Advice on watercooling rig for O/C Threadripper 3990X + 3080Ti [CHESS]

[ChessGM]

Hello world.

It is 15 years since I last built a water-cooled PC. The new one I am raring to build, which I want to last me a very long time, will have three uses:
(1) General purpose, including demanding commercial use, iinvolving pro video editing and content creation, petaflop-level science/maths computations
(2) Chess research
(3) Video gaming and home cinema

Strict budget, incl VAT: £10,000 or £6,500 plus the CPU.

I assume that people are less familiar with the proposed use (2).
For chess research:
a) The higher the clock rate (CPU and GPU), the better. No limits!
b) The higher the core count (CPU and CUDA cores for GPU), the better. No limits!
c) The more and faster the DRAM available, the better. No limits!
d) The faster the SSD's read speed, the better, as look-up tables are used. No limits!

The best chess programs now use hybrid technology, a mix of conventional tree search (CPU used) and neural network (both CPU and GPU used). If you're interested, here's some reading material
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Stockfish_NNUE
but if you've no time, please assume I know what I'm up to in this.

Lighting and looks are totally irrelevant to me.

PROPOSED SPECIFICATION
With notes along the way (explaining my choices) and my questions at the end.

CPU AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, sTRX4 Zen2 64C/128T 2.9GHz/4.3GHz OVERCLOCKED PCIe4.0
using Arctic MX-4 Enthusiast Thermal Paste (1.2g)
Note: For chess, the dearer AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3995WX Pro is 10% slower, negating its 2TB RAM advantage

LIQ Custom liquid cooling system - HELP!
Note: I don't have a clue, other than the AIO liquid coolers will be hopelessly inadequate; see questions

MOB Asus ROG ZENITH II EXTREME ALPHA E-ATX sTRX4 Motherboard

RAM 256GB Corsair Vengeance LPX (8 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16
Note: To get to the 256GB max for CPU & 8-slot MOB, 32GB modules are needed; see questions

GPU Asus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12GB ROG STRIX LC GAMING OC Video Card
Note: See questions about Nvidia's anti-crypto-mining LHR (Lite Hash Rate)

SSD 2TB Samsung 980 PRO M.2 PCIe Gen 4. x4, NVME 1.3C Elpis 3D NAND, 7K Read, 5K Write, 1M+ IOPS
Note: The 980 Pro has the fastest read speed

HDD 18TB Western Digital Ultrastar HC550 3.5" SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 512MB Cache

CAS Thermaltake Level 20 XT E-ATX Cube, mATX, mITX, Black, 2xUSB3.0 2xUSB2.0 4x4mm glass panels
Note: The dream location - backing on to direct vents to the outdoors - has a strict 673mm height restriction. Fans?

PSU 1200W Corsair HX Platinum 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Note: The calculators say 1000W is enough, but I'm very sceptical, Tradeoff with the need for a quiet system

VDU 28" iiyama G-Master GB2888UHSU 4K HD LED 3840x2160 300cd/m2 1000:1, GTG 1ms
Note: Open to suggestions - I can get this one really cheap

O/S Microsoft Windows 10 Professional, 64-bit English
Note: I am likely to use dual boot; but for general purpose use, I have to run the hated Windoze


QUESTIONS - starting with the most important ones

Cooling system - I need specific detailed recommendations for all the liquid cooling components, please! Note whatever fits on the 3990X must cover the whole of the top plate, ruling out the round thingies. This brute CPU, OC'd, is more demanding than anything else current.
Yes, I've read https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/custom-loop-guide-how-to-watercool-your-pc.18290835/
note my gpu choice, when it becomes available again, has its own dedicated liquid cooler.
is this a good idea, or should i loop it in to the main liquid cooling system? if so, please include the extra components needed with your suggestions.

case and fans - suggestions for fans? you'll know from what's above i want to draw air in from the back. here's the case specs: https://uk.thermaltake.com/level-20-xt.html - is there a better case than the Thermaltake Level 20 XT which meets the 673mm height restriction? When playing video games or watching movies, I need a QUIET PC. As looks/lighting are unimportant, the glass panels aren't a plus. I need sound-damping, if anything.

RAM - AFAIK, there's no DDR4-3600 made in 32GB modules, hence the DDR4-3200. Is there a problem lurking here re OVERCLOCKING since I need the full 256GB?
I've read that running the system RAM-unbalanced will force me to throttle. Say a horrifically expensive 3600MHz 32GB module is imminent, and I buy say just two - will I get stability issues on OC?

GPU - See https://www.techpowerup.com/282739/nvidia-rtx-3080-ti-3060-lhr-tested-in-cryptomining-workloads for the effects of LHR, the Nvidia anti-crypto-mining modification. I'm unsure whether this could have an adverse effect on the use of the GPU for chess neural networks. No information yet on the computer chess forums.

VDU - Is it good enough?

And - of course - what is it that I've missed out, or failed to consider?

Thanks in advance for your time and expertise!

 

[ChessGM]

Paging @Vince for opinions on high stick count Threadripper speeds. IIRC he couldn't overclock the memory speed that far with all 8 slot populated

Thanks.
This is potentially bad news for me - using the full 256GB of RAM capacity of the CPU is a must. Both the chess and the scientific software that modularises the processing, using all 64 cores (maybe 128 threads) requires a fair amount of RAM per process. 256GB sounds enormous but 4GB per core is, well, Windoze XP territory!
I will DM Vince now.

Case - 673mm is remarkable tall for a case so I'm not sure why you're attached to that one. I'd focus on one with good radiator support and room for water cooling if you are focused on function over fashion. Phanteks make some nice roomy cases with this in mind.

When I ran my requirements past a custom builder, both the cases they recommended exceeded that limit:
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 1000D FULL TOWER CASE 693mm
THERMALTAKE TOWER 900 FULL VERTICAL GAMING CASE 752mm
I will look at the Phanteks cases. Any other suggestions?
Ideally, I would look for a case capable of housing the maximum single radiator size, i.e. 480mm. Am I correct it is the maximum, and this is the best way?

Cooling: well, IMO either go with a full custom loop that's over-specced for silence, or go for that graphics card and a TRX compatible all-in-one. The former offers extra capacity, the latter is cheaper and less likely to cause downtime. That said, I've only ever experienced downtime in my PC when doing planned servicing of the loop.

Actually, the premium for the 3080Ti with dedicated loop is huge (only one model that comes with that) and availability may be very poor. So a full loop is attractive. Please see above re the radiator size.

Storage: how big are the datasets you work with for chess?

The maximum is 1TB but read-only. The filesizes for the video editing, R/W obviously, are typically 20GB but lots of them.

N.B. Welcome to the forums

Thanks!!

 

[ChessGM]

You want a Threadripper Pro 3995WX, not a Threadripper 3990X as the latter is limited to 256 GB

Thanks, but you missed the small italics below:

CPU AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, sTRX4 Zen2 64C/128T 2.9GHz/4.3GHz OVERCLOCKED PCIe4.0
using Arctic MX-4 Enthusiast Thermal Paste (1.2g)
Note: For chess, the dearer AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3995WX Pro is 10% slower, negating its 2TB RAM advantage

FTAOD, that's 10% slower even after allowing for the benefit of 8x more RAM and better on-chip handling. So, I'm not going to double total spending for a 10% reduction in speed.
Why the 3995WX Pro is inferior to the 3990X for this application, I'm not sure, but it's been verified in many benchmarks, both by enthusiasts and by hardware professionals using Stockfish (chess program) as the test.

 

[ChessGM]

A single 480mm radiator is not optimal in my opinion. I have had extremely good results with using a relatively small (e.g. 280mm) radiator in the roof as an exhaust before bringing the coolant to a 420mm or 360mm rad in the front as an intake

Thanks.
Given that for me unending supply of cool/cold air will be to the REAR of the case, please see the question below.

I wouldn't try to use a custom loop with a GPU-AIO as well. Messy and inefficient.

So all in one loop, then.
What should be the sequence/order of water flow?
I mean, like this:
CPU plate --> Pump/reservoir --> Top rad --> GPU --> Back big rad
Or?[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[ChessGM]

Sequence doesn't really matter but think of a typical case. You put a big rad in the front, a smaller one in the roof. You attach the pump/res to the back of the front rad. Pump pushes to the gpu, then the cpu, then the top rad. Don't worry that the CPU will get "heated coolant" as it's not really how loops work.

Thanks, undersood (and good-looking rig too).
But since my cool-air supply is from the rear, I take it big rad in the back rather than front for me, right?

 

[ChessGM]

You are right, on x399 official support for 8 dimms was 2133mhz, anything over this when fully populated is an overclock. Populated with 4 dimms official support was 3200mhz. I can run 3200 with all 8 sticks but it puts so much heat into the board/chip that it isn't worth it. 2933 is doable fairly easily with both stability and manageable heat. I'm just in the process of ordering some 3000 series TR parts so I can report back on this but there isn't anything in the manual for the board im looking at that suggests it's not fully capable of 3200mhz with all 8 dimms populated.

Thanks! Understood.

1) Which mobo?

2) Which CPU has your testing been with so far?

3) Can you suggest what individual cooling loop components I need to order, given that
(a) I want a top-plate or whatever it's called that covers the whole of the 3990X, and not a circle within it;
(b) As others have pointed out, one custom loop involving a 3080Ti GPU too.

 

[ChessGM]

I did miss that but I'm dubious: the 3995WX shouldn't be slower if you have sufficient RAM as RAM is far faster than a NVME drive and the WX has increased memory bandwidth thanks to using all 8 slots in a single bank. If they were testing 128 GB vs 128 GB and a 1 TB dataset I could believe it from the lower clock speeds, but with 512 GB or 1 TB RAM? I'm dubious.

Here's your answer from a non-chess source:

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/amd-threadripper-pro-3995wx-review/4
Tom's Hardware is neutral and generally reliable/knowledgeable.

And other comparisons (X vs WX Pro) show slightly bigger differentials. It may be because of chess code optimisations for the 39*0X processors, or something else.
All comparisons are at stock (i.e., non-O/C) clock speeds.
There is no RAM specified for the 3990X because the benchmark results for it were not sensitive to amount of RAM.

 

[ChessGM]

no case that I know of has much space at the rear for radiators. the only way to have a radiator at the rear that can think of is to turn the case round. alternatively simply have an external radiator backing onto the external vents (I assume you mean external vents of your room? please explain if I'm misunderstanding).

Thanks. You've understood correctly.
An external rad is far too messy. Furry animals may be about.
Putting the case back to front isn't good because of cabling. I better research cases for "large rad size at back".

 

[ChessGM]

Thanks

To directly answer your ram question 3600mhz fully populated is an overclock and probably more than the memory controller can cope with across all 8 dimms. Have you considered threadripper pro?

No, as it's slower on chess benchmarks than the 3990X; please see above. Reasons unclear.

Cooling wise if you are going custom loop id probably go middle of the line and buy the EK Velocity:
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Velocity sTR4 D-RGB Threadripper CPU Water Block - Nickel + Plexi= £94.99

Total: £103.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

Thanks. I'll go for that one.

As for the rest of the loop it depends if you want hardline, soft tube... as well as what else is going on in the case and how much you want to spend. Things like distribution boards can look awesome in more complex rigs

Looks are totally unimportant to me. Speed/power and durability are.
I've read the sticky on this - but which would you say is better suited to my needs, hardline or soft?