Wasmachineman's Water Cooling Adventures

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Keith Myers

Active Member
Oct 10, 2020
146
30
28
Another extremely strange thing I noticed: Y-cruncher FFT limits power use to 105W for some reason. AVX offset?
Hmm, I don't remember seeing any such limitation in the y-cruncher test #13 FFT

I just ran it and got a max package power of 158W with the average around 138W

And all the AVX tests in y-cruncher are actually AVX2 which is a lot harder than just plain AVX. I don't think that AMD implements any AVX offset like you see in Intel processors. At least I have never seen such a BIOS setting before.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
Thanks for nothing DPD, I paid extra for delivery on Saturday and they didn't show up until late this morning. Motherfuckers.

Anyway:


Still to do: swap top rad hoses around for cleaner loop, await delivery and install extender for the left 45mm fitting so I can fit the 3rd P12 fan, and enjoy the silence.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
And speaking of silence: the D5 Next compared to the 6900XT Toxic stock AIO is stupidly quiet. Did Asetek/Sapphire screw up somewhere or something?
 

Keith Myers

Active Member
Oct 10, 2020
146
30
28
Asetek AIO pump hardware is the generic building block that all manufacturers use. Very basic, cheap hardware for large profit margins.
Normally just barely adequate performance. Any D5 variation will run marathons around Asetek solutions.

To get any kind of Asetek AIO decent performance under maximum loads requires the rad fans to run at 100% with the subsequent loud noise.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
Asetek AIO pump hardware is the generic building block that all manufacturers use. Very basic, cheap hardware for large profit margins.
Normally just barely adequate performance. Any D5 variation will run marathons around Asetek solutions.

To get any kind of Asetek AIO decent performance under maximum loads requires the rad fans to run at 100% with the subsequent loud noise.
My LF2 360 is very quiet, but the AIO on the 6900 XT on the other hand sounded like the H80i I had when I bought the Define R4 system in the OP years ago: loud as hell.

Unacceptable for a GPU that's almost €2k new IMHO
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
Received my extenders. 7mm was too short, 14mm was perfect. Also swapped the hoses around and cut the left one to size so it doesn't hang over my waterblock as much. And of course, I installed the 3rd P12 on the front rad.

Still haven't been able to hit 2.9 GHz on my 6900 XT :(
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
Things I learnt in the past year as a complete noob to water cooling:
  • Aquacomputer is massively overrated and overpriced for what you get, and their Aquasuite is horrbly broken software (nevermind having to pay for firmware updates, **** that)
  • Monoblocks are garbage
  • Alphacool's pumps and reservoirs are absolute garbage
  • EPDM hoses (EK ZMT in my case) are AWESOME stuff if you don't care about aesthetics like I do :^)
  • Any D5 pump will suffice as long it's from a brand name like EKWB, they're all rebadged Xylem pumps anyways
  • A drain valve is a musthave
  • Arctic P-series fans have amazing VfM, why pay €90 for three Phanteks T30's or Noctua A12's if you can get three 5-packs of the P12's for the same money?
  • Specialized PC coolant is a ripoff, just get yourself some premix car coolant, preferably Ethylene Glycol based since it's bactericidal/will prevent growth in your loop
  • FLUSH YOUR RADS/LOOP! Even though I flushed my rads I still have crud stuck in my TechN blocks their jetplates!
  • Speaking of TechN: expensive as hell, performs amazingly on both a 2600 or a 3950X
  • The Heatkiller Tube reservoir's multiport top option helps immensely with cleaner tube routing
  • Hardware Labs rads > everyone
  • GET A HOSE CUTTER. And preferably not the shitty EKWB one, but a good one in the form of pliers
  • Always buy more hoses, fittings and 45/90-degrees than you need! You never know you might screw up something and need more hose/fittings!
  • If you got a older or more obscure card (i.e a RX480 Nitro+ or a 6900 XT Toxic EE like I do) Bykski usually makes a block for it
  • Water cooling: it ****ing rocks. It's expensive as hell. It's setup is messy as hell. It makes your computer extremely quiet and cool. It's very worth it.
Would I go open loop in the far future again? Yes. The silence is very worth the effort. People like @Ralph_IT and @Keith Myers were a massive help in this undertaking though, to which i'm very thankful to.
 
Last edited:

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113


o_O you might ask? Yes, I modded the drivers for the 6600XT off AMD's site to work with my 6900XT. Mega janky install involving installing the driver inf directly from Device Manager and the CCC installer .exe if you want Radeon Settings/ReLive.
 

Ralph_IT

I'm called Ralph
Apr 12, 2021
170
88
28
47
/home
One question:
Do you OC your GPU? If so, did it "hangs" from time to time.
My Vega64 begins to do it, even with no OC settings at all.
Weird...
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
One question:
Do you OC your GPU? If so, did it "hangs" from time to time.
My Vega64 begins to do it, even with no OC settings at all.
Weird...
Hanging, no, crashing my driver yes. Especially when trying to break 15k in 3DM FSU.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
I think I found my problem of not being able to hit 2.8 GHz plus: 70C on water and 95C TJunction is far too high. Will repaste later tonight, I need to clean my CPU block anyways as it's full of crud.
 

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
Ended up doing my other computer instead, couldn't be arsed to disconnect everything tonight.
 

Keith Myers

Active Member
Oct 10, 2020
146
30
28
Well I currently have my ROMED8-2T fully populated with two triple slot 2080 Ti's and a 3080 12GB Hybrid two slot card. The 2.75 slot advertised slot width is a fib by the manufacturer.
It takes up 3 full slot locations. Right at the UPS limit even with some power limiting. But the temps are OK'ish on the air-cooled cards. Fine on the hybrid.
But I think I will probably relocate one of the 2080 Ti's to the other server when I get the 3080 HC card on Wednesday to mate with the existing 3080 10GB HC and pull out the old 2080 HC card. The new one is a 12GB model and I hope the block ports line up with the older one this time.
I have plenty of UPS headroom on that host.
 

Keith Myers

Active Member
Oct 10, 2020
146
30
28
Well the host surgery was successful. Only one problem with a leaky 90 fitting on the new card which caused a redrain and swap out with a new good fitting. I also figured out how to convert the 3 slot I/O bracket on the 2080 Ti's to 2 slot width. Sacrifice a 2 slot bracket from the 2080 HC card and hack off the outside stiffening rib and then replace the 3 slot bracket. The port and screw holes all line up.

Now have a 10GB 3080 HC mated to the new 12GB 3080 in the top X16 slots and the now 2 slot wide 2080 Ti in the X16 bottom slot on the motherboard. Just clears the side panel and no issues with ventilation since the side panel is fully ventilated.

Only downside is the mobo and Epyc 7402P only supports PCIE Gen. 3 so the new 3080's only run at Gen. 3. But for all my BOINC crunching that is not an issue. Running all cards at default power levels of 350/340/260 watts and the UPS reports around 1260W being pulled for the entire host.
Should see a nice bump in production. My production increased by 50% when I had both 2080 Tis in the other Epyc host with the 400W 3080 Hybrid card. Ran that way for a couple of days until the latest 3080 showed up and I had half a day to tear down and rebuild both hosts.

Now just need to run for a week to see where my RAC stabilizes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wasmachineman_NL

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,872
617
113
I'm thinking of buying a Metro DataVac in the near future, since I screw around with crackpot ideas regarding water cooling being able to blow out the coolant out of my loop would be a VERY nice upside. Good idea?
DataVac? lolno, just use your dad's compressor. Open the fill port, remove the res-front rad hose, push in the air gun into the hose and off you go draining your loop without much effort.

I tore down my TechN block in my main to clean it up, and also shorten the CPU block hoses again. Oh, and I also repasted my 6900 XT as I was not happy with the Junction Temperature I was getting.