down sizing i7 860

orbitalwalsh

orbitalwalsh

orbitalwalsh

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Well, seems im to be a father for a second time which leads to the bad news of having to move my desk out of the 2nd bedroom were the first spawn sleeps to make way next year.

Currently rocking a TJ07 and in a 2 bedroom 62m squared house, space is tight and so is the cash- story of everyone really :D

so the i7 860 bought from Launch date in a Second hand ROG 3 Formula with 16GB of DDR3 is moving into a small home to fit on my wife's desk.
Find a small case without having to buy a second hand p55 mATX was a bit of a mission, until I saw a deal on the Jonsbo UMX4- b grade!!! Having used the UMX3 for clients I knew the quality is that of the Silverstone.

Coming in at 37.97 Litres I believe its one of the smallest Volume ATX cases out there, the TJ07 was 69.6 Litres.



Plans are to keep it quiet so will be sticking with water.

beQuiet Silent Loop 240 to cool the CPU with fans being changed to SilentWings 3, this will be set up top to Extract with the rear set to intake, full speed being a PureWing 120

Strix 480 to replace the GTX 960 4GB since i Have a 1440p screen, and so down the wife. Will be using the Strix ability to control PWM fans to drive the bottom fans, which will be SilentWing 2's.

Hoping the fac AMD handle's DX12 better will help off load the old i7 860 running at 4.6Ghz.
Keep seeing all these bench marks of DX12 vs 11 being use don Skylakes and Devils...which is great and all but most machines on steam are rocking a lot older CPUs, so I see this as a real test for DX12!
Might go with a GTX 1060, depends- either option will be watercooled with an alpha block, thinking of using EKWB Predator 240 at the bottom ( in the wrong orientation) to drive the GPU in its own loop, whilst using the STRIX fan controller to control the pump and fan speed :D

PSU is a B-grade Corsair AX 750 Plat so if I go 480 will crossfire it later (im lucky, i get it at trade price so second reason why i'll use the Strix)

current old dog







Thermochill pa120.4 in the bottom :D classic icon!
 
so, left with 3 options since I've lost the stock backplate for the LGA 1156 as I had EBWK MX block that need the stock removed =/

option 1)

Use the Eisbeacher 250 I have and get a D5 pump since i currently use a DDC, or get the 250 DDC version and add the current pump.
Avoid the RX 480 Strix idea, get another Zotac 1060 and use the Free GPX block and hook it all up together with a 240 at the top.



Option 2)

Waiting to see how ebay goes from a 980 Ti Strix and just run the Eisbeacher to the CPU block

Option 3)

Go balls deep and get a Strix 1060 and hooked it up to an Eiswolf GPU which can power the CPU block and 240 rad.
When I do change Mobo and CPU in a year or two, stick the Eisbaer on the CPU to run its down loop.

***Option 4***

Just get the Eisbaer and see if the MX screw will work with the CPU top bracket and will screw down into the MX backplate, if not, cut off the 4 arms and use the Correct backplate.
The have the option to add any Gpu with quick-disconnects or allow it in its own system

will be running a few Different GPUs over time so trying to figure the best method =/

anyone wanting to buy a Zotac 3/6GB GTX 1060 water block? may help my choices

***trying to work out if I used the Eisbear/Silent Loop unit with the MX plate and spring loaded screws, in theory it should hold the block down with pressure, may need to have it tightened more or less... curious to find out
 
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Well GPU is solved, STRIX 980 Ti has been won on eBay.
Seems I'll be selling the Zotac waterblock if anyone's interested. Unfortunately don't have access to members market so will be on the Bay tomorrow .

Will get the Silent Loop 240 for up top and cut the backplate down
 
Cenedd said:
I prefer the other option you presented: Feline cooling! ;-)
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nothing like running 3D Mark and having a cat on top off the case to bring temps to MAX!

980ti comes tomorrow, 1080 on the 5th but seems will be put on hold for a client build for an xmas gift. Christ i havent gamed fro 7 months! now looks like 8 after xmas at this rate :(

although seems like a fun build, doing as a bit of a promo so £750 of an i5 6600 and rx 480 4GB. one Very happy father :)
 
got around to getting better snaps :)







Its stated max height of 52mm up top for fans and Rad. Have see builds with 30mm rad and fans work fine, but very very tight!
Current fans that are pre-installed are 20mm





the 980 Ti fits like a glove.....



Will have to get a snap of the case next to the ACER 27" Predator and TJ07 to highlight its size :)

will see how the 980Ti hold up with sound, may add sound proof material to the door, but could stick a AIO/ G10 on there

beQuiet 240 Silent Loop turns up today along with 3 Pure Wing 2 Fans for the 3 intakes ( 2 bottom & 1 rear)
 
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beQuiet gear arrived yesterday, managed to grab some snaps and installed for placement, damn thats close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!









Something about the brushed metal effect I love, and yep, not Windows in the build so case has to look the part all the time :)





Rad space:

Its going to be very tight, seems any motherboard with VRM heat sinks flush at the top of the board may not work- or would have to be very low profile. Same goes with the 8 pin power, current board the Formula 3- its flush with the top.... time will tell



 
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Cenedd said:
Looks good. Heatsinks will likely fit with a touch of Dremel persuasion!
Obvious question: is "Silent Loop" an accurate name?!
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Have to see, Haven't used the Eiswolf Pumps set but can run at 7/12w through header. Eisbaer wasn't to bad at 12w but silent at 7 although was poorly filled!

3rd picture from bottom, can see the fill port next to the power lead, will make sure the rad is flat down and that at highest point and top up.

Alphacool had to have quality control rechecked on the Eisbaer units due to poor filling

***** Easy solution if it clashes with this board or any other board in the near future****



should space it out away from the mother board but not add to much height

 
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harvey.l12 said:
That case is really clean, nice build
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Thanks :D cant wait to have it done

Cenedd said:
Just don't mount the rad with the ports at the bottom like they've done in the picture. Right pain in the whatsit to get the air out as it has to get to the bottom to leave the rad. It's possible if you HAVE to, but don't chose to do it the hard way.
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Sorry, will still be inside the case at the top. the Z bracket would just bring it out a bit more. The fans are mounted very close to the motherboard tray :(

Would drop the unit by 20mm but could make all the difference. wouldn't look pretty but again, havent got the Glass version :)

or if all else fails, it goes on the bottom and top & rear fans turn into exhausts
 
Cenedd said:
Would a fan work as a spacer? More like 25mm but might be narrow enough to clear and would give you either push/pull or just single fan with case, fan, rad.
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No, needs to be brought out closer to the side panel. Fans are mounted dead center of case but with the gap behind the mobo tray, fans sit inline withe the mobo :(

Will need to reuse my fan cards too
 
Cenedd said:
Ah, I see. So you're trying to move the top rad and its fans sideways, away from the motherboard tray. The dropping it down is just an unwanted side-effect.
If you do that, you'll probably want some sort of shroud between the rad and the case so that the hot air goes out and doesn't get pulled back into the case.
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Correct, my poor explanation .

I have a feeling it'll work fine for this Maximum iii board and current viii and pending 9 boards, which is great as I can produce Strixly BeQuiet in ATX form like I did with the mATX UMX4. Difference being this is my build so a SOC Force or Aoura board will be going in and they have heatsinks in line with the edge of the board :(

Hopefully can get away with the shroud, hoping warm air rising, rear acting as intake and PSU at the top left also exhausting will help the air out of the top along with positive pressure .

Might just have to take the blow and use the rad at the bottom, again no glass panel so can't see it, just hope it works for Asus boards
 
Ghetto mod!

Due to me losing the stock LGA backplate and not changing mobo just yet, nor wanting to hack off the arms. I went to see if i could hybrid mount the Silent Loop using the EKWB mounts...
Also means I can sell the Formula iii, i7 860 , 16GB and EKWB block in one go :D





Not perfect but works. Means I can moved the mother board into test clearance issues with ASUS boards. Gigabyte Boards will be a different story when I come to upgrade.


Runs 4Ghz constantly , room temp was between 21-24c. will have to stress to make sure mount is ok.

Size difference between the TJ07 and the UMX



 
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Wife ordered me to retrieve the xmas decorations from the shed last night an stumbled upon the box that had the stock LGA backplate! Thank **** for that!

Manged to rip out of the TJ07 and placed into the UMX4 for placement testing... Bad news in terms of this board having the AIO up top.



Forgot to take a snap of the distance between the intake fans at the bottom and the motherboard. mATX might be a choice for larger Rads and have clearance for motherboard cables.



Just fits over caps! Another motherboard with the Heatsink flush with the top of the motherboard will not work with a 30mm AIO up top.
Nor with the 8 Pin flush as well.





I've seen an ASUS Z170-A fit in the UMX4 housing a Corsair GT100i (30mm 240 rad), so it looks like the newer Asus boards have their 8 pin slightly lower, Heatsink is in about the same location.

I might just stick the 20mm fan provided ( came with m4 screws to correct length) and replace the fan over the 8pin. Again no Window in this case.
UMX4 rules out Gigabyte and same ASRock boards using AIO from the likes of Alphacool/beQuiet/Corsair that use 30mm + thick rads.
EK should work as a replacement and might swap around to it, would just give enough clearance of 4mm. Have to see the Fin density over the Alphacool 240 rad.

******
Just check Z170 images of a few vendors. Looks like im going to hack come of the plastic off the Bottom left brace and maybe a chip off the ring housing :D

****************
EK SE 240 ordered.... Can keep the rad for other things in the future. Really dont want to be running the AIO at the bottom and hacking fan may not work. Also hoping I can attach the temp sensor plug I had on the old loop to the fill port in the CPU unit.
 
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EKWB SE 240 turned up on my lunch break





Just gain access to the CPU 8 Pin but still very close. Also the orientation in the pictures are with the bards facing the right towards the PSU. the SE is a little longer then the Alphacool ST and didn't line up very well with the mounting hole.
Will have to be flipped around and may have some clearance issues with the rear 120 fan. Ordered a 90 8/11 compression fitting for the near side , so will see how that gets along.
Looks like the Z270 of ASUS boards have the 8 Pin high up top, Hoping ZEN boards have it slightly lower. If not a 120/45mm will have to be used in future builds with this case .

Will be interesting to see the temp difference between the two rads but wont to get test it this time around :(
 
been a bit of a while since I've update due to other build and having to find a way to mount a 240 rad to the top.

Rad problem was solved b swapping out bequiets ( alphacool ST) 30mm 240 and replacing it with an EK SE 26mm 240. Had to mount in pull due to the rad hitting the PSU cage . No real difference in performance and visually, I dont have a glass/plexi panel.
Will need to get around to taking some higher quality pictures



Also finally got to try DX12 benchmark for myself, as I havent cared for any in the past as they have always been latest generation processors which would not see as much difference to older tech... well that was my thinking anyway . As i recall, Gen 5/6/7 of Intel and Nvidia favoured DX11...

DX 12 Benches



51.1 / 51.2FPS
54.9 FPS/ 95%
52.2 FPS/ 100%
46.9 FPS/100%

CPU bench



EVGA stats in DX11 Mode


To be honest, the slim 240 just handles the i7 860@ 3.66 , I tried 4.1Ghz I used before with a Quad 120 60mm rad and was hitting 80+. Could add in a 120 at the rear but looking to move to ZEN first and test before expanding the loop.

DX 11



There is a performance gain with DX12 for the old girl , almost 10 FPS in heavy benches, should have taken a snap shot of the breakdown for a bit more of a clearer images but the graphic does that nicely. Performance is more localised instead of jumping around all over the place .

Interesting to test other DX12 benches against DX11 such as Deus EX and see how she does.

Will also test the Gigabyte 1080 Turbo to really up the stakes !

**** on a side note, when I ghetto mounting the AIO with EK MX mountings due to believing I have lost the stock backplate, I actually got lower temps recorded in bios! 26c @ 4Ghz compare to 35c @ 3.66Ghz im getting now! and thats with a re-seat
indeed that was with swapped an 30mm for a 26mm , but the fin count is a lot higher and also the Silent Wing fans at 100% put out more flow and pressure then the Pure wings.
I might have to actually go back and try it, plus the mounting system from Alphacool is aweful !
 
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Cenedd said:
Have you tried running the top rad fans in push instead? Same positioning but you should theoretically get two performance gains: push is more efficient that pull and you'll be blowing cold air from outside over the rad rather than warm air from inside. Front fan intake cools the ram, gpu, southbridge etc and rear fan can then exhaust it.

Looking good though. Colour scheme looks good and there's nothing out of place. Red and black may be a classic...but for a good reason. Plus it means you don't have to worry about hiding or modding a multitude of red LEDs or POST counters that are in red as it won't clash with your colour scheme.
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its a shame it doesnt have a window haha. but yeah, old classic red and black does look good :)

I might try the fans in push, again as you said getting old air. might get some recycling from the PSU- Its to the right of the CPU and pulls air from the case and out the top. but to be honest has a hybrid mode .

Will give that a try when i swap systems, I will try changing the rear in intake to exhaust to see if that has an effect but to be honest, biggest factors are is the mounting is **** as you can see the EK hard mound system is just miles better, 10c on bios screen !!! and the i7 860 being an extremely hot chip. im guessing everyone remembers those days of almost doubling your clock speed and having triple radiators just to cool one component !

*** one thing I havent factored is orientation of the CPU block, read somewhere in passing it can effect it as air gap happens at the top, with the EK mount the fill hole was upside down.... may try that on the off chance. nothing to loose
 
Heads up for anyone looking to buy Be Quiet! Silent loop AIOs.

Install the CPU block with the writing upside down. Caught wind of this before and noticed that when I ghetto mounted it with the EK MX block, it was upside down.
BIOS recorded 26c with upside down orientation to 35c with it not upside down.

Guessing this unit it very sensitive to pressure or air gaps, any air thats in the system is now at the top in the radiator. but when filling and bleeding, an air bubbled causes the tempts to shoot to 70c+ when i was on Bios. Im guessing this is due to the reverse pump design.
So just as a heads up to anyone installing the unit with the rad at the front of the case and being lower then the CPU to mount the block upside down.
 
so, Friday I attempted to apply Liquid metal Pads to hr 980Ti core...

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cool...x-gpu-and-3-x-cpu-thermal-pads-th-010-cl.html

Did trust using one so doubled up.... should have trebled !
After leaving for a while at 60c via, no fans and bumping up voltage as well as core running at 1Ghz due to 1440p screen, tried quick bench mark via a game to raise it a little to make sure it melted on , went fine for a while and boom, hit past 80c before i would shut it down and believe its fried the core :(

took apart to see both sheets bonded together with half on the core and half of the heatsink =/

Can log into bios fine, also hit first windows loading screen before it comes with lines across and boots into windows Diagnostics option .

Gonna try the 1080 Turbo at lunch, but seems odd that the card displays BIOS screen and windows installation screen fine , also is a in a small boxed resolution .

anyone blown a GPU core have this issue of bios is fine but crashes booting windows?
 
*********

yep card is blown =/

1080 Turbo is in to confirm

and within 3 mins of listing on the Bay for £80 - for damaged parts, its been sold

seeing if i can pick up another one. Not to keen on 1070 pricing yet 1060 wouldn't last as long for 1440p.

Do have a Zotac 1060 water block just sitting their so may get one and plum it in
 
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Haha, no worries dude.

Blown, but my own fault but I hope those wanting to do metal compound and think the pads are an easier solution , its not. Just go all out and be careful .

Just looked at the Xeon, that's not for the P55 chip set and ones that are, are 4 cores :(
 
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