18L Sliger Cerberus ThreadRipper 2950X first ever custom loop

[Jrasero]

I have gone through a couple iterations of my Sliger Cerberus X399M ThreadRipper 2950X, at first I had a Kraken X52 AIO with an Asetek bracket which was alright but the non full coverage block showed its limitations and more recently I had a Noctua NH-U9 TR4 which is the largest TR4 air cooler for the Cerberus, but this summer it just couldn't withstand the heat and was always throttling.

 

I haven't done extensive testing yet but hands down the loop is better than the Noctua U9 TR4 which throttled at 68 degrees while gaming and the custom loop in the few games I have played at 3440x1440 on an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra hit a max of 50-52 degrees. More testing to come but even with the skinnier radiator 27mm the full coverage block seems to be making a huge difference even compared to an Asetek AIO. Idles for the air cooler used to be in the 50's now on a cold boot I get 32 degrees.

 

Sliger Cerberus

Asrock X399M

Threadripper 2950X

4 X 8GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX at 3200

2 X Intel 660P 512GB M.2 NVME

HP EX920 1TB M.2 NVME

Intel 660P 2TB M.2 NVME in a PCIe slot adapter bellow graphics card

EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra

Corsair SF750 PSU

2 X Noctua NF-F12 PWM for case fans

2 X Noctua NF-A12X25 PWM fans for radiator 

EK-CoolStream Classic SE 240 radiator

EK-Velocity sTR4 - Nickel + Plexi 

EK-XRES 100 DDC MX 3.1 PWM (incl. pump) 

EK-AF Angled 90° G1/4 - Nickel (Refurbished) 

EK-ACF Fitting 10/16mm - Nickel (6-pack)

EK-DuraClear 9,5/15,9mm 

EK-UNI Pump Bracket (120mm FAN) Vertical

EKWB EK-PLUG G1/4 

EKWB AF BALL VALVE G1/4 NICKEL

BITSPWR T-FITTING

SLVBITSPWR M-M FITTING SLV

 

[Ravendarat]

Tight squeeze in there huh lol. How are your temps? And I know its covered so you cant see it but that m.2 not looking straight would set my ocd through the roof

[Jrasero]

On 8/4/2019 at 12:41 AM, Ravendarat said:

Tight squeeze in there huh lol. How are your temps? And I know its covered so you cant see it but that m.2 not looking straight would set my ocd through the roof

Tight indeed, slashed my finger open on the extra sharp heat sink.  

 

Sadly the next day the pump just died and I only noticed since while gaming since the temp spiked up after the game randomly quit 

 

Drained everything and trying to get a replacement sorted out 

 

When it was briefly working temps were awesome while gaming at 50 degrees on PBO mode at 3440x1440 at Ultra and idle was 32 degrees 

 

 

I think it's just a weird angle and that's why the M.2 looks off 

 

[Jrasero]

Well the EK-XRES 100 DDC MX 3.1 PWM (incl. pump) died after maybe 2 hours of use?  After installing everything last Friday I booted the computer and started playing a game Saturday morning and shortly after temps spiked to 70-80 degrees and the game quit.  I rebooted the computer and noticed temps were now at 90 degrees and block/tubes were hot and the pump weren't moving anything.  So I spend Saturday draining and dissembling the loop, fun.

 

I should have done this beforehand but I started doing some research and a ton of people said their 100 DDC MX 3.1 PWM's pumps failed.  I contacted EKWB and sent them a video of the pump clearly not moving any water.  I just got a email this morning saying they will resend me a pump only.  At this point I have already bought and installed an EKWB 100 DDC 3.2 PWM Elite and I will say right off the bat the flow is much improved and hasn't died with 2 hours of use, so I guess this is a plus.  I am probably at just going to return the original unit    

 

So the most notable thing about the Elite is that its powered by Molex and controlled via PWM.  It also has three G1/4 threaded ports of which one is an inlet, one is an outlet and the last can either be an inlet or drain fill.  One annoyance is that the out port requires the metal extender adapter so the drain port is now right up against the side panel and barley clears.  Also the Elite is taller than the previous model so I had to slam the radiator to the bottom.  The line from the radiator to drainage is a tad kinked but doesn't seem to hinder water flow, I could drain and cut a few mm but that would be a huge hassle.  I made sure to put padded tape on the heat sink above the CPU this time since the corner is extremely sharp and I cut my finger on it and last time it was marking up the tube.    

 

For my first water loop I learned a couple lessons: custom loops are very expensive since everything costed me almost $450, something will go wrong so having a backup computer or laptop is a must,  don't forget to build a drainage solution since something will go wrong, the EWKB DuraClear was extremely hard to dry fit onto the compression fittings but pro tip is dipping the tube in hot water for 30 seconds and they slide right on.  

[Jrasero]

Decided to change the tube for the outlet/drainage since it was kinked, but still functional but I feared it collapsing.  Also the tube was too long and had unneeded tension on it.  

 

I can see what custom loops drive people crazy