Airflow direction

[Odyss]

Hello! After folding at home while working, the heat radiating from the PC was kind of unbearable, especially when both the CPU and GPU were completing a job. After looking in MSI Afterburner, the temps were showing 70-71 degrees for the GPU and 89-90 for the CPU. The GPU temps seem not to matter whether the CPU is or is not under load, as it will stay at around 69-71 degrees either way, but when the GPU is under load, the CPU can jump from 80-81 degrees with GPU idling to 89-91 degrees when GPU is under load (doesn't thermal throttle). I know that CPUs nowadays are meant to be safe even at those temperatures and if anything, it'll throttle to stop any damage being done to it. However, the temperatures are worrying me nonetheless.

 

Given the information above, the GPU and CPU in question are a Palit Windforce 1080ti and an i5-9600K @ 4.6 GHz being cooled by a Dark Rock 4. All of this is in a case that has 8 fans, 5 for intake and 3 for exhaust (as the picture below will show it). I have seen in general split opinions with negative pressure over positive pressure and vice-versa, but speaking temperature-wise, I'd like to know if this is the best solution or if there's anything else I can try. Worth mentioning that the fans are HP Corona RGB fans with 6 of them being 120mm and 2 of them (the top exhausts) being 140mm. I know that they're not the top of the line by any means, but overall they're doing a relatively good job, enough for my standards. Anyway, here's the picture... Any tip is appreciated! Oh, and in case you're wondering why the bottom fans have no lighting, the fan controller only has 6 headers and I had to plug the other 2 into the motherboard.

[Applefreak]

Yeah that CPU temp is a bit on high side for the dark rock 4, given your case ventilation. Check if the cooler is properly mounted and you have an even spread of thermal paste and replace it. Your case is fairly restrictive in terms of airflow. My recommendation would be static pressure fans instead of those shiny ones. I can't get static pressure numbers on those fans but the 120 mm ones are rated at 35 CFM or 59 m³/h. For silent fans that's great but you also need that static pressure because of the restrictive front intake. Speaking of, are the fans running full speed or are they PWM controlled?

 

Also to answer your question, changing air flow direction will likely not improve your cpu thermals. Check at what speed that dark rock 4's fan is running at. If your bios allows a target temperature, set it to 70C so that the fan will go to full speed, maybe it's just not doing that at the moment.

[Odyss]

The fans are not currently running full speed, they are indeed PWM controlled. And speaking of which, another thing I forgot to mention, is that I haven't modified the fan speed curve, so if I could get some tips on that too, it would be wonderful. The cooler should be properly mounted as I have moved everything from my old case into this case about 3-4 months ago. It could be the thermal paste not being properly spread across, so I will check that at a later date. I would consider purchasing new fans but they're quite expensive and I'd rather work with what I currently have if at all possible.

[WoodenMarker]

What are your fan speeds at load? What's the cpu core voltage at? 

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[LogicalDrm]

Airflow looks good. Its probably just high voltage on CPU.

[StDragon]

I agree, airflow looks good. It's how I would have done it myself. Depending on the MB, you might be able to set the case fans to monitor the CPU temps rather than the MB. The idea being the fans will ramp up with CPU temp. It will raise the noise level though.

[Odyss]

10 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

What are your fan speeds at load? What's the cpu core voltage at? 

Make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

These are the results after putting the CPU and GPU at work by F@H for about 10-15 minutes. Core Voltage does look a little high to me with the limited knowledge that I have and as far as I can remember, the CPU is setting its OC automatically to 4.6. I don't recall manually setting it after I reinstalled my Windows a couple months ago. Also, I don't know why system fans 2 and 3 (bottom intakes) don't match up or match up to system fan 1 (rest of the fans) since they have the same fan speed curve set. 

 

6 hours ago, StDragon said:

I agree, airflow looks good. It's how I would have done it myself. Depending on the MB, you might be able to set the case fans to monitor the CPU temps rather than the MB. The idea being the fans will ramp up with CPU temp. It will raise the noise level though.

I recall looking for this option but never finding it. I'll check up online and see if it's doable. Thanks for the tip!

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, Odyss said:

These are the results after putting the CPU and GPU at work by F@H for about 10-15 minutes. Core Voltage does look a little high to me with the limited knowledge that I have and as far as I can remember, the CPU is setting its OC automatically to 4.6. I don't recall manually setting it after I reinstalled my Windows a couple months ago. Also, I don't know why system fans 2 and 3 (bottom intakes) don't match up or match up to system fan 1 (rest of the fans) since they have the same fan speed curve set.

Little high is understatement. You shouldn't ever use auto-OC. This is result of that. For Intel, best voltages are under 1.3V. With good cooling, you can try to find sweetspot for OC stability up to 1.4V, though running CPU at those voltages for longer periods will cause degradation.

[Odyss]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

Little high is understatement. You shouldn't ever use auto-OC. This is result of that. For Intel, best voltages are under 1.3V. With good cooling, you can try to find sweetspot for OC stability up to 1.4V, though running CPU at those voltages for longer periods will cause degradation.

Fair enough, I'll look into it and see what I can come up with. It is theoretically possible to achieve the same level of OC with a voltage under 1.3V though, right?

[LogicalDrm]

57 minutes ago, Odyss said:

Fair enough, I'll look into it and see what I can come up with. It is theoretically possible to achieve the same level of OC with a voltage under 1.3V though, right?

Well, 4.6GHz isn't really a OC. Its just Turbo Boost https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134896/intel-core-i5-9600k-processor-9m-cache-up-to-4-60-ghz.html

 

Meaning that unless you have very bad lock, you can get there with stock voltage of 1.1V. And if you happen to have bad luck, 1.2-1.25V is fairly reasonable.

[freeagent]

Nice system.

 

I see a higher tdp gpu dumping its full glory into your large case with pretty fans that probably don’t move much air. Your top exhaust is pulling your warm gpu up and feeding it to your cpu, which also happens to be at load. First thing you can try is pulling the pci slot covers and running with no side panel on to see if that helps, if it does maybe turn your top exhaust into intakes and put your side panel back on. If you are getting better results roll like that, or move to stronger fans or just leave the panel off. An open air bench is good for cpu/gpu folding. I run a meshify c with industrial fans and the performance is excellent for things like folding. My glass panel doesn’t warm.

 

[Odyss]

24 minutes ago, freeagent said:

Nice system.

 

I see a higher tdp gpu dumping its full glory into your large case with pretty fans that probably don’t move much air. Your top exhaust is pulling your warm gpu up and feeding it to your cpu, which also happens to be at load. First thing you can try is pulling the pci slot covers and running with no side panel on to see if that helps, if it does maybe turn your top exhaust into intakes and put your side panel back on. If you are getting better results roll like that, or move to stronger fans or just leave the panel off. An open air bench is good for cpu/gpu folding. I run a meshify c with industrial fans and the performance is excellent for things like folding. My glass panel doesn’t warm.

 

I honestly thought of F@H with no side panel but all my other systems had to go through this "fix" for so long that I decided I'd like a system where I can leave it on at all times and not be too worried about the thermals. As for turning the top exhausts into intakes, I don't know, I didn't see it as a good configuration having 7 intakes with only 1 exhaust, though I never tried it to begin with in the first place. I was particularly interested now in these higher temperatures since the stuff I normally do outside of F@H don't require 100% of both my GPU and CPU, so it was never a worry to begin with. Might consider better fans when I'll see fit and just stick with these until then.

[freeagent]

Indeed, it may seem excessive to have that many intakes but, you have a large case with obstructions, and the fans you have right now aren’t doing a whole lot. The air will leave the case, don’t worry about that. But now because you can’t get heated air out of your case fast enough, might as well try to cool it as it exits. It may or may not help. In the end it’s up to you though, it’s your time and money.

[Odyss]

Just now, freeagent said:

Indeed, it may seem excessive to have that many intakes but, you have a large case with obstructions, and the fans you have right now aren’t doing a whole lot. The air will leave the case, don’t worry about that. But now because you can’t get heated air out of your case fast enough, might as well try to cool it as it exits. It may or may not help. In the end it’s up to you though, it’s your time and money.

I'll try fiddling with the core voltage first, see how it performs and then I'll give your idea a try and see what comes of it. Thanks for the input!

[freeagent]

No problem, your case looked a lot bigger on my phone.

[Odyss]

On 4/13/2020 at 3:23 PM, LogicalDrm said:

Well, 4.6GHz isn't really a OC. Its just Turbo Boost https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134896/intel-core-i5-9600k-processor-9m-cache-up-to-4-60-ghz.html

 

Meaning that unless you have very bad lock, you can get there with stock voltage of 1.1V. And if you happen to have bad luck, 1.2-1.25V is fairly reasonable.

I realize it's a bit overdue this reply, but I have managed to bring my CPU to 4.6 GHz with a core voltage of 1.25V (initially set to 1.24 but crashed unexpectedly in a CPU intensive game). While the temps look much better at stock, I haven't quite tested it under the same conditions, more specifically folding with GPU and CPU under full load, so I'm not sure how much the temps have dropped, but it's definitely an improvement. Through this I want to thank you because I honestly never thought that turbo boost would actually increase my CPU voltage by that much, I was always under the impression that it was well optimized. In any case, I won't be able to test the combination under the same condition as my fan controller is dead due to a blown capacitor I've noticed while switching PSU's (better late than never I suppose). With this another question arises: is there a fan controller that you know of, able to withstand 8 fans with 3&4 pins and RGB control? Thanks in advance!

[LogicalDrm]

3 minutes ago, Odyss said:

With this another question arises: is there a fan controller that you know of, able to withstand 8 fans with 3&4 pins and RGB control? Thanks in advance!

 

RGB and fan control are done with two different cables. For fans, if you want individual control, you need controller from Corsair, NZXT or Asus. For RGB it depends whether you go for ARGB or RGB

 

 

And its Intel and manufacturers issue because they are lazy to fix it. Or do not acknowledge it (and only couple reviewers do).