mATX Thread Ripper Build!

[Thavion Hawk]

Here's the second of the Thread Ripper Builds I promised. This one is the special one given it uses the only mATX Mobo on the market!

This system is for a customer doing Weather Modeling. He will be taking it with him to South America so he wants the system small

enough to fit his luggage.

 

CPU: Thread Ripper 2920x (12C/24T)

Motherboard: ASRock x399m Taichi (The Only mATX x399 Mobo)

Case: Rosewill LINE-M (Picked because I like it, also it fits most International Airline Luggage.)

PSU: EVGA 650 GQ (Power enough to expand)

CPU Cooler: EVGA 120mm CLC (120mm CLC because it's enough to keep it cool, fits the case, and by mounting it to the case it reduces the chance of damage do to being jostled around.)

Thermal Compound: Archtic Silver 5 (Not the best, but I trust it)

Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2400 (The customer was going to go with 32GB, but cut to 16GB to save cash. Result is a single 2x8GB set leaving half the slots open.)

SSD: 500GB WD Blue M.2 SATA (The only Storage. I don't know what he will be running, but my understanding is the high IOP and R/W of an NVME drive wouldn't be much benefit over a SATA SSD)

GPU: Gigabyte GT 730 2GB (Video out only, no compute use.)

OS: He will be loading his own baked version of Ubuntu (For testing we loaded Ubuntu 18.10 from a flash drive and ran a Stress-NG load on all 24 threads for multiple 30min runs)

 

Here's a picture of the parts.

Here's the Mobo with the CPU, SSD and RAM installed (I moved the RAM to other side in finished build)

Here's the case with nothing in it. (This was the same case I used for my personal mATX build before going Full ATX. I still use that case for my NAS Box)

At this point everything is in the system. (I removed the Data Cable from the CLC after this picture as well as moved the RAM)

Here it is finished and running an over night stress test.

All and all this was an interesting build, but outside the massive size of the CPU it wasn't actually that different from any other builds I've done in the past.

I do wish I could use a better cooler, but in testing this system and the one built before it under a Prime 95 load this CLC kept the Thread Ripper 2920x under 80C 4Ghz/all Cores so it's not actually that hot a chip under load.

There are better cases, smaller, lighter maybe, but I was tasked with building a Thread Ripper Workstation that can fit in Luggage and Survive the trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina from Portland, Oregon, USA so I went with

a case I knew would fit the parts. When I had my system in this case I had an FX8350 under a 120mm CLC and a Strux GTX970, all together a hotter build than this one.

 

What do you all think? (No picture of the back because no rear cable management.)

[bleedblue]

Can't help but chuckle at the little ol' GT 730. Nice build.

[Enderman]

FYI, AMD CPUs are not the same as intel CPUs.

They can't operate near 90-105C like intel can.

 

You should probably get a better cooler, and one with a larger coldplate because you're barely covering your CPU.

Only a small portion of a coldplate has fins on it.

[Jurrunio]

I think the Arctic Freezer 33 TR will do?

[Thavion Hawk]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

FYI, AMD CPUs are not the same as intel CPUs.

They can't operate near 90-105C like intel can.

 

You should probably get a better cooler, and one with a larger coldplate because you're barely covering your CPU.

Only a small portion of a coldplate has fins on it.

I understand the small CLC looks bad, but again, long high load testing has proven that cooler is enough to keep the chip sub 80C at 4Ghz all 12 Cores. That's with the side panels on, the CLC Front Mounted with a single Rear fan and PSU Exhausting out the back. I would love a larger CLC to be sure, I said as much in the build log, but note this has to be a small, light build to be taken in International Airline Luggage.

[Thavion Hawk]

7 minutes ago, bleedblue said:

Can't help but chuckle at the little ol' GT 730. Nice build.

Yeah. Week sauce but all that's needed.

[Thavion Hawk]

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I think the Arctic Freezer 33 TR will do?

I opted for a CLC because this system is going to be shipped via International Airline Luggage and having the weight of the cooler directly mounted to the case instead of the motherboard should limit the chance of damage. It's mounted to the front with the front face of the case acting as a crumple zone if something hits the front of the case in shipping as a plus.

[mxk]

I'm really surprised you didn't just get a cheap TR supported air cooler.

 

edit: just saw the post above ^, but there is that expanding foam for travel..

[Thavion Hawk]

2 minutes ago, mxk. said:

I'm really surprised you didn't just get a cheap TR supported air cooler.

 

edit: just saw the post above ^, but there is that expanding foam for travel..

I wish I could get away with just padding the inside of the case, but it's not a Catch All fix for shipping. Also the customer is going to pick it up tomorrow and load his OS and Software on it before he leaves for South America. If he wants to fill it with a foam pack that's his choice, not an option I had.

[mxk]

1 minute ago, Thavion Hawk said:

I wish I could get away with just padding the inside of the case, but it's not a Catch All fix for shipping. Also the customer is going to pick it up tomorrow and load his OS and Software on it before he leaves for South America. If he wants to fill it with a foam pack that's his choice, not an option I had.

fair enough..

[Enderman]

31 minutes ago, Thavion Hawk said:

I understand the small CLC looks bad, but again, long high load testing has proven that cooler is enough to keep the chip sub 80C at 4Ghz all 12 Cores. That's with the side panels on, the CLC Front Mounted with a single Rear fan and PSU Exhausting out the back. I would love a larger CLC to be sure, I said as much in the build log, but note this has to be a small, light build to be taken in International Airline Luggage.

No, my point is that 80C is too high.

 

Intel CPUs are perfectly fine at 80C because their max is at about 100-105.

 

Threadripper CPUs should be kept under 68C.

[Thavion Hawk]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

No, my point is that 80C is too high.

 

Intel CPUs are perfectly fine at 80C because their max is at about 100-105.

 

Threadripper CPUs should be kept under 68C.

My failure to include the 27C offset AMD applies to the temp of the CPU. At 80C reported the CPU is running 53C Actual. Again I understand the 120mm CLC is under powered, but it's not overwhelmed by a stock 12 Core CPU.

[Jurrunio]

31 minutes ago, Thavion Hawk said:

I opted for a CLC because this system is going to be shipped via International Airline Luggage and having the weight of the cooler directly mounted to the case instead of the motherboard should limit the chance of damage. It's mounted to the front with the front face of the case acting as a crumple zone if something hits the front of the case in shipping as a plus.

well, if that's the logic then I can argue that the same forces could have torn the liquid tubing off or damage them and cause a leak. The Freezer 33 isn't all that big anyway

[Thavion Hawk]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

well, if that's the logic then I can argue that the same forces could have torn the liquid tubing off or damage them and cause a leak. The Freezer 33 isn't all that big anyway

A fair point.

[Enderman]

11 minutes ago, Thavion Hawk said:

My failure to include the 27C offset AMD applies to the temp of the CPU. At 80C reported the CPU is running 53C Actual. Again I understand the 120mm CLC is under powered, but it's not overwhelmed by a stock 12 Core CPU.

No, that depends on the motherboard. Most modern motherboards will correct for that.

Otherwise some people's CPUs are apparently below ambient temperature, lol

 

Take a look at hwinfo and you should see tdie and tctl, tdie is the correct temp.

There is no way that it's at 53C with a single 120mm rad.

[Thavion Hawk]

19 minutes ago, Enderman said:

No, that depends on the motherboard. Most modern motherboards will correct for that.

Otherwise some people's CPUs are apparently below ambient temperature, lol

 

Take a look at hwinfo and you should see tdie and tctl, tdie is the correct temp.

There is no way that it's at 53C with a single 120mm rad.

The first of the two TR builds we did has Windows on it. HD Monitor showed the 27C Delta between the temps. I also monitored the CLC's cullent temps on that system while it was running the Prime95 load test. This system is using a Taichi board where that was a Phantom Gaming, but they are both ASRock and have more or less identical UEFI/Chipsets. The same 27C Delta showed up in the HW monitor loaded in Ubuntu while running the Stress-NG load. I left the system running the Stress-NG load over night and will check on it when I get into the store tomorrow morning. 

[Jrasero]

On 1/9/2019 at 9:23 PM, Thavion Hawk said:

Here's the second of the Thread Ripper Builds I promised. This one is the special one given it uses the only mATX Mobo on the market!

This system is for a customer doing Weather Modeling. He will be taking it with him to South America so he wants the system small

enough to fit his luggage.

 

CPU: Thread Ripper 2920x (12C/24T)

Motherboard: ASRock x399m Taichi (The Only mATX x399 Mobo)

Case: Rosewill LINE-M (Picked because I like it, also it fits most International Airline Luggage.)

PSU: EVGA 650 GQ (Power enough to expand)

CPU Cooler: EVGA 120mm CLC (120mm CLC because it's enough to keep it cool, fits the case, and by mounting it to the case it reduces the chance of damage do to being jostled around.)

Thermal Compound: Archtic Silver 5 (Not the best, but I trust it)

Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 2400 (The customer was going to go with 32GB, but cut to 16GB to save cash. Result is a single 2x8GB set leaving half the slots open.)

SSD: 500GB WD Blue M.2 SATA (The only Storage. I don't know what he will be running, but my understanding is the high IOP and R/W of an NVME drive wouldn't be much benefit over a SATA SSD)

GPU: Gigabyte GT 730 2GB (Video out only, no compute use.)

OS: He will be loading his own baked version of Ubuntu (For testing we loaded Ubuntu 18.10 from a flash drive and ran a Stress-NG load on all 24 threads for multiple 30min runs)

 

Here's a picture of the parts.

 

Here's the Mobo with the CPU, SSD and RAM installed (I moved the RAM to other side in finished build)

 

Here's the case with nothing in it. (This was the same case I used for my personal mATX build before going Full ATX. I still use that case for my NAS Box)

 

At this point everything is in the system. (I removed the Data Cable from the CLC after this picture as well as moved the RAM)

 

Here it is finished and running an over night stress test.

All and all this was an interesting build, but outside the massive size of the CPU it wasn't actually that different from any other builds I've done in the past.

I do wish I could use a better cooler, but in testing this system and the one built before it under a Prime 95 load this CLC kept the Thread Ripper 2920x under 80C 4Ghz/all Cores so it's not actually that hot a chip under load.

There are better cases, smaller, lighter maybe, but I was tasked with building a Thread Ripper Workstation that can fit in Luggage and Survive the trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina from Portland, Oregon, USA so I went with

a case I knew would fit the parts. When I had my system in this case I had an FX8350 under a 120mm CLC and a Strux GTX970, all together a hotter build than this one.

 

What do you all think? (No picture of the back because no rear cable management.)

Like some others have said 120MM AIO isn't going to cut it, I am not saying you have to get a full coverage AIO but at least put an 240mm-280mm on there.  Secondly Threadripper 2 while improved still loves quad channel RAM, get yourself two for sticks

[Jrasero]

On 1/9/2019 at 10:15 PM, Thavion Hawk said:

A fair point.

If it can fit I recommend the Noctua NH9U14S TR4 if you go air

[Thavion Hawk]

22 hours ago, Jrasero said:

If it can fit I recommend the Noctua NH9U14S TR4 if you go air

I'm going to say this one more time and make a good point to back up my clam that a single 120mm AIO is enough cooling for this system with this CPU. Under full load testing this build hit and sustained 4Ghz on all 12 Cores, that's 500Mhz above base clock and only 300Mhz off max boost. There is no denying that 4Ghz is under the max boost, but that is not thermal throttling. If the cooler was truly causing thermal throttling the CPU would have rolled all the way back to 3.5Ghz or below. It's true that a full cover TR4 block, a larger radiator or even a tower cooler with a larger fin stack would preform better and potentially allow the CPU to run at its full boost clock at all times, however this build is now in South America doing weather modeling and I have no plans to build another Thread Ripper system any time soon.

 

As for the system having just two sticks of RAM and thus running in duel channel, that was the customers choice. We ordered four sticks and he opted to cheap out paying for only half of them. I am fully aware of Thread Ripper's architecture and how in impacts performance. Each Zeppelin Die houses a duel channel memory controller allowing the CPU to team them providing an aggregate 256bit quad channel memory configuration to the CPU. This design results in an inherent bottleneck as any data one core needs that is stored in memory not linked to it's local memory control must be accessed through the Infinity Fabric that ties the Dies together. The resulting spike in access times can more then negate the potential gains offered by a fully populated 256bit memory bus and is only compounded when running with a 128bit bus. I informed the customer of all of this and it made little difference. Saving $90 was reason enough for him to skimp on RAM and there's nothing I can do about it. Any performance impact it will have on his work is his problem.