Cooling 10980XE - Noctua DH15, Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420MM, or do I really need to go custom water?

Lopoetve

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Got the CPU, going on a Designaire 10G - 128G of RAM (mixed usage - CAD and 3d design some, might run a 3d printer, some server workloads in the background, possibly occasional light gaming if I feel weird). Trying to figure out how to cool it - with my Threadripper, I just chucked the TR4 version of the Noctua on and went away happy, but I've heard that the 10-series HEDT is... less tolerant of that as a monolithic die vs the chiplets. No overclock past the base configuration on the system for ~now~, but in theory, I might in the future (although not to extremes, most likely). Estimating a normal sustained load of 50-60%, with some spikes, and probably only a little AVX.

So that's obviously option 1. Just get the Noctua again and let it be.

Option 2 would seem to be the Arctic Cooling Liquid Freezer II 420 AIO - 420MM of rad space, three 140mm fans... but finding results from folks using it has been hard - not sure how much of a difference it makes with the water.

Option 3 is to suck it up and admit I have to do custom water on this - even if I leave the GPU air cooled. That's a bunch of money I was trying to avoid spending right away, but... I'm willing to consider it if I have to (also changes my case choices).

Thoughts?
 
From the sounds of it, you've already painted a picture of which option you're gonna go with. Can't afford #3 right now (or at least don't want to spend the extra $$ on it), and #1 is probably going to be overpowered by the estimated machine loads. Option 2 should be able to handle your cooling needs, and down the road when you've got the $$, THEN go for the custom loop.
 
Read my AIO reviews... Our test bench sports that chip and I test at 3 speeds - stock (3.7 all core, 4.3 all core @ 1.15v and. 4.7 all core @ 1.25v) as well as at 4 different fan set points.

Generally speaking, a 280 or 360 sized radiator is sufficient at stock speeds. Overclocking you'll want a 360 or bigger for sure.

The chip will vaporize a Hyper 212 in about 30 seconds of run time at stock. I have one of be quiet's tower coolers that I could try on it, but end of the day, when overclocking you will quickly exceed the thermal capabilities of air cooling.

I don't think you need a custom loop for what you are describing - I could also be tempted to order that arctic cooling unit for testing (and then you can source a lightly used one at a discount :) ).
 
I’ve got time before this build happens, if you wanted to test one... and I’d definitely trust you guys as a source...
 
At stock speeds the 10980XE isn't so bad cooling wise. There is a reason why their boost clocks are so conservative though. When you put a 4.5GHz+ all core overclock on them, they start getting extremely toasty.
 
FWIW, My Arctic LF II 120 developed a buzz from the Small VRM fan and also the pump got louder over time.
After 6 months I replaced it with a Fractal Celsius 240.

I also had 2 Arctic 140 Fans and one 120 replaced for free as they started to whine.
One of the replacements also started doing that about a month in, so I pretty much gave up on Arctic.

So at least for me, Arctic was cheap, and not so great.
I know they are popular and well reviewed in general, so maybe I just have bad luck..haha.
 
FWIW, My Arctic LF II 120 developed a buzz from the Small VRM fan and also the pump got louder over time.
After 6 months I replaced it with a Fractal Celsius 240.

I also had 2 Arctic 140 Fans and one 120 replaced for free as they started to whine.
One of the replacements also started doing that about a month in, so I pretty much gave up on Arctic.

So at least for me, Arctic was cheap, and not so great.
I know they are popular and well reviewed in general, so maybe I just have bad luck..haha.
I almost went with Artic... guess they weren't available when I went to buy. I really considered NZXTs unit with a programmable display on the pump until I got to the price (wow). Instead I went with something... the name and brand of which I'd have to look up 😅
 
Option 3 is to suck it up and admit I have to do custom water on this - even if I leave the GPU air cooled. That's a bunch of money I was trying to avoid spending right away, but... I'm willing to consider it if I have to (also changes my case choices).
Might look into how ...inexpensively... you can go 'modular'. Minimal 'custom' setup to mirror an AIO, where you can expand later as needed.

As @Dan_D has rightly pointed out to me recently, once you get to where you actually want everything under water, custom loops start making more sense not just logistically but also financially over time.

And seeing as how I have a GPU with an integrated AIO myself along with the 360mm AIO on the CPU, I'm really starting to think about going this route as it's GPU upgrade time for me.
 
Custom LC can certainly get expensive, but it doesn’t have to be expensive — just like everything else. If you buy top end, yeah it will be good stuff, and expensive. Apart from the water blocks you ~could~ pretty well buy everything else from Home Depot if you wanted to (and even the blocks you could home brew if your really handy).
 
FWIW, My Arctic LF II 120 developed a buzz from the Small VRM fan and also the pump got louder over time.
After 6 months I replaced it with a Fractal Celsius 240.

I also had 2 Arctic 140 Fans and one 120 replaced for free as they started to whine.
One of the replacements also started doing that about a month in, so I pretty much gave up on Arctic.

So at least for me, Arctic was cheap, and not so great.
I know they are popular and well reviewed in general, so maybe I just have bad luck..haha.
Hmm... That would get annoying.
 
Might look into how ...inexpensively... you can go 'modular'. Minimal 'custom' setup to mirror an AIO, where you can expand later as needed.

As @Dan_D has rightly pointed out to me recently, once you get to where you actually want everything under water, custom loops start making more sense not just logistically but also financially over time.

And seeing as how I have a GPU with an integrated AIO myself along with the 360mm AIO on the CPU, I'm really starting to think about going this route as it's GPU upgrade time for me.
You running soft tubing or hard? I prefer the look of hard, but I have to admit - that's much harder to work with than soft tubing is (did soft in my gaming machine, although getting a pre-blocked video card has been an amusing nightmare and I'm terrified of taking the stock HSF off since you can't get replacements right now!)

edit: If you go full water.
 
You running soft tubing or hard? I prefer the look of hard, but I have to admit - that's much harder to work with than soft tubing is (did soft in my gaming machine, although getting a pre-blocked video card has been an amusing nightmare and I'm terrified of taking the stock HSF off since you can't get replacements right now!)

edit: If you go full water.

On the full coverage blocks, I've only used EKWB and Bykski in recent years. I had others way back in the day but I can't recall the company. In any case, the GPU water block mounting difficulty really comes down to the individual video cards. Some, like the RTX 3090 FE are super easy. The GIGABYTE RTX 2080 Ti Aorus Xtreme 11G was a nightmare. Reference RTX 2080 Ti's were somewhere in between the two extremes. Soft tubing is way easier. In fact, its super easy and it makes changing blocks out down the line when you upgrade the machine much easier. Going with hard tubing increases the time it takes to do anything considerably higher unless you get lucky and stuff is in the same place.

Which does happen. CPU's are generally in the same place. GPU's are too. What really tends to change is the location of the primary PCI-Express x16 slot. I've had to make longer tubes or shorten them with motherboard changes.
 
The concern with putting a block on a card is if I screw up, I can't easily replace the card right now. The cost wouldn't bother me normally, but you just can't ~get~ 3080s or the like easily right now - I'm still hunting for ones for friends. I'd rather wait and pick up a Hydro Copper, and sell the air cooled one I have once they arrive, so I just don't have to worry about it... but, that also makes it hard to swap back for an air cooled system too.
 
The concern with putting a block on a card is if I screw up, I can't easily replace the card right now. The cost wouldn't bother me normally, but you just can't ~get~ 3080s or the like easily right now - I'm still hunting for ones for friends. I'd rather wait and pick up a Hydro Copper, and sell the air cooled one I have once they arrive, so I just don't have to worry about it... but, that also makes it hard to swap back for an air cooled system too.

I understand the apprehension. Again, if you take your time and follow the instructions its not as bad as it might seem. It's just time consuming more than anything.
 
You running soft tubing or hard? I prefer the look of hard, but I have to admit - that's much harder to work with than soft tubing is (did soft in my gaming machine, although getting a pre-blocked video card has been an amusing nightmare and I'm terrified of taking the stock HSF off since you can't get replacements right now!)

edit: If you go full water.
All AIO, right now 😅

Just separate for CPU and GPU. Which works... quite well enough!

Still, I'd like to go for something that's perhaps a bit more tunable for quiet computing. What I have is good and realistically I would only be doing the GPU, likely with another 360mm rad because I have the space for one more. Well, two more actually, but I'd better not push it, and I didn't get a giant case that I could both see and work in so that I could fill it with stuff that I cannot then see and work around, know what I mean?
 
I have to say that the main noise source I have right now is the blower on the hybrid GPU cooler (has an AIO on the GPU itself, blower cools the rest of the card), and what I think is pump noise from the AIO on the GPU. I've replaced the 120mm fan on the rad and added a second for a push-pull setup, even handing the second fan out the back to get a little more internal room back.
 
I'll go all out water one of these days.... I need to ask @Dan_D about what is the quietest pump tho as I try to keep it whisper quiet and so far AIO's are not really that...
 
I'll go all out water one of these days.... I need to ask @Dan_D about what is the quietest pump tho as I try to keep it whisper quiet and so far AIO's are not really that...
Corsair kit is good and quiet, but expensive. I got mine slightly used and it works great for
My gaming system, but I wouldn’t buy it new unless you really love the aesthetic.
 
Corsair kit is good and quiet, but expensive. I got mine slightly used and it works great for
My gaming system, but I wouldn’t buy it new unless you really love the aesthetic.
I dont care about looks, I have a non window case.
I'll probably build from scratch with soft tubes and as maintenance friendly as possible.
Once I start doing it, I'll spend money on quiet if thats what it takes.
Otherwise I might as well return to Air which can actually be really quiet in the right case.
 
I'll go all out water one of these days.... I need to ask @Dan_D about what is the quietest pump tho as I try to keep it whisper quiet and so far AIO's are not really that...

The problem is that almost all the pumps out there are either D5 or DDC pumps. I think the DDC is slightly quieter between the two. I don't know, I've primarily only run D5's which aren't really quiet, but that can vary based on how you are running them.
 
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