Man of Honour
Hey @GordyR any update ?
New build - Cooling layout advice
- Thread starter GordyR
- Start date
She's all put together.
Sorry for the poor pics, i'll take some better ones when I've completely finished the build. The toddler's in bed and I don't want to risk waking him by taking the glass side off to take some better one's right now!
Besides, I have some new PSU cables and iCue RGB sheaths on their way, and I should have the 3 silent wings at the top replaced with 3x Corsair iCue QX140's this time next week. Might as well wait until then to take some decent pics.
Anyway, you'll notice I couldn't help myself and bought the Corsair Dominator Titanium light enhancement kit to fill the two empty DIMM slots.
One minor annoyance is that the Darkbase 901 pro has a section below that can either have a blanking plate or vent piece that clips in to allow an intake fan below.
But because I've gone with a 420mm AIO and want the tubes mounted at the bottom, I can't install either. I've reached out to bequiet! and sent them these pics, and they've said that they're going to consider adding an optional U-shaped clip in plate to allow radiator tubes to pass through for my sort of configuration. Whether they actually do or not is another matter, but their service has been second to none and i'm very impressed with the company, and the case itself.
In the meantime I'm thinking of getting something made up with a 3d printer or at least running something around the edges of the hole so that the section doesn't look so unfinished. Any ideas welcome!
Absolutely love the iCue cable management though, it's been a game changer for me.
Performance-wise, she's a beast:
I'm currently running the ram at 6400. They're dual rank 48GB DIMMS, so I've decided not to push them too hard for now and have set them up to a rock solid 6400 and haven't tried to tighten the timings too much. I'll make a good attempt at 8000+ once I've finished tuning the CPU.
If I push the PBO offsets and curve shaper a little more I can hit 48,500 in Cinebench r23, which seems completely stable in day-to-day use and runs all OCCT stress tests without issue, but y-cruncher occasionally throws the odd error, so i've settled for this very comfortable overclock that breezes y-cruncher for now, and will see if I can fully stabilise it pushed a bit further at the weekend.
Regardless, I'm extremely pleased. Using the machine daily for my professional productivity work loads is like night and day versus my old 3950x.
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Man of Honour
Impressive .
Tag me in when you take some more pics please.
How did you find the contact frame and kryo sheets
Could you drill/cut out a section of the metal bpau shroud blank and use some rubber edge guard to protect the aio tubes.
Something like this but not sure how flexible it is .
Tag me in when you take some more pics please.
How did you find the contact frame and kryo sheets
Could you drill/cut out a section of the metal bpau shroud blank and use some rubber edge guard to protect the aio tubes.
Something like this but not sure how flexible it is .
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Will do!
How did you find the contact frame and kryo sheets
They seem to be doing the job wonderfully. Although I wasn't quite prepared for how brittle the kryosheet was. I bought the 50x50mm one and cut it down to size and it was very tricky trying not to rip it.
Yeah that's exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking of doing. Bequiet! do replacement blanks if I completely bork it so it's probably worth a try.
Thanks for the link by the way! I'll let you know how I get on.
Time for an update as promised @mickyflinn and @JollyJamma
The rest of the fans are now in and the PSU cables have been replaced with some Corsair premium braided ones.
Also, I managed to solve the issue of the PSU shroud blank by cutting some slats out of the vent attachment, which left a hole just large enough to squeeze the AIO pump through when it's RGB cover was removed.
Perhaps it's not quite as perfect as a purpose built piece, but I'm very pleased with the results over all.
All that's left now is the Corsair iCue RGB PSU cable strips, which are out of stock until next month. Oh and the 5090 of course!
Anyway, thanks for all your suggestions; I hope you enjoy the pics!
The rest of the fans are now in and the PSU cables have been replaced with some Corsair premium braided ones.
Also, I managed to solve the issue of the PSU shroud blank by cutting some slats out of the vent attachment, which left a hole just large enough to squeeze the AIO pump through when it's RGB cover was removed.
Perhaps it's not quite as perfect as a purpose built piece, but I'm very pleased with the results over all.
All that's left now is the Corsair iCue RGB PSU cable strips, which are out of stock until next month. Oh and the 5090 of course!
Anyway, thanks for all your suggestions; I hope you enjoy the pics!
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Man of Honour
Stunning.
Great job my friend , just the right amount of RGB making it look stylish but not overdone. Can't believe that's a 3090 in there it looks so small.
Nice job on the PSU cut out looks like it was meant to be that way from factory.
If you snag a 5090 I personally would grab one with a sprinkle of RGB as I think it would add slightly to build astetics, something like the below.
www.overclockers.co.uk
Just remembered you may get a water cooled 5090 , anyways tag me when you do .
Enjoy.
Great job my friend , just the right amount of RGB making it look stylish but not overdone. Can't believe that's a 3090 in there it looks so small.
Nice job on the PSU cut out looks like it was meant to be that way from factory.
If you snag a 5090 I personally would grab one with a sprinkle of RGB as I think it would add slightly to build astetics, something like the below.
Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card
Order Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk
Just remembered you may get a water cooled 5090 , anyways tag me when you do .
Enjoy.
Thanks mate, I'm very pleased with how everything's turned out.
Yeah a little subtle RGB on the GPU is definitely needed to balance with the rest I think.
My 3090 does have a small amount of RGB, but it just highlights text, which of course in an inverted build is upside down.
It looked odd and I couldn't find anything that worked nicely with the gorgeous Corsair watercolor profile that I like.
That's probably my biggest reason for the plan to get a watercooled 5090 of some sort.
Something along these lines, whenever they arrive, would probably suit nicely, without really looking too "upside-down".
shop.alphacool.com
I'll just switch the radiator fans over to matching sized Corsairs to keep everything nice and consistent.
Yeah a little subtle RGB on the GPU is definitely needed to balance with the rest I think.
My 3090 does have a small amount of RGB, but it just highlights text, which of course in an inverted build is upside down.
It looked odd and I couldn't find anything that worked nicely with the gorgeous Corsair watercolor profile that I like.
That's probably my biggest reason for the plan to get a watercooled 5090 of some sort.
Something along these lines, whenever they arrive, would probably suit nicely, without really looking too "upside-down".
KOI Alphacool Eiswolf 2 AIO - 360mm RTX 3090/3080 with Backplate (Reference) PHT EOL
Fullcover all-in-one water cooler for the Geforce RTX 3080/3090 - 360 mm copper radiator - Expandable - ARGB
shop.alphacool.com
I'll just switch the radiator fans over to matching sized Corsairs to keep everything nice and consistent.
@GordyR I have a question about this case if you don’t mind…
What’s the deal with the black spacers that come with the front fans? I’m intending to replace these fans with Noctua 140mm fans (3 of them in the front, one in the bottom) and I’ve realised that I only have two sets of the spacers, because the case comes with two front fans.
Are these needed in any way…? Are they to reduce noise / turbulence? Or is it just for ensuring that the screws they give you are long enough if you want to use a radiator?
Cheers and sorry to bother you!
Edit: sorry this is a question for Be Quiet, not you
so wrong of me to ask, but I’d appreciate your thoughts if you have any!
What’s the deal with the black spacers that come with the front fans? I’m intending to replace these fans with Noctua 140mm fans (3 of them in the front, one in the bottom) and I’ve realised that I only have two sets of the spacers, because the case comes with two front fans.
Are these needed in any way…? Are they to reduce noise / turbulence? Or is it just for ensuring that the screws they give you are long enough if you want to use a radiator?
Cheers and sorry to bother you!
Edit: sorry this is a question for Be Quiet, not you
so wrong of me to ask, but I’d appreciate your thoughts if you have any!
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Soldato
Cooling is a black art, really. The truth is that you really don't need that much in the way of fans, but people love fans, and they love the look of fans, so they add lots extra.
Having the CPU radiator as the intake is generally a good idea. In general, you should have the least heat generating device, out of the CPU and the GPU, as the intake. This affects the other the least. And once you have that in place and have sorted a fan curve out, then you really don't need anything else. Course, people never leave it at that!
It's common to add a back fan to the PC to "encourage" air flow past the VRM's and so on. If you keep it to one fan and control it with the same curve as the CPU cooler then you know the pressure is always positive inside the case. Whether this does anything large depends on what other exits there are for air being blow in by the front mounted fans.
I think the other place that is worthwhile is the bottom of the case. That can blow air directly on the GPU, which is always nice.
Mixing fans on a radiator is never a good idea. The problem is that unless they are all the same fan, they could easily be working against each other. The gain of push-pull is never that much at the best of times, and with different fans you could be increasing the noise and not getting any benefit. You are better just getting some higher quality fans. But I seem to remember QX fans are magnetic bearing and very high quality.
@GordyR I have a question about this case if you don’t mind…
What’s the deal with the black spacers that come with the front fans? I’m intending to replace these fans with Noctua 140mm fans (3 of them in the front, one in the bottom) and I’ve realised that I only have two sets of the spacers, because the case comes with two front fans.
Are these needed in any way…? Are they to reduce noise / turbulence? Or is it just for ensuring that the screws they give you are long enough if you want to use a radiator?
Cheers and sorry to bother you!
Edit: sorry this is a question for Be Quiet, not you
I’m pretty sure they’re intended to reduce noise by decoupling the fan from the case so that any vibrations don’t transfer as much.
I don’t have any of mine in place as I was going straight for the Corsair iCue stuff and they simply wouldn’t have fit any longer.
You can order more directly from bequiet:
Spareparts from be quiet!
be quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies, cases and cooling solutions for your desktop PC.
But they’re definitely not strictly necessary.
@GordyR thanks for the response - makes sense.
After digging around a bit and seeing that the manual suggests you only get 4 (huh… I have 8
) I realised that it meant there were 4 spare in the accessories kit, which I just found… so no need to order any. Hooray
After digging around a bit and seeing that the manual suggests you only get 4 (huh… I have 8
) I realised that it meant there were 4 spare in the accessories kit, which I just found… so no need to order any. Hooray
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Man of Honour
Take a look at@GordyR thanks for the response - makes sense.
After digging around a bit and seeing that the manual suggests you only get 4 (huh… I have 8
Akasa Rubber Case Fans Mounts
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