[Finished] The silent cube: Pushing passive cooling to the limit with dual GTX 980 - [Update 21: Liquid Cristal Thermometer]

[Stefan1024]

GIVE ME YOUR SSD PLEASE (very good job by the way this is insane)

Thx

The SSD has a nice big heat sink. It fitts perfectly into this build. I use it for compiling where I need the high IOPS.

[Guest]

Thx

The SSD has a nice big heat sink. It fitts perfectly into this build. I use it for compiling where I need the high IOPS.

I swear if it's the 1.2TB model....

[Stefan1024]

I swear if it's the 1.2TB model....

Well I use the 1.2TB one for mass sorage.... /s

 

Actually I only have the 400GB version. But that's enougth for the OS, all software I need for work & studying like Matlab, Solidworks, Lattice Diamond and a few games.

[FelixM]

why don't u fund a kickstarter campaign... idk maybe starting a startup

i am like :" where can i get one??"

[Stefan1024]

why don't u fund a kickstarter campaign... idk maybe starting a startup

i am like :" where can i get one??"

Well as much I love metalwork and the engineering required to build a machine like this, I dislike stepping into mass production. First of all I don't have the machinery required to produce the parts even remotely economical. Also I like my job as a electical engineer.

Perhaps there will be one more system within my next (and last) two years of my master study. But this machine is very powerful and I don't have the time to game a lot anymore. But the speedup in my workfow it offers is nevertheless appreciated

[Stefan1024]

Update 10: Don't give up....

 

... I'm still working on the build. I installed Windows 10 Pro and get the system running properly. It only has one GPU by now, but the time I need to prepare the second one gives Nvidia time to fix the "Win 10 SLI-Bug".

I also almost finished the second GPU copperblock and tomorrow I will start with the heat sink.

 

Expect next update by the end of the week.

[ForsakenLive]

Update 10: Don't give up....

 

... I'm still working on the build. I installed Windows 10 Pro and get the system running properly. It only has one GPU by now, but the time I need to prepare the second one gives Nvidia time to fix the "Win 10 SLI-Bug".

I also almost finished the second GPU copperblock and tomorrow I will start with the heat sink.

 

Expect next update by the end of the week.

 

Hope to see more soon!

 

Btw, did you notice your name has the word 'fan' on it, yet you don't want to use fans on your system?

[Stefan1024]

Hope to see more soon!

Btw, did you notice your name has the word 'fan' on it, yet you don't want to use fans on your system?

As a fan of fancy fanless systems, the dirt hits the fan when is comes to language. It it totally unsatisfactory for my goal since even the word falnass incuds "fan".

If you understand German I can recommend you the song: "Für meine Fans" from Knorkator

https://youtu.be/sGcBuwPD4rw

The refrain is (translated): I'm ashamed of my fans, how do I got rid of them?

So do I feel :-)

[OddsCrazyStuff]

Test: Bios -> set may power consumption of the CPU to 100 watts -> Prime95 -> max power consumtion preset

So the CPU consumes 96 - 102 watts permanently and I can meassure. The max. temp. on the hottest core was 91°C. Normally they where hovering around 85°C. Not to bad considering 28°C ambint temp. and a normal application only reaches ~80 watts.

Its an interesting concept, but 85+ on core is too high for my tast.

Maybe a bigger heatsink is in order?

[Stefan1024]

Its an interesting concept, but 85+ on core is too high for my tast.

Maybe a bigger heatsink is in order?

To rise that high, the CPU must be pushed over it's TDP for more than 10 minutes. I don't do folding and rendering don't uses more than 85 watts. Let alone gaming.

Also the ambient temp. was high.

A bigger heatsink is not an option and I won't benefit much from a bigger one. The problem ist the heat transfer from the core to the heatsink. The effetivity of the heat pipes is <40% when used upside down. I expected >50%. New heatpipes are expensive and makeing new copperblocks needs a lot of time.

During 95% of the system on time the cores will be below 80℃. That's fine for me.

Look at the 5k iMac. The CPU is running at 99℃ for extended periods of time and nobody seems to care about it's livetime.....

[alpenwasser]

To rise that high, the CPU must be pushed over it's TDP for more than 10 minutes. I don't do folding and rendering don't uses more than 85 watts. Let alone gaming.

Also the ambient temp. was high.

A bigger heatsink is not an option and I won't benefit much from a bigger one. The problem ist the heat transfer from the core to the heatsink. The effetivity of the heat pipes is <40% when used upside down. I expected >50%. New heatpipes are expensive and makeing new copperblocks needs a lot of time.

During 95% of the system on time the cores will be below 80℃. That's fine for me.

Look at the 5k iMac. The CPU is running at 99℃ for extended periods of time and nobody seems to care about it's livetime.....

Plus, it seems that the big summer heatwave is now over and we're getting reasonable

temperatures again (although I must admit I don't actually mind the heat that much

during the day, only when the nights are really hot do I get a tad annoyed).

Awesome build though. I considered something like this as well at some point, but my

machine runs BOINC pretty much 24/7, so I decided to go with a more conventional water

cooling loop.

And agreed, people seem to have become a bit obsessed not with "How much temperature

can this CPU take before crapping out?" but instead with "What temperature feels okay

for my gut instinct?" I mean, yeah, I like having lower temps too, especially since

I run my machine at high loads pretty much all the time, but as long as you're not

permanently running at full throttle, the occasional spike in temps isn't very likely

to do much damage I'd think, (see also laptop CPUs), otherwise what's the point of

specifying their temp limits that high?

Edited September 1, 2015 by alpenwasser

[OddsCrazyStuff]

To rise that high, the CPU must be pushed over it's TDP for more than 10 minutes. I don't do folding and rendering don't uses more than 85 watts. Let alone gaming.

Also the ambient temp. was high.

A bigger heatsink is not an option and I won't benefit much from a bigger one. The problem ist the heat transfer from the core to the heatsink. The effetivity of the heat pipes is <40% when used upside down. I expected >50%. New heatpipes are expensive and makeing new copperblocks needs a lot of time.

During 95% of the system on time the cores will be below 80℃. That's fine for me.

Look at the 5k iMac. The CPU is running at 99℃ for extended periods of time and nobody seems to care about it's livetime.....

Well, no body seems to care about tempratues of prebuilt pc's and laptops anyway.

And I guess below 80℃ is good for a passive cooled system.

[Stefan1024]

Awesome build though. I considered something like this as well at some point, but my

machine runs BOINC pretty much 24/7, so I decided to go with a more conventional water

cooling loop.

And agreed, people seem to have become a bit obsessed not with "How much temperature

can this CPU take before crapping out?" but instead with "What temperature feels okay

for my gut instinct?" I mean, yeah, I like having lower temps too, especially since

I run my machine at high loads pretty much all the time, but as long as you're not

permanently running at full throttle, the occasional spike in temps isn't very likely

to do much damage I'd think, (see also laptop CPUs), otherwise what's the point of

specifying their temp limits that high?

Thank you

You could still have a passive radiator and go for fanless instead of passive.

With <85℃ I do feel pretty conftable. Even if the may CPU die within 4 years instead of 6 years. At this time most of you upgrade anyway and I can finde a replacement very cheap.

[alpenwasser]

Thank you

You could still have a passive radiator and go for fanless instead of passive.

He, I actually might have enough radiator surface for that (2×560, 1×480), certainly

as long as the system isn't running at high loads. I'll do some experimenting and see

how things go at some point. I can turn the fans down to ~400 rpm though, which makes

them pretty much inaudible to me. The pumps are actually easier to hear than the fans

at that point.

I'll tag you when I've done some tinkering to let you know about the results.

 

With <85℃ I do feel pretty conftable. Even if the may CPU die within 4 years instead of 6 years. At this time most of you upgrade anyway and I can finde a replacement very cheap.

That's a bit of an issue for me, my motherboard is practically impossible to replace

at this point (EVGA SR-2), and since I have so much money sunk into this platform

(CPUs, RAM, motherboard blocks), if my board breaks in the foreseeable future I'd be

pretty hosed, so to speak. Once in a while it's possible to find one on ebay, but not

often (and even then, they are very expensive even used, they almost seem to be going

up in value as they get older ).

[Nup]

amazingbuild,looking forward to more! 

[Stefan1024]

Sneak peak: I finished the second GPU heat transfer plate as well as the last big heat sink today. On weekend I will assembly the second GPU....

 

[Stefan1024]

Ayy, I have that same passive CPU cooler! Nice buy there!

 

Thanks for showing support with my other build before, it got me into yours and opened me up to the world of indie PC modding! I wanna do so much more than build a gaming rig lol, this thing you have going here is great

 

You are wellcome!

Keep going modding, it is a nice hobby in my oppinion.

 

I'll tag you when I've done some tinkering to let you know about the results.

 

 

This will be interesting. But be aware the coolen performance even with 400 RPM fans is much higher than fanless, because the fins in the rads are way to close together for natural convection.

Also if the pump still makes a lot of noise there is no point in going fanless. On the other hand you can also try to get the pump under controll (better mounting, dedicated encousure with foam...).

 

 

... EVGA SR-2 ...

 

These dual CPU MoBos are great!

Sadly workload does not justify to go with one, also cooling will be more tricky. But if I had one, I would also take more care I guess.

[alpenwasser]

This will be interesting. But be aware the coolen performance even with 400 RPM fans is much higher than fanless, because the fins in the rads are way to close together for natural convection.

Also if the pump still makes a lot of noise there is no point in going fanless. On the other hand you can also try to get the pump under controll (better mounting, dedicated encousure with foam...).

Yeah, absolutely. Regular rads are atrocious at passive cooling. I don't expect

greatness, but I am curious.

And agreed about the pumps. Plus, there's always the PSU to consider too. It's

a Platimax 1200 W unit, full load will probably be ~800 W, so even though it's

not a loud PSU by any stretch, at that load I reckon it's not going to be inaudible

anymore.

Ah well, we shall see.

 

 

These dual CPU MoBos are great!

Sadly workload does not justify to go with one, also cooling will be more tricky. But if I had one, I would also take more care I guess.

Yeah, it's a pretty stunning piece of engineering indeed. I honestly didn't

really have much justification for it besides "I want one!", so I saved up

for quite a while and eventually bought one. I do get good use out of it though,

primarily running BOINC on the machine.

[Stefan1024]

Update 11: Full throttle, no throttling!

 

Soooo I found a few hours to work on my PC and assembeld the second GPU.

 

 

More pictures of assembly

 

By now the system looks like this. There is still a lot of work to do, but it is now fully functional and I will switch to it as my daily workhorse.

 

 

More pictures of the system

 

 

The SLI bridge is a bit violated. AMD does a better job here since they don't require a CF bridge anymore. Also I like the concept of the Fury Nano a lot. Give up 10% of performance to save 35% of power just makes sence after all. Also this tiny card would have looked so amazing on this giant heatsink

 

I also run unigine valley for 2 hours to test the cooling performance. It is about 2 degrees hotter than the other card and only reached 71°C (25°C ambient, no OC). I don't do more testing by now since it's exactly like the fist card that I tested a lot. Also I will rerunn al test when the system is finally finished.

[alpenwasser]

Oh, copper porn!!!

Side note: Turns out the PSU is indeed the loudest thing in my build now. Well, loud
might be the wrong word, but let's say it's not super quiet when I let the rig run at
full throttle. So... I've had the rather ridiculous idea of using multiple passive
PSUs instead, does yours exhibit any weird buzzing noises/coil whine etc.?

Not sure yet about space though. Who'd have thought I could run out of space in a
Caselabs SMH10? 

 

Anyway, really loving that cooling block of yours, dear lord that's sexy! How much does

your machine weigh at this point?

[CatzRuleZWorld]

Oh, copper porn!!!

Side note: Turns out the PSU is indeed the loudest thing in my build now. Well, loud

might be the wrong word, but let's say it's not super quiet when I let the rig run at

full throttle. So... I've had the rather ridiculous idea of using multiple passive

PSUs instead, does yours exhibit any weird buzzing noises/coil whine etc.?

Not sure yet about space though. Who'd have thought I could run out of space in a

Caselabs SMH10?

Anyway, really loving that cooling block of yours, dear lord that's sexy! How much does

your machine weigh at this point?

Put a noctua fan in your psu. I have a post about doing it myself and if the noctua fan is quiet enough for you then the psu will be

[Uwillparish]

The SLI bridge is a bit violated. ADM does a better job here since they don't require a CF bridge anymore.

AMD*

[Stefan1024]

AMD*

Thx, fixed.

[Stefan1024]

Oh, copper porn!!!

Hey congratulation, your made the 100. post in my blog

And yes, I turned my room into a copper mine.

 

 

So... I've had the rather ridiculous idea of using multiple passive

PSUs instead, does yours exhibit any weird buzzing noises/coil whine etc.?

Not sure yet about space though. Who'd have thought I could run out of space in a

Caselabs SMH10? 

 

Anyway, really loving that cooling block of yours, dear lord that's sexy! How much does

your machine weigh at this point?

 

I thougth about that at the beginning of my build. But without a proper load balanceing circuit that also protects the PSU from reverse current I don't dare to just parallize them. The Enermax Digifanless on the other hand would be great for this usage since it's totally noiseless (no buzzing) and you can adjust the voltage by software. But I think you will mess up the software if you have 2 PSUs at the same time.

Also even one Digifanless is super expensive, let alone two....

 

The weight?  B)

Heatsink: 3*12 kg = 36kg

Copper: ~2.5 kg

Electronics: ~1 kg

CPU heatsink: 0.5 kg

 

And there are still components to add...

[alpenwasser]

Hey congratulation, your made the 100. post in my blog

And yes, I turned my room into a copper mine.

Yay!

 

 

I thougth about that at the beginning of my build. But without a proper load balanceing circuit that also protects the PSU from reverse current I don't dare to just parallize them. The Enermax Digifanless on the other hand would be great for this usage since it's totally noiseless (no buzzing) and you can adjust the voltage by software. But I think you will mess up the software if you have 2 PSUs at the same time.

Also even one Digifanless is super expensive, let alone two....

What I've usually seen done when people run multiple PSUs is that they serve different

components with the two PSUs, never one component from both PSUs, and I haven't really

seen anyone take special precautions, and it usually seems to work fine. Not that I think

taking precautions is not prudent with all that money hanging on those cables.

EDIT: And come to think of it, even if you serve your GPUs from a separate PSU there's

still power going over the PCIe slot from the motherboard and the other PSU, so they're

still somehow connected. Ah well...

/EDIT

Oh, right, the software! Does the PSU actually work without it? I doubt they make a Linux

version after all.

 

The weight?  B)

Heatsink: 3*12 kg = 36kg

Copper: ~2.5 kg

Electronics: ~1 kg

CPU heatsink: 0.5 kg

 

And there are still components to add...

I see you don't need to go to the gym anymore.

Come to think of it, I haven't actually weighed my build yet, but I'm pretty sure

it's not as heavy as yours. I'd estimate 30-ish kg or so. Will need to check when

I get the chance, because I'm definitely curious.