yeah i would get that extra rad in side with fans in-taking.

have u thought of the front distro plate expensive i know but well worth it?

I have been thinking about it aye, makes the most sense... Honestly, I knew the 3090 would run a little hotter... But not this much haha.

I'm gonna sit down and run through the options this morning and get some stuff ordered.

 

[agnes]

Updates, I've ordered 3x more Noctua NF-A12x25's to do a push pull on the bottom radiator for now. I've also ordered a EK XE 360 to replace the bottom radiator and will also run this in push pull and leave the top radiator as is (3x Noctua NF-A12x25's and a EK PE 360). If the new solution still isn't enough, I'll order a different res and start looking at adding in the previous EK PE as a third rad.

Wish me luck

 

[wookiee87]

@agnes have you tried running your top rad fans at higher rpm's to deal with the heat output, i have mine set so cool air is dragged up from the bottom through my rad into the case and then expelled out the top via the fans and rad which are there, i run the top fans a bit faster (1900rpm max) under load to deal with the heat and have the bottom set of fans running around (1500rpm), when my pc stops gaming and sits idle all the fans back down to 1200-1300rpm and its super cool my gpu at idel is 26 degrees and my cpu sits around 37-42 degrees, vs load temp of 54 degrees gpu and 68 degrees cpu

will say my fe 3090 is overclocked to +100 core and +1000 ram and i have a 105% power target which lets the card run at 365w max, i see core clocks of around 2040-2070mhz under load

 

[turbot1984]

With the rear exhaust pulling fresh air in (mainly to create a positive pressure),

? Not sure i would do that.

 

[agnes]

? Not sure i would do that.

Tried both ways and couldn't see a difference, I'll be honest, at first I wasn't sure but this far. It's worked fine (ignoring my current conundrum).

@agnes have you tried running your top rad fans at higher rpm's to deal with the heat output, i have mine set so cool air is dragged up from the bottom through my rad into the case and then expelled out the top via the fans and rad which are there, i run the top fans a bit faster (1900rpm max) under load to deal with the heat and have the bottom set of fans running around (1500rpm), when my pc stops gaming and sits idle all the fans back down to 1200-1300rpm and its super cool my gpu at idel is 26 degrees and my cpu sits around 37-42 degrees, vs load temp of 54 degrees gpu and 68 degrees cpu

will say my fe 3090 is overclocked to +100 core and +1000 ram and i have a 105% power target which lets the card run at 365w max, i see core clocks of around 2040-2070mhz under load

I've toyed around with multiple options in terms of fan speeds. Even busted out a smoke machine to chase air blows and confirm everything is working fine.

I've also been looking at my OC on the GPU and without the power target in place, it drops around 10C. But... Why buy the best of the best and not OC it

 

[wookiee87]

Tried both ways and couldn't see a difference, I'll be honest, at first I wasn't sure but this far. It's worked fine (ignoring my current conundrum).



I've toyed around with multiple options in terms of fan speeds. Even busted out a smoke machine to chase air blows and confirm everything is working fine.

I've also been looking at my OC on the GPU and without the power target in place, it drops around 10C. But... Why buy the best of the best and not OC it

you can still overclock the card plenty and not need a 500w power target, i just found with my card going over 400w just made things run warm for no reason and clocks were below 2000mhz in many instances under load so i was loosing performance, with the 3000 series you have to find the happy ground rather than maxing things out and hope it works, its worth a try at least, try a coule of power targets say 360w and 380w and see what works you may find clocks are higher and more stable too at a lower power target

 

[hlennie]

@agnes my 2080ti actually clocked higher with a lower power setting and less heat out put not having had the chance to try the 3000 series yet ( in the evga step up Que for 3090) do they do the same thing or are they just different beast regardless of power settings?

The bigger rad should make a big difference to your temps and can be used with low speed fans.

all this has got me thinking I might add a slim to my side so making it whisper quite but will have to use motherboard stand offs because of the front distro plate.

https://ibb.co/D8D56LP