[Build Log] Project Frost - Case-Labs THW10 | X99 Watercooled | i7 6950X | Titan X | Borosilicate Glass Tubing

[Bananasplit_00]

16 hours ago, Revan654 said:

 

Lead is better to use for this situation, Lead Free requires more work & also requires a higher temperature. Most sleeving shop use the lead base soldering wire. Plus Lead free soldering is more expensive.

you litteraly cant buy solder with led where i live, and everything is made for it anyway here in Sweden lol. i find it pretty easy to work with but i have also never used solder with lead

[Revan654]

1 hour ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

you litteraly cant buy solder with led where i live, and everything is made for it anyway here in Sweden lol. i find it pretty easy to work with but i have also never used solder with lead

 

There are many advantages to lead over lead free. Most prefer lead version since it's easier to work with.

[Revan654]

Seems intel has announced the i9 7960XE processor for 2,000+. Which requires the x299 motherboards. The new ROG Rampage VI Extreme looks like garbage, way to much RGB & plastic lightbox Which is 100% unneeded. I can only imagine what Asus will want for the board (Maybe 600 to 700 dollars).

[Revan654]

[Revan654]

 

Some real quick crimps with the new crimper.

[done12many2]

4 hours ago, Revan654 said:

Seems intel has announced the i9 7960XE processor for 2,000+. Which requires the x299 motherboards. The new ROG Rampage VI Extreme looks like garbage, way to much RGB & plastic lightbox Which is 100% unneeded. I can only imagine what Asus will want for the board (Maybe 600 to 700 dollars).

 

The i9 7960X (16c/32t) is $1699 and the even bigger i9-7980XE (18c/36t) is $1999.  

 

AMD really did us a solid by creating competition as Intel pricing, while still not cost effective for most, is damn sure a hell of a lot lower than it's been in years past.  

 

I'll be going with the new x299 Rampage IV Extreme or the new x299 Apex.  Either board is crushing it with features.  I've been anxious for NVMe RAID ever since having it with z270 and it's now available on x299 via Intel's VROC.

 

Kinda weird timing as I just got a replacement 5960x from Intel and it is one of the highly praised "J" batch chips that Intel had hiding out in the back.  I've decided to keep it since it clocks so well and I'll be getting rid of z270 to make room for x299.  

 

Good to see the progress on the build man.  If you had to guess, when do you think you'll be done?

 

 

[Revan654]

21 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

The i9 7960X (16c/32t) is $1699 and the even bigger i9-7980XE (18c/36t) is $1999.  

 

AMD really did us a solid by creating competition as Intel pricing, while still not cost effective for most, is damn sure a hell of a lot lower than it's been in years past.  

 

I'll be going with the new x299 Rampage IV Extreme or the new x299 Apex.  Either board is crushing it with features.  I've been anxious for NVMe RAID ever since having it with z270 and it's now available on x299 via Intel's VROC.

 

Kinda weird timing as I just got a replacement 5960x from Intel and it is one of the highly praised "J" batch chips that Intel had hiding out in the back.  I've decided to keep it since it clocks so well and I'll be getting rid of z270 to make room for x299.  

 

Good to see the progress on the build man.  If you had to guess, when do you think you'll be done?

 

 

 

AMD barely anything. XE is the same price as the 6950x when it was first launched. I wonder how much TDP XE is will be dishing out. There no data on higher CPU's.

 

X299 is going to be to expensive for some. I still haven't seen a motherboard I would buy from x299 chipset. There no Godlike Carbon or Rampage Edition 10 style boards. Only boards caked in plastic crap & RGB.

 

Also there less Sata ports & pcie slots on all the motherboard due to the M.2 slots. I think I would take an extra pair of pcie slots.

[Revan654]

Look EK is shift there focus & there target customers. There starting to roll out Aluminum radiators (Which is a giant NO with custom loops). You will have to use there kits & can't mix any other type of parts from other companies. Plus you can not use anything Mayhem makes.

[done12many2]

35 minutes ago, Revan654 said:

AMD barely anything.

 

Not sure what that meant.

 

Quote

XE is the same price as the 6950x when it was first launched. I wonder how much TDP XE is will be dishing out. There no data on higher CPU's.

 

I think I saw TDP ratings in the 160w area for the higher X and XE parts.  

 

The new version of the 6950x is the 7900X and it is $999.  That's a pretty nice drop for a faster chip.  If AMD hadn't stirred stuff up, we would more than likely only have been looking at the addition of the 7920X (12c/24t) to the lineup and it would have more then likely been a lot higher then the $1199 that they are asking for that.  Thanks to competition, we can now look forward to a 16c/32t chip for just under the retail price of last year's 6950x.

 

Truthfully the 7900X and the 7820X are the sweet spots for this lineup.  Intel lowered L3 cache in favor of quadrupling L2 cache from the 256 KB found on Haswell-E and Broadwell-E to an impressive 1 MB.  As far as IPC, I've seen speculation ranging from 8 to 18% so far so things are looking good.

 

Skylake X will have up to 44 CPU PCIe lanes + 24 chip set lanes for a total of 68.  AMD's Threadripper is supposed to have 60 CPU PCIe lanes + 4 to the chip set where it's further divided.  

 

A lot more PCIe lanes, higher IPC, higher overclocks (if one's cooling can keep up  ), more cores... blah blah blah.   These are good times for Intel and AMD fans alike.

 

Reviews on Skylake X should start hitting YouTube on the 12th if not a hair sooner.  

 

Quote

X299 is going to be to expensive for some. I still haven't seen a motherboard I would buy from x299 chipset. There no Godlike Carbon or Rampage Edition 10 style boards. Only boards caked in plastic crap & RGB.

 

Enthusiasts said the same thing about the Rampage V E10 when it released.  Everyone was hating on the LED lighting and saying that Asus was just trying to squeeze more money out of us.  I personally liked the Rampage V E10 then and I still like it now.  I do however think the new version is pretty sweet as well.  They've definitely added more features that I'll like to have.  

 

https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/rog-introduces-rampage-vi-extreme-rampage-vi-apex-and-strix-x299-e-motherboards-for-skylake-x/

 

34 minutes ago, Revan654 said:

Look EK is shift there focus & there target customers. There starting to roll out Aluminum radiators (Which is a giant NO with custom loops). You will have to use there kits & can't mix any other type of parts from other companies. Plus you can not use anything Mayhem makes.

 

What?  Is that on a lower end line or something?  Do you have a link?

 

 

 

[Revan654]

3 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

Not sure what that meant.

 

 

I think I saw TDP ratings in the 160w area for the higher X and XE parts.  

 

The new version of the 6950x is the 7900X and it is $999.  That's a pretty nice drop for a faster chip.  If AMD hadn't stirred stuff up, we would more than likely only have been looking at the addition of the 7920X (12c/24t) to the lineup and it would have more then likely been a lot higher then the $1199 that they are asking for that.  Thanks to competition, we can now look forward to a 16c/32t chip for just under the retail price of last year's 6950x.

 

Truthfully the 7900X and the 7820X are the sweet spots for this lineup.  Intel lowered L3 cache in favor of quadrupling L2 cache from the 256 KB found on Haswell-E and Broadwell-E to an impressive 1 MB.  As far as IPC, I've seen speculation ranging from 8 to 18% so far so things are looking good.

 

Skylake X will have up to 44 CPU PCIe lanes + 24 chip set lanes for a total of 68.  AMD's Threadripper is supposed to have 60 CPU PCIe lanes + 4 to the chip set where it's further divided.  

 

A lot more PCIe lanes, higher IPC, higher overclocks (if one's cooling can keep up  ), more cores... blah blah blah.   These are good times for Intel and AMD fans alike.

 

Reviews on Skylake X should start hitting YouTube on the 12th if not a hair sooner.  

 

 

Enthusiasts said the same thing about the Rampage V E10 when it released.  Everyone was hating on the LED lighting and saying that Asus was just trying to squeeze more money out of us.  I personally liked the Rampage V E10 then and I still like it now.  I do however think the new version is pretty sweet as well.  They've definitely added more features that I'll like to have.  

 

https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/rog-introduces-rampage-vi-extreme-rampage-vi-apex-and-strix-x299-e-motherboards-for-skylake-x/

 

 

What?  Is that on a lower end line or something?  Do you have a link?

 

 

 

 

It's on EK website (There calling it EK Fluid Gaming). It can only be obtain through there kits right now. Still should stuck with copper.

 

CPU & GPU Black material: Aluminum

Radiator: Aluminum

 

There top kit is 239 dollars. Anyone who knows anything about watercooling would not put any kind of Aluminum inside there loop. Kit is basically high end AIO.

 

There separating product lines from all there current lines. Since they created a separate website for Fluid Gaming.

 

All the hardcore EK users are having heartattacks because of this. I don't really use EK products anymore, The only item in my entire build that is EK is the monoblock. I wish Watercool made a monoblock from my motherboard. There products are much higher quality.

 

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The new Rampage, There way to much going on. That lightbox or whatever you want to call it needs to remove from the pcie slot area. It's not needed. Only good feature is the 802.11ad if your close enough to your router to use it.

 

hopefully Asus has reduce the bloatware in there software.

 

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The new 7900x is new 5960x.

 

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I'm talking just about all motherboards that been announced. There lacking in Sata & pcie area. x99 has more options right now. x299 would not be an option for me right now since there not enough sata ports.

[done12many2]

5 hours ago, Revan654 said:

 

It's on EK website (There calling it EK Fluid Gaming). It can only be obtain through there kits right now. Still should stuck with copper.

 

CPU & GPU Black material: Aluminum

Radiator: Aluminum

 

There top kit is 239 dollars. Anyone who knows anything about watercooling would not put any kind of Aluminum inside there loop. Kit is basically high end AIO.

 

There separating product lines from all there current lines. Since they created a separate website for Fluid Gaming.

 

All the hardcore EK users are having heartattacks because of this. I don't really use EK products anymore, The only item in my entire build that is EK is the monoblock. I wish Watercool made a monoblock from my motherboard. There products are much higher quality.

 

As long as you can distinguish the difference, I'm cool with that.  Sounds like they did just that.  I'd never used any of the AIO type kits anyways.

 

The large EK loop in my main rig has performed flawlessly for 2 years, but it's time for me to transition to a water chiller.  Ambient cooling methods just aren't cutting it for me anymore.  While I don't plan to run sub-ambient temps yet, I will buy a water chiller large enough to cool two systems fully loaded.  I'm going to install the chiller in the basement below my home office and install a pass-through panel in the floor.  I'll just run it a few degrees below ambient until I decide to insulate stuff. 

 

5 hours ago, Revan654 said:

The new Rampage, There way to much going on. That lightbox or whatever you want to call it needs to remove from the pcie slot area. It's not needed. Only good feature is the 802.11ad if your close enough to your router to use it.

 

It also has 10 Gigabit ethernet.  I've been wanting to switch over to 10 Gigabit so that I can increase speeds to / from my Synology NAS.  It'll be nice having bandwidth faster then the drives can actually write!

 

I only use wireless for stuff like smartphones and tablets so I don't even care about the 802.11ad.

 

5 hours ago, Revan654 said:

hopefully Asus has reduce the bloatware in there software.

 

Luckily, Asus doesn't force you to install any of the bloatware.  You can "deselect all" and only install the drivers and software that you want.

 

5 hours ago, Revan654 said:

The new 7900x is new 5960x.

 

That is not correct.  The new 5960x/6900k (8 cores) is actually the 7820x ($599) and the new 6950x (10 cores) is the 7900k ($999).  Talk about a blow to us x99 guys.  The value of my 5960x just dropped a lot.  While my 5960x still has more CPU PCIe lanes then its replacement 7820x, the new chip is going to be a lot faster and will more then likely overclock a lot better (Skylake vs Haswell architecture).  My 5960x is probably worth $350 at best now.  

 

5 hours ago, Revan654 said:

I'm talking just about all motherboards that been announced. There lacking in Sata & pcie area. x99 has more options right now. x299 would not be an option for me right now since there not enough sata ports.

 

Yeah, if you need more than 6 SATA header, you'd need to add a separate RAID card.  Motherboard RAID is just software RAID anyways, so an add-in card from a prominent name for true hardware RAID is preferred if using RAID for anything serious.  I personally don't use motherboard RAID for anything important anymore as doing something as simple as resetting CMOS destroys the array on the SATA side.  The NVMe RAIDs always survives reset, but never the SATA.  

 

Not to mention that all of those SATA ports on x99 are channeled through DMI 2.0, which means if you did use the motherboard RAID, it would still only be half of the available bandwidth of the DMI 3.0 on z170, z270 and now x299.  So at most you can only pipe 1.x GB/s through the DMI.  Not an issue if you don't use RAID, but running 10 individual SATA drives without RAID would be PAINFULLY slow for me.  

 

As soon as x299 releases, my wife and kids will be getting SSD upgrades.   I'll be removing all of my SSDs and running nothing but NVMe M.2 from here on out.  No more wires, super low latency, and just fast as hell.  With a 10 Gigabit network, mass storage to and from a Synology 8-bay will hit 1.x GB/s so that's more then plenty considering it's remote storage with built-in redundancy.  

 

PCIe area is the same size, but they did drop one x1 slot.  Those always made me laugh anyways so no big deal.  Plus, we all know that if you use every slot on an x99 board, you end up losing lanes to stuff like M.2 and SATA ports.  Basically, it looked cool, but due to lane sharing it could never all be used at once.  The 24 chipset lanes in x299 vs the 8 chipset lanes in x99 will help relieve a lot of the lane sharing problem.  

 

Truthfully and after all that, I'm going to have to keep my eye on AMD as Threadripper is NO JOKE!  Competition is great.

 

 

[PCGuy_5960]

7 hours ago, Revan654 said:

The new 7900x is the new and improved 6950X with a 15-20% IPC improvement, a larger L2 cache, way more PCIe lanes and a better memory controller

FIFY

[Bananasplit_00]

12 hours ago, Revan654 said:

Look EK is shift there focus & there target customers. There starting to roll out Aluminum radiators (Which is a giant NO with custom loops). You will have to use there kits & can't mix any other type of parts from other companies. Plus you can not use anything Mayhem makes.

wow... thats going to suck for people that dont do research. havent personaly been planing on getting EK anyway, assembled a loop and it came out at basically the price of a 1080TI...  id rather not then

 

[done12many2]

30 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

wow... thats going to suck for people that dont do research. havent personaly been planing on getting EK anyway, assembled a loop and it came out at basically the price of a 1080TI...  id rather not then

 

 

That's cheap for a full loop!  

[Bananasplit_00]

Just now, done12many2 said:

 

That's cheap for a full loop!  

ehh its more then i have, you can do it way cheaper and still have decent preformance. depends on what you are cooling tbh. im going to be cooling an I7 4790K at around 4.8-5 GHz and a GTX 1080 so spending more on my loop then my GPU makes no sense to me, id rather get a new GPU if thats the case tbh

[done12many2]

2 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

ehh its more then i have, you can do it way cheaper and still have decent preformance. depends on what you are cooling tbh. im going to be cooling an I7 4790K at around 4.8-5 GHz and a GTX 1080 so spending more on my loop then my GPU makes no sense to me, id rather get a new GPU if thats the case tbh

 

Totally agree.   It's FAR better to run an air cooled 1080 Ti then a water cooled 1080 if the water cooling costs more money.

 

One of my 1080 Ti GPUs is stronger at stock then one of my 1080 GPUs overclocked and water cooled.  

 

Are you going to delid the 4790k? 

[Bananasplit_00]

Just now, done12many2 said:

 

Totally agree.   It's FAR better to run an air cooled 1080 Ti then a water cooled 1080 if the water cooling costs more money.

 

Are you going to delid the 4790k? 

i have been thinking of deliding it, havent decided yet tbh, the chip gets really hot which is the reason that im running it at stock but it also does 4.8GHz at just 1.275V but that OC with my NH-D14 got to 100C packadge  

[done12many2]

1 minute ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

i have been thinking of deliding it, havent decided yet tbh, the chip gets really hot which is the reason that im running it at stock but it also does 4.8GHz at just 1.275V but that OC with my NH-D14 got to 100C packadge  

 

You'd be better of with a delid and a nice AIO.  Don't get me wrong, a loop is nice, but they are mostly just money dumped in the trash with regards to value.  Then you could sell your 1080, upgrade to a 1080 Ti and still have more money left over then you would have upgrading to a loop while keeping a 1080.

 

More CPU and GPU performance for a great deal less money spent.  

[Bananasplit_00]

Just now, done12many2 said:

 

You'd be better of with a delid and a nice AIO.  Don't get me wrong, a loop is nice, but they are mostly just money dumped in the trash with regards to value.  Then you could sell your 1080, upgrade to a 1080 Ti and still have more money left over then you would have upgrading to a loop while keeping a 1080.

 

More CPU and GPU performance for a great deal less money spent.  

well i dont have the 1080 yet, im still rocking that sweet 3.5GB GTX 970(probably one of the worst ones out there even ;-;), the 1080 is just what i want to get at the moment, but we will see how much cash i end up with after the summer  hopeing to afford a 1080TI or if Vega turns out to be great il probably get that instead. i mainly want to watercool for the looks and preformance but if i can afford more preformance looks go out the window instantly for me  

[done12many2]

2 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

well i dont have the 1080 yet, im still rocking that sweet 3.5GB GTX 970(probably one of the worst ones out there even ;-;), the 1080 is just what i want to get at the moment, but we will see how much cash i end up with after the summer  hopeing to afford a 1080TI or if Vega turns out to be great il probably get that instead. i mainly want to watercool for the looks and preformance but if i can afford more preformance looks go out the window instantly for me  

 

You'll almost always get more performance by buying the next higher GPU then the next lower and trying to watercool/overclock it and you'll save money doing it over the added cost of a loop.  

 

The 1080 is priced great now thanks in part to the 1080 Ti release.  

 

Loops come in handy when you already have the top tier cards and find yourself wanting even more, but nothing more exists.  In that case you have to double the amount of top tier cards you have and water cool / overclock the crap out of them.      Otherwise getting the next higher card, if it existed, would have been the better option.

 

The air coolers on these newer Pascal cards are getting really nice.  I don't think you'll sacrifice a whole lot at all just sticking with air.  After all, overclock Maxwell and even worse, Pascal, doesn't net the return that you might think.  Don't get me wrong, I do it, but it's a lot of wasted money.  

[Bananasplit_00]

19 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

You'll almost always get more performance by buying the next higher GPU then the next lower and trying to watercool/overclock it and you'll save money doing it over the added cost of a loop.  

 

The 1080 is priced great now thanks in part to the 1080 Ti release.  

 

Loops come in handy when you already have the top tier cards and find yourself wanting even more, but nothing more exists.  In that case you have to double the amount of top tier cards you have and water cool / overclock the crap out of them.      Otherwise getting the next higher card, if it existed, would have been the better option.

 

The air coolers on these newer Pascal cards are getting really nice.  I don't think you'll sacrifice a whole lot at all just sticking with air.  After all, overclock Maxwell and even worse, Pascal, doesn't net the return that you might think.  Don't get me wrong, I do it, but it's a lot of wasted money.  

overclocking Pascal in a good way requires breaking half the card with hardware bypasses lol but yah, getting a higher teir card is always a better buy then watercooling unless you are on the top of the line stuff basically, i just really want a yellow, black and white themed build  il hold off for now though

[Revan654]

5 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

That's cheap for a full loop!  

 

so is crap ThermalTake sells. I would never touch anything TT creates.

[done12many2]

2 minutes ago, Revan654 said:

 

so is crap ThermalTake sells. I would never touch anything TT creates.

 

I wouldn't either for anything that I use.  

[Revan654]

6 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

As long as you can distinguish the difference, I'm cool with that.  Sounds like they did just that.  I'd never used any of the AIO type kits anyways.

 

The large EK loop in my main rig has performed flawlessly for 2 years, but it's time for me to transition to a water chiller.  Ambient cooling methods just aren't cutting it for me anymore.  While I don't plan to run sub-ambient temps yet, I will buy a water chiller large enough to cool two systems fully loaded.  I'm going to install the chiller in the basement below my home office and install a pass-through panel in the floor.  I'll just run it a few degrees below ambient until I decide to insulate stuff. 

 

 

It also has 10 Gigabit ethernet.  I've been wanting to switch over to 10 Gigabit so that I can increase speeds to / from my Synology NAS.  It'll be nice having bandwidth faster then the drives can actually write!

 

I only use wireless for stuff like smartphones and tablets so I don't even care about the 802.11ad.

 

 

Luckily, Asus doesn't force you to install any of the bloatware.  You can "deselect all" and only install the drivers and software that you want.

 

 

That is not correct.  The new 5960x/6900k (8 cores) is actually the 7820x ($599) and the new 6950x (10 cores) is the 7900k ($999).  Talk about a blow to us x99 guys.  The value of my 5960x just dropped a lot.  While my 5960x still has more CPU PCIe lanes then its replacement 7820x, the new chip is going to be a lot faster and will more then likely overclock a lot better (Skylake vs Haswell architecture).  My 5960x is probably worth $350 at best now.  

 

 

Yeah, if you need more than 6 SATA header, you'd need to add a separate RAID card.  Motherboard RAID is just software RAID anyways, so an add-in card from a prominent name for true hardware RAID is preferred if using RAID for anything serious.  I personally don't use motherboard RAID for anything important anymore as doing something as simple as resetting CMOS destroys the array on the SATA side.  The NVMe RAIDs always survives reset, but never the SATA.  

 

Not to mention that all of those SATA ports on x99 are channeled through DMI 2.0, which means if you did use the motherboard RAID, it would still only be half of the available bandwidth of the DMI 3.0 on z170, z270 and now x299.  So at most you can only pipe 1.x GB/s through the DMI.  Not an issue if you don't use RAID, but running 10 individual SATA drives without RAID would be PAINFULLY slow for me.  

 

As soon as x299 releases, my wife and kids will be getting SSD upgrades.   I'll be removing all of my SSDs and running nothing but NVMe M.2 from here on out.  No more wires, super low latency, and just fast as hell.  With a 10 Gigabit network, mass storage to and from a Synology 8-bay will hit 1.x GB/s so that's more then plenty considering it's remote storage with built-in redundancy.  

 

PCIe area is the same size, but they did drop one x1 slot.  Those always made me laugh anyways so no big deal.  Plus, we all know that if you use every slot on an x99 board, you end up losing lanes to stuff like M.2 and SATA ports.  Basically, it looked cool, but due to lane sharing it could never all be used at once.  The 24 chipset lanes in x299 vs the 8 chipset lanes in x99 will help relieve a lot of the lane sharing problem.  

 

Truthfully and after all that, I'm going to have to keep my eye on AMD as Threadripper is NO JOKE!  Competition is great.

 

 

 

I Sold my EK rads since there high FPI rads which require high RPM's. I want to go with silence.

 

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I don't have an option for wired connection. the modem & router is on a completely different floor.

 

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Your not getting what I'm saying about 5960x.

 

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Why would speed be an issue if there just there for storage. I three SSD in Raid since I need the speed & space.

 

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You don't lose m.2 slot, atlease with my motherboard it just reduces the speed. I don't use the M.2 slots on my motherboard anyways. All my M.2 are watercooled.

 

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I do not like how EK is marketing the new line. The whole increase in FPS in games with there new kits.

[PCGuy_5960]

28 minutes ago, Revan654 said:

You're not getting what I'm saying about 5960x.

Please elaborate