Jump to content

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

Stefan1024
 Share
Posted
  • Author

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...

 

It should be possible to run all HDDs and SSDs of a different PSU, since no power is flowing over SATA. Not that much wattage to offload to the second PSU.

Or you just try to get your hands on one of these: http://koolance.com/1000w-liquid-cooled-power-supply (no longer in production)

 

 

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

version after all. :D

 

Without software feedback it just runns with default settings (singel rail). But the software is quite nice because you can read out the wattage delivered, the temperature and some more information. For testing purpose you can run a virtual machine to get the reading.

 

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

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.

 

Luckily until now I don't had to lift the entire system at once. Also I should not lift more than 20 kg because of my back. But for this project I will make a exception :rolleyes:

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

It should be possible to run all HDDs and SSDs of a different PSU, since no power is flowing over SATA. Not that much wattage to offload to the second PSU.

Or you just try to get your hands on one of these: http://koolance.com/1000w-liquid-cooled-power-supply (no longer in production)

You know, funniest goddamn thing, I actually do have the 1700 W version of that (no,

seriously)!!! lachen.gif

It was the very first item I bought for my build in August 2011, bought it brand

new in box on ebay from a guy in the US for 600 CHF (incl. VAT). It's a thing of

true beauty.

BUT: It's not compatible with my motherboard. cry.gif

The SR-2 has a rather peculiar power-on sequence: It powers on for like half a second,

then shuts off power to pretty much everything again for a bit, then powers on and POSTs.

The Koolance PSU does not at all like being turned on and sort-of off again so quickly

and will refuse to turn on again on the second event.

Unrelated to that though: The pump in the PSU is actually louder than the fan on my Enermax,

and it has a more annoying sound than the low humming from the fan.

But yeah, I still have the PSU in a box here, it's really impressive in person, which

is why I haven't sold it again despite not really having a use for it (well, maybe some

day!).

And thanks for the info on the PSU! :)

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Update 12: Final assembly part 1

 

So this week I stared with the final assembling of all the parts I have so far. After screwing it together I was screwed because I couln'd lift it anymore by myself ;)

It weigths ~50kg now and stands on 16 rubber feets.

 

post-216771-0-42360400-1442148349_thumb.

 

Due to the fact the CPU is hotter than the GPU I created a little gab between the GPU and CPU heat sinks so that the GPU can heat up the CPU.

 

post-216771-0-94540100-1442148338_thumb.

 

Some cables where a bit long, especially the 24 pin MoBo power cord, but behind the PSU I have a few centimeter for cable management.

 

post-216771-0-75234400-1442148427_thumb.

 

And some more impressions of the build:

post-216771-0-41530300-1442148362_thumb.

post-216771-0-69478600-1442148482_thumb.

post-216771-0-31483000-1442148495_thumb.

post-216771-0-15221700-1442148508_thumb.

post-216771-0-44711700-1442148606_thumb.

 

I also run Unigine heaven for two hours:

post-216771-0-04265600-1442148331_thumb.

 

The temps are pretty good for 24°C ambient in my oppinion.

 

What I still have to do:

-Top and back cover

- Thermal generator with peltier modules

- Borrow a thermal image camera to verify the cooling and searing for hot spots.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Update 12: Final assembly part 1

That looks like beastly dynamite ready to blow with awesomeness xD 

Current system - ThinkPad Yoga 460

ExSystems

Spoiler

Laptop - ASUS FX503VD

|| Case: NZXT H440 ❤️|| MB: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI || CPU: Skylake Chip || Graphics card : GTX 970 Strix || RAM: Crucial Ballistix 16GB || Storage:1TB WD+500GB WD + 120Gb HyperX savage|| Monitor: Dell U2412M+LG 24MP55HQ+Philips TV ||  PSU CX600M || 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Update 13: Stress test, 500 watts!

 

After the moderate test with Unigine Heaven I stressed the entire system to the limit (both GPU's 100% TDP and 100 watts on the CPU). In this configuration I pulled about 530 - 550 watts from the wall. After about one hour the temps get stable (26°C ambient).

 

post-216771-0-86736200-1442159488_thumb.

 

The CPU temperature might be a bit high, but this workload is very unlikely to occure in normal usage. After all I feel very happy that the system can handle >500 watts passive cooled!

 

I know some of you don't recommend synthetic stress tests, but I made sure all components run on a constant power limit so the torture programm can't go crazy.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Wow fantastic temps, on the regular bench. Really didn't expect it to be that good :P

 

How hot is it to the touch? 

 

Also, Damn, 50Kg, bastards wont be stealing that thing any time soon ;) 

Bleigh!  Ever hear of AC series? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Wow fantastic temps, on the regular bench. Really didn't expect it to be that good :P

How hot is it to the touch?

Also, Damn, 50Kg, bastards wont be stealing that thing any time soon ;)

To be honest, I was also surprized the GPU cooling works as calculated. Due to the good thernal coupling the heat sinks get quite hot, after >1 hour full stress I'm just barly able to touch them for a long time.

The CPU cooling on the other hand was a bit a mess and due to the bad heat pipes and / or theier mounting the heat sinks stays relatively cool.

As I don't go to LAN partys I don't care about the weigth once the system is installed :)

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

To be honest, I was also surprized the GPU cooling works as calculated. Due to the good thernal coupling the heat sinks get quite hot, after >1 hour full stress I'm just barly able to touch them for a long time.

The CPU cooling on the other hand was a bit a mess and due to the bad heat pipes and / or theier mounting the heat sinks stays relatively cool.

As I don't go to LAN partys I don't care about the weigth once the system is installed :)

 

 

Yeah, it seems like a tough job to make good contact alright.  

 

The temps you showed off were great for the cpu  though. 

 

Happy days :) loved the project! 

Bleigh!  Ever hear of AC series? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

q

 

 

Is 1000w enough to power your rig?

 

The EVGA 1000 P2 I have is silent regardless of load with "eco mode" switch engaged, it only turns on the fan when it hits 45c.   In my experience I have to put load on it for a really long time, like 3+ hours for the fan to actually turn on, and it runs super super slow and I can't hear it without putting my ear next to it. 

 

If you could get a tiny bit of air-flow to it, the fan may never even turn on. 

 

There's a 1200w variant too with the same feature.

Stuff:  i7 7700k @ (dat nibba succ) | ASRock Z170M OC Formula | G.Skill TridentZ 3600 c16 | EKWB 1080 @ 2100 mhz  |  Acer X34 Predator | R4 | EVGA 1000 P2 | 1080mm Radiator Custom Loop | HD800 + Audio-GD NFB-11 | 850 Evo 1TB | 840 Pro 256GB | 3TB WD Blue | 2TB Barracuda

Hwbot: http://hwbot.org/user/lays/ 

FireStrike 980 ti @ 1800 Mhz http://hwbot.org/submission/3183338 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11574089

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Yeah, it seems like a tough job to make good contact alright.

The temps you showed off were great for the cpu though.

Well as an engineer you need room for errors and using an off the shelf CPU cooler was allways my back-up plan if the temperatures got out of controll.

85℃ is still 5℃ more than I prefered, but I complain on a high level :)

There are still a lot of things to do like recovering electrical energy.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Well as an engineer you need room for errors and using an off the shelf CPU cooler was allways my back-up plan if the temperatures got out of controll.

85℃ is still 5℃ more than I prefered, but I complain on a high level :)

There are still a lot of things to do like recovering electrical energy.

 

Indeed, a pretty whopper build  though. Might be nice when it gets cold too ;) 

 

Are you planning on adding it to this build soon? If you dont mind me asking. 

Bleigh!  Ever hear of AC series? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Is 1000w enough to power your rig?

I do pull around 500 watts from the PSU will the torture test. This is about 90% of what my PSU is capable off. I'm fine with that, since it allows higher peak loads.

Also even if the fan would never spinn at all, there IS still a fan. No option for this build sorry :)

I even made a hardware switch to turn off the HDD since I don't like to have moving parts in the system. Also it is by far the loadest part.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I do pull around 500 watts from the PSU will the torture test. This is about 90% of what my PSU is capable off. I'm fine with that, since it allows higher peak loads.

Also even if the fan would never spinn at all, there IS still a fan. No option for this build sorry :)

I even made a hardware switch to turn off the HDD since I don't like to have moving parts in the system. Also it is by far the loadest part.

 

 

Sorry I was trying to ask alpenwasser, not you :P

Stuff:  i7 7700k @ (dat nibba succ) | ASRock Z170M OC Formula | G.Skill TridentZ 3600 c16 | EKWB 1080 @ 2100 mhz  |  Acer X34 Predator | R4 | EVGA 1000 P2 | 1080mm Radiator Custom Loop | HD800 + Audio-GD NFB-11 | 850 Evo 1TB | 840 Pro 256GB | 3TB WD Blue | 2TB Barracuda

Hwbot: http://hwbot.org/user/lays/ 

FireStrike 980 ti @ 1800 Mhz http://hwbot.org/submission/3183338 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/11574089

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Are you planning on adding it to this build soon? If you dont mind me asking.

Since it is very unconftabe to upgrade the hardware due to the construction, it is designed to last as long as poosible. Therefor I fit everything into I will need.

All PCI-e slots are filled, I have enougth storage (when I include the NAS) and a lot of compute power.

Probably I wil add 16 GB of RAM when DDR3 is on sale.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I do pull around 500 watts from the PSU will the torture test. This is about 90% of what my PSU is capable off. I'm fine with that, since it allows higher peak loads.

Also even if the fan would never spinn at all, there IS still a fan. No option for this build sorry :)

I even made a hardware switch to turn off the HDD since I don't like to have moving parts in the system. Also it is by far the loadest part.

Why hadn't you gone the SSD route? 

Current system - ThinkPad Yoga 460

ExSystems

Spoiler

Laptop - ASUS FX503VD

|| Case: NZXT H440 ❤️|| MB: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI || CPU: Skylake Chip || Graphics card : GTX 970 Strix || RAM: Crucial Ballistix 16GB || Storage:1TB WD+500GB WD + 120Gb HyperX savage|| Monitor: Dell U2412M+LG 24MP55HQ+Philips TV ||  PSU CX600M || 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Why hadn't you gone the SSD route?

Well I did semehow. I have 400 + 500 GB of SSD storage for my dayly usage.

But I also have a 3TB HDD for bluk files and back-up. But this one I can power off with a hardware switch and runns only ~1x per week.

I don't have enough money to use SSDs for back-ups :)

Also it woulb be silly since the can loose data when not powered on for a certain time.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Since it is very unconftabe to upgrade the hardware due to the construction, it is designed to last as long as poosible. Therefor I fit everything into I will need.

All PCI-e slots are filled, I have enougth storage (when I include the NAS) and a lot of compute power.

Probably I wil add 16 GB of RAM when DDR3 is on sale.

 

Aweosme :) 

Bleigh!  Ever hear of AC series? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Damn, that is one awesome block and metal and electronics you got there, Stefan. :D

Is 1000w enough to power your rig?

 

The EVGA 1000 P2 I have is silent regardless of load with "eco mode" switch engaged, it only turns on the fan when it hits 45c.   In my experience I have to put load on it for a really long time, like 3+ hours for the fan to actually turn on, and it runs super super slow and I can't hear it without putting my ear next to it. 

 

If you could get a tiny bit of air-flow to it, the fan may never even turn on. 

 

There's a 1200w variant too with the same feature.

Yeah, 1 kW would be enough, I pull about 800 W from the wall. I'm looking at a

few solutions, but since school has started again it'll probably be a while before

I actually do anything. Thanks though! :)

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

But can it make bacon?

 

That is the question. Passively cooled system sounds great, but the sound of bacon frying while gaming is better...

 

EDIT: I know, massive TL;DR. But I had to do it.

 

Otherwise, I'm just drooling over your PC right now,

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

This is one RIG that won't fall, but if it ever... make sur your downstair neighbours aren't under the case xD

 

Impressive till the end :D

 

Might be stupid to ask but why not attach wheels to it ? just to be able to move it a bit more easilly :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

But can it make bacon?

 

That is the question. Passively cooled system sounds great, but the sound of bacon frying while gaming is better...

 

EDIT: I know, massive TL;DR. But I had to do it.

 

Otherwise, I'm just drooling over your PC right now,

 

Haha this would justify gaming two hours in the morning before having breakfast ;)

But 60°C is not enougth, even a fried egg requires a minim temperature of 82,5 °C. The cooling simply works to good....

 

 

This is one RIG that won't fall, but if it ever... make sur your downstair neighbours aren't under the case xD

 

Impressive till the end :D

 

Might be stupid to ask but why not attach wheels to it ? just to be able to move it a bit more easilly :o

 

The PC will stand next to me on the desk. With feets it's rock solid, but with weels I'm a bit affraid it will roll of the table.

Also wells have a very smal contact point to the surface. With the 16 feets I can spread out the preassure, but I'm not eager to mount >10 wheels.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

If you attach a tub of water you could do souvide. I'm pretty sure it works at 60 degrees, plus it takes a long time, so you have an excuse for long gaming sessions  :D

Check out my YouTube channel here and don't forget to subscribe :D

Current build: Project Athena

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Build Logs

×