New PC Beast

[iMi]

So, I’m distracting myself from all this insanity by building my first custom water cooled build. Here is what I’ve got so far...

Case: Lian Li 011 Dynamic
CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X
GPU: RTX 2080 Super (Aorus, waterblock built in)
MB: Asrock X570 Taichi Aorus X570 Master
SSD: 1TB M.2, Pcie 4.0 + 1TB M.2, Pcie 3.0
RAM: 32GB Trident RGB 3200
HDD: 2x 4TB WD Red
Rads: 2x 360, 30 mil
Pump/Reservoir: Corsair Hydro
Fans: 6x Lian Li Bora Digital + 3x PcCool RGB 6x Noctua + 3x Lian Li Bora Digital
Tubes: Rigid by Thermaltake

Should get everything delivered by the end of next week. Will chronicle this build here. Any tips on custom loop water-cooling would be very welcome. I’m not a novice, but this is the first custom loop.

 

[2984839]

Sounds like a great build, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm an AMD fan.

 

[iMi]

Sounds like a great build, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm an AMD fan.

Ryzen is brilliant, but I had nothing but driver issues with 5700XT, which really turned me off to Readeon.

 

[xraydoc]

So, I’m distracting myself from all this insanity by building my first custom water cooled build. Here is what I’ve got so far...

Case: Lian Li 011 Dynamic
CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X
GPU: RTX 2080 Super (Aourus, waterblock built in)
MB: Asrock X570 Taichi
SSD: 1TB M.2, Pcie 4.0
HDD: 2x 4TB WD Red
Rads: 2x 360, 30 mil
Pump/Reservoir: Corsair Hydro
Fans: 6x Lian Li Bora Digital + 3x PcCool RGB
Tubes: Rigid by Thermaltake

Should get everything delivered by the end of next week. Will chronicle this build here. Any tips on custom loop water-cooling would be very welcome. I’m not a novice, but this is the first custom loop.

Sounds like it’ll be a killer machine. Unfortunately I have no advice to give when it comes to water cooling.

 

[ctjack]

RTX 2080 Super

Maybe wait for 3080 coming up soon?
Because 2080 Super upgrade from original 2080 is negligible and not worth the cost. While RTX 2070 Super named bump for RTX 2070 is really meaningful and good price wise.

 

[iMi]

Maybe wait for 3080 coming up soon?
Because 2080 Super upgrade from original 2080 is negligible and not worth the cost. While RTX 2070 Super named bump for RTX 2070 is really meaningful and good price wise.

Totally agree. The 2080 Super is not a value play at all. I wanted the 1070 Super but the problem is that it doesn’t come in the variant I wanted that has the integrated water block.

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 Super GAMING OC 8G Graphics Card - Newegg.com

Buy GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 Super GAMING OC 8G (Rev 2.0) Graphics Card, 3 x WINDFORCE Fans, 8GB 256-Bit GDDR6, GV-N208SGAMING OC-8GC Video Card with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Doing some math here. If I buy the 1070 Super at $580 and a nice water block for $200, I’m at $780. At that point, stepping up to 2080S at $839 with a great looking block built in makes sense. At least this is what I tell myself. It’s working.

I thought about waiting for 3080, especially that specs for the 3080ti leaked and it‘s a monster. it‘s smaller siblings would likely also deliver nice bumps. Then again, there is always going to be something new. That’s just the nature of this beast. August is still some ways away. AMD new chips will also launch in the fall and are based on a new architecture. Then again, that will be the last chip with AM4 socket, so now you wait until 2021. See the problem? One you take this “wait for the next one“ approach, it can really tumble down the road indefinitely. Meanwhile, you lost your mind from being sheltered in place and talking to your cat that you totally forget why you were looking at processors in the first place ?

 

[maflynn]

Not for nothing, but I'm pretty happy with my RTX 2060 Super

 

[Thysanoptera]

I just ordered pieces for my daughter, Ryzen 5 3600, Corsair low profile 16GB 3200C16 RAM, Phantek 80Plus gold 750W, Asus Prime B450M-A mobo, Montech flyer Micro ATX case. I have a surplus of GPUs and SSDs lying around at home. Total - $545 with tax and shipping. Damn.

 

[grmlin]

I just ordered pieces for my daughter, Ryzen 5 3600, Corsair low profile 16GB 3200C16 RAM, Phantek 80Plus gold 750W, Asus Prime B450M-A mobo, Montech flyer Micro ATX case. I have a surplus of GPUs and SSDs lying around at home. Total - $545 with tax and shipping. Damn.

I recently got the 3600, too. Great CPU. Will probably replace it with something 4000 next year if it makes sense.

 

[handheldgames]

Ryzen is brilliant, but I had nothing but driver issues with 5700XT, which really turned me off to Readeon.

Sorry to hear. I picked up a Gigabyte 5700xt with a new 3900x build in February and I haven't had one issue running macOS or Windows 10.

 

[LiE_]

Nice spec there!

I recently built my first custom loop and documented the process.

I posted info here if you're interested - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/flip-flopping-between-macos-and-windows.2212216/page-7

More detail here as well in my build log - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/first-custom-loop-in-a-define-7.18880132/

 

[SandboxGeneral]

Looks like it will be a great build.

I recently upgraded one of my PC's for gaming, though I'm a rather casual gamer at best.

But I went with an RTX 2070 and am quite happy with it. I also went Ryzen 7 3800x, 32 GB RAM and 1.5 TB of SSD storage.

I didn't go the water cooling route though. I don't have any interest in that. Instead I went with the Noctua heat sink and fan setup for the AM4 sockets. Boy, I tell you those Noctua's are amazing for keeping the CPU cool, and more important for me, quiet. The stock AMD setup is rather loud for my liking.

I'm looking forward to seeing photo's of your new machine, it should be awesome.

 

[iMi]

I made a few changes. Will start posting some pics soon! Fans will be here today and the new MB tomorrow. Hopefully. Damn you, Newegg.
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Nice spec there!

I recently built my first custom loop and documented the process.

I posted info here if you're interested - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/flip-flopping-between-macos-and-windows.2212216/page-7

More detail here as well in my build log - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/first-custom-loop-in-a-define-7.18880132/

Awesome. I will definitely check it out. I was nervous about the rigid tubes. Did a test bend as soon as they arrived and was very easy. Perfect 90 degree bend on first try. So, that’s good. Hopefully I don’t mess it up.

 

[iMi]

Sorry to hear. I picked up a Gigabyte 5700xt with a new 3900x build in February and I haven't had one issue running macOS or Windows 10.

Driver issues abound, especially when gaming. Some games, like Civ 6, would run great. Others, like RE3 or Battlefield 1 & 5, would crash. I’ve also had a few random blue screens with display driver error codes. Asrock also has issues. The Taichi card would fail to start fans. The card would shoot up to 100 degrees and promptly crash. Glad you’re doing okay with yours. Maybe I just had a bad card.

 

[handheldgames]

Driver issues abound, especially when gaming. Some games, like Civ 6, would run great. Others, like RE3 or Battlefield 1 & 5, would crash. I’ve also had a few random blue screens with display driver error codes. Asrock also has issues. The Taichi card would fail to start fans. The card would shoot up to 100 degrees and promptly crash. Glad you’re doing okay with yours. Maybe I just had a bad card.

I watched / read too many reviews and it came down to the powercolor red devil or the Gigabyte 5700xt. I went with the Gigabyte option as I found a great price.

One thing I've noticed with x570 boards and onboard NVMe slots / heatsinks is that they need additional airflow airflow to remain cool. I'm running a Highpoint SSD7101-A NVMe raid adapter in slot x16 slot #1 @PCIe 3.0, a wifi-bluetooth adapter in x1 slot 1, and the 5700XT in x16 Slot #2 @ PCIe4.0 along with 2 Sabrent Rocket Gen4 1.0TB SSD's in the onboard NVMe slots. While NVMe 1 stayed relatively cool at 40c, the 2nd NVMe slot that's farthest from the CPU would get up to 50C. Placing a spare 2009 cMP PWM CPU cage fan over the top 3 slots, where the NVMe heatsinks live, dropped NVMe1 to 38C and NVMe2 to a cool 34C.

 

[GoldfishRT]

Really love my 5700 XT, haven't had any issues, just the basic Sapphire Pulse card, paired with a 2600x. I run latest drivers.

Far better than my last run around with a PC (8350 Black and a 7970).

 

[iMi]

Still waiting for the motherboard to arrive, but I started connecting the radiators and the pump.

 

[iMi]

Ok, got more done. The loop is completed and the pump is running. I had a leak, so now I look like a smurf. At least my hands are. Remember people, make sure you tighten all the fittings. ?

 

[wetcanvas]

would it be useful to have the radiator between the graphics card and the cpu somewhere? I mean right now you have all that hot liquid coming off of GPU and going right into the cpu or vice versa. Forgive me if I’m wrong I know nothing about water cooling. It just seems like a good idea to me to have a radiator in the loop between the graphics and cpu if they are in the same loop. Also I don’t know how this effects the pump location. Sorry if my comment is useless like I said I know nothing about custom water loops. My warped thinking was you want cool liquid coming out of the radiator before each hot contact point.

 

[memo90061]

Im thinking of building a PC, but I have never done it. The thought of it excites me though now that I will have a lot of time. I’m wondering if building a PC is just connecting the pieces? I’m confused with the cooling systems. Some have cut pieces? I wouldn’t want to do that. If you just plug it in I could do that.
Wondering if I should sell my iMac Pro to build a PC. I’m sure I’ll miss the MacOS.

 

[xraydoc]

Im thinking of building a PC, but I have never done it. The thought of it excites me though now that I will have a lot of time. I’m wondering if building a PC is just connecting the pieces? I’m confused with the cooling systems. Some have cut pieces? I wouldn’t want to do that. If you just plug it in I could do that.
Wondering if I should sell my iMac Pro to build a PC. I’m sure I’ll miss the MacOS.

I've built several PCs in the past. Most recent was about 3.5 years ago with my son -- we build a gaming SFF PC for him. Yes, it's pretty much just connecting the pieces. Hardest part is choosing the components. Watch a few YouTube videos on building a machine. If you're up for it, it can be very rewarding.

Water cooling is nifty, but not necessary unless you want a machine that is virtually silent or you're overclocking to a significant degree (or you just want to do it for fun). There are pre-built all-in-one water coolers for CPUs that are pretty much plug & play, so don't think you have to go custom like our industrious friend iMi above. There's even a couple manufacturers that sell GPUs with all-in-one water coolers and radiators as well, so you could go complete water-cooled without building a custom loop.

For my current machine, I chose not to build myself. Even though I had to make a few compromises like not being able to hand-pick specific components, I'm more concerned these days with one-click trouble-free systems with a top to bottom warranty. And it made writing off the machine as a business expense just a little easier. But still got myself a nice, compact system with excellent performance (air-cooled i7-9700K with a nice big heatsink, nvidia RTX 2070 Super, 32GB RAM, 512GB NVMe boot drive) for essentially what it would have cost me to piece it out myself, and added some additional internal storage I already had (1TB SSD, 4TB HDD).

 

[memo90061]

I've built several PCs in the past. Most recent was about 3.5 years ago with my son -- we build a gaming SFF PC for him. Yes, it's pretty much just connecting the pieces. Hardest part is choosing the components. Watch a few YouTube videos on building a machine. If you're up for it, it can be very rewarding.

Water cooling is nifty, but not necessary unless you want a machine that is virtually silent or you're overclocking to a significant degree (or you just want to do it for fun). There are pre-built all-in-one water coolers for CPUs that are pretty much plug & play, so don't think you have to go custom like our industrious friend iMi above. There's even a couple manufacturers that sell GPUs with all-in-one water coolers and radiators as well, so you could go complete water-cooled without building a custom loop.

For my current machine, I chose not to build myself. Even though I had to make a few compromises like not being able to hand-pick specific components, I'm more concerned these days with one-click trouble-free systems with a top to bottom warranty. And it made writing off the machine as a business expense just a little easier. But still got myself a nice, compact system with excellent performance (air-cooled i7-9700K with a nice big heatsink, nvidia RTX 2070 Super, 32GB RAM, 512GB NVMe boot drive) for essentially what it would have cost me to piece it out myself, and added some additional internal storage I already had (1TB SSD, 4TB HDD).

Where did you buy? I’m wondering what to do. I would like a quiet computer. haha

 

[iMi]

would it be useful to have the radiator between the graphics card and the cpu somewhere? I mean right now you have all that hot liquid coming off of GPU and going right into the cpu or vice versa. Forgive me if I’m wrong I know nothing about water cooling. It just seems like a good idea to me to have a radiator in the loop between the graphics and cpu if they are in the same loop. Also I don’t know how this effects the pump location. Sorry if my comment is useless like I said I know nothing about custom water loops. My warped thinking was you want cool liquid coming out of the radiator before each hot contact point.

Ah, excellent question. That is exactly what I thought initially as it makes perfect sense. GPU to radiator, cools down, then to CPU and then back to the second radiator to cool down. However, as it turns out, that is simply not how laws of thermodynamics work. Who knew!

It turns out that the order of components is irrelevant. Like, completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the total wattage consumed (and therefore converted to heat) and the total amount of wattage that the system can cool. The order of components makes zero difference. It wasn't a dumb comments and I'm glad you mentioned it because most people, myself included, would see things the same way and logically it makes sense. But, as it turns out, it simply doesn't matter. There are a few posts and YouTube videos out there discussing this topic.
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Im thinking of building a PC, but I have never done it. The thought of it excites me though now that I will have a lot of time. I’m wondering if building a PC is just connecting the pieces? I’m confused with the cooling systems. Some have cut pieces? I wouldn’t want to do that. If you just plug it in I could do that.
Wondering if I should sell my iMac Pro to build a PC. I’m sure I’ll miss the MacOS.

I have a lot of experience building them and you are correct -- for the most part, it's just about putting the pieces together. But there are certain things you need to understand. I would encourage you to try it. It's fun.

Look at the images I posted (and will post in a minute). I had ZERO experience in bending and connecting rigid tubing. Sure, it wasn't easy and took some patience, but it's not remotely as hard as some people make it out to be. You be the judge.

One piece of advice, DO check every compression fitting to make sure it's tight. I missed one and.... well, it wasn't fun. The good news is that the liquid coolants available today are largely non-conductive. Even a leak is unlikely to damage your components. Plus, the motherboard in this case also has a coating on it to prevent failure due to leakage.

 

[LiE_]

Order of the loop doesn't matter.

 

[iMi]

It's finished. I'll write up a brief overview of each component and what I would have done differently soon. Attached is the initial test results from PassMark. As expected, this thing is a beast. It's super quiet and the motherboard supports fan stop, which is great. It's amazing to hear nothing. Love it.

Under load there is a hum that is not distracting. Actually it fluctuates. The fan control is incredibly responsive. When processor spikes, the fans immediately rev up and then almost as quickly slow down. It's quiet. Previous computer sounded like a launch of a space shuttle by comparison.
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There are a few changes I made. I got rid of the bottom fans. Two reasons. One, the static pressure from the rads is insane. Noctua fans are brilliant. There is a passive flow you can feel at the bottom. Additional fans would certainly help, but I don't want the extra noise or the extra cables in the back. Two, the USB3 sockets are there. Blocking the second fan, which leaves me with just one. Again, too much hustle for very little additional airflow.

The pump is brilliant with one major exception -- Corsair software/hardware ecosystem. I bought the Commander Pro and the way everything is configured, I'd use it for the LED in the top housing. No, thanks. I've got plenty of lighting. Everything else is controlled by the motherboard, configured in BIOS and therefore way better. Commander Pro is going back.

I was going for a silver/black theme with blue lighting. The cables might be changed to black, so they blend in a little more. The flow indicator doubles as a drain plug. It's brilliant. One last comment on the building experience. Bending tubes is not hard. Don't be afraid to try it. The Lian Li case is brilliant as well. Absolutely joy to build in and clearly made for water-cooling.

Temps:

CPU at idle -- 38 degrees
CPU at heavy load -- 71 degrees (after 30 minutes, stable)
GPU at idle -- 28 degrees
GPU at heavy load -- 40 degrees

I have not overclocked anything... yet. I doubt it will though. This thing is plenty powerful.