Ordered...

[Burgerman]

I am aware that in 2 months some new faster AMD CPUs will appear (at what cost?) and will likely push down the cost of the current fastest offering. But theres a lot of supply and inflation issues too. Getting stuff is very hard. So I am doing it while I can. And 5.3GHZ with 16 cores and 32 threads is already way more than any sane person needs...

So...

I ordered a AMD 5950X. Currently the fastest AMD for consumer machines. For the lowest price on the net (box.co.uk). Because it has less than half the power supply reqirements of the new intel. And so overclocks to at least as good as intels stck speeds. Those are basically non overclocking at 250watt as stock 12900k. So they are basically factory overclocked. Nothing much to be had. Even at 500 watts!

And ordered my favorite motherboard of all time, the Hero VIII DARK. From amazon for again the lowest price I can find after 2 weeks searching! It just dropped a little more, and only 1 left at that price.

And a sabrent PCIe 4.0 super fast 2GB boot drive that does rediculous speeds.. SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-2TB. 5+GB per second is crazy fast enough.

Existing memory, case, power supply, graphics card and SSDs etc, and nvme drives + 360mm radiator AIO for now but intend full custom loop as soon as I get hold of my super £££ graphics card...

This thing will be complete overkill for any normal sane purposes. So should be futureproof for the next decade for me by which time I may be dead.

[steves1977uk]

Enjoy your new build BM! My Samsung 980 Pro 256GB NVMe drive benchmarks around ~6700GB (Read)/~2800GB (Write) which is my OS drive only, plus a few programs. My APEX XIII board can have 4 NVMe drives onboard, 2 via the DIMM.2 slot.

Will be interested to hear how your AMD setup performs BM.

Steve

[Burgerman]

Considerably faster than yours. In reality no difference as we dont do enough to tell.
I will beat you with a few benchmarks, which is pointless unless you run them all day instead of your work.

I have an pcie asus addon card that takes 4 nvme drives, plus the two on board. It allows them to be in raid 0 if you want.... So I will have 4x 1TB drives in raid for boot in the end. You may think that wont be fast. It will because large files are fast anyway. They dont matter. Most are intermediate sizes.

[Burgerman]

Motherboard arrived. Whoohoo. Its shiny and very heavy... ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLRcYWoj11M
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-c ... ero-model/ Chosen because no fan and because its better than all other boards inc other asus ones for overclocking. Due to a thing in the bios that allows switching based on CPU current from single core best settings to multicore best settings. And a stable silly 90A VRMs.
Also 2x 2TB NVME PCIe 4.0. Both Saberent. One is a "rocket" for storage. Other is rocket plus for operating system and 7100MB/s Read, 6600MB/s Write came at the same time.

Now waiting for the 5950X CPU on monday... From a different place... (price much lower at box.co.uk if you call!) because it clocks easily without sucking up loadsa power. And is currently the fastest AMD cpu for non server use. It matches some threadrippers with 31,000 plus in Cinebench when configured correctly. And beats the intel cpu.

Also decided to get new ram for this board and keep the old ram on the older strix board with the intel 7700k and sell as a ready to go board/cpu/memory combo on eBay. So 64GB of low latency ballistix RGB aso on monday.

So... Everything ready. As soon as I get my burned foot and coxycs sore healed in the next couple of weeks. Will temporarily use my old graphics card.
And exixting AIO coolers etc. Full waterloop and 3 radiators planned. I am an ex plumber after all.

This is my case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1o5HHmM2Ug But black.

[Burgerman]

Dynamic overclock switching based on CPU current is the reason I choose the ASUS CROSSHAIR DARK motherboard over all the rest.

Best explained here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJZIGUaEXvU

It offers a best of both worlds scenario, and a 22% performance gain in multithreaded situations and about 13% in single threadded ones. Other boards dont allow this. This means it can allow the AMD 5950X to still beat the new intel 12900k while taking half the watts.

[expresso]

[Burgerman]

64gb (4x 16gb) of RGB low latency Ballistix memory just arrived. Looking for a argb nickel plexi waterblock...

[Burgerman]

Ordered a 2nd 2gb nvme drive... This one for boot. Samsung pro pcie 4.0 and silly speed. Now out of money... till new year.

[Burgerman]

Now in debt ... Ordered a full VRM and CP nickel and plexi glass EK custom water monoblock board and CPU cooler...

Heres some tart fitting one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DntHLZe ... Jw&index=1

[Burgerman]

That monoblock now fitted to Crosshair Dark Hero motherboard. And the 16/32 core 5950X. And so is a huge amount of 3600 CL16 RGB ram. And 2x 2TB NVME 980 pro ssds. All looking great.

So now as soon as the hole in my foot finishes healing I will be building a new custom water cooled PC. Maybe 2 weeks. As the sore on my coccyx is also looking 95% healed!

Still need 3x radiators. Tube. Fittings. Water resorvoire. D5 Pump. And some EK cryofluid...

However the fly in the ointment, the graphics card capable of a high enough frame rate on 4K in MS flightsim is either the 3080 Ti (JUST!), or the 3090. Both which are so hard to find still that we are talking over 2K (with EK waterblocks and backplates etc). . This is going to end up costing as much as a powerchair.

[Burgerman]

Steve. Are you watercooled? AIO or custom loop?

I currently have an AIO water cooled graphics card and a generic asetek 360 radiator for the CPU. But its not enough cooling for an overclocked 16 core CPU at around 300 watts. And around 350W for the new fast 30xx series nvidia graphics cards. Thats around 650 possible watts to dump! Its not actually that bad though as you either play games OR use 16/32 cores. And crap loads of memory editing 4K movies in adobe premier or something - BUT not both at the same time. But one 360 rad will not be adequate for that. At least if you dont want the fans ramping up.

So I am fitting a 2x 140 fan - 280 rad in the front thats extra thick.
A standard 3x 120 fan - 360 in the top.
And a single 140 radiator where the rear fan normally goes. So lots of area from 3 rads. That will stay cool even with everything maxed out while the fans are barely turning. Because I like my silence.

[steves1977uk]

No watercooled PC's here as my Brother don't fancy it. But maybe we will try one on my 9900KS CPU as those are hot at 5GHz all core. But I wouldn't use one on my main PC as the pump will fail, just a matter of when.

Steve

[Burgerman]

It doesent matter if it does. But they dont fail as frequently as fans do. And it doesent matter much if they do.
If you looked inside either the DDC or D5 pumps theres nothing in there to fail. Its a brushless external winding/coil that doesent have any water near it encased in plastic outside of the impeller. And a free rotating impeller driven magnetically on a ceramic shaft lubricated by water. As so it will run forever. Unlike a fan that gets dried out bearings or dust in them.

And... Water has thermal mass. It naturally circulates slowly without any pump due to thermo syphon effect. And... my monoblock is a KG of metal mass (copper plated with nickel). So even without water, anywhere in the system, the CPU wouldnt actually overheat at idle or low loads anyway. And at full load it would just throttle. So no damage. And with water in the system and a dead pump the thermo-siphon cools it regardless albeit more slowly. Not as well as pumped, but adequate to still use a PC Safely. Then if you really worrry you can fit TWO pumps, in series into an unused drive bay! They even make a dual pump body.

So its actually much safer than air cooled. What happens if your CPU fan stops working? You have no thermo siphon far less thermal mass, and so almost zero cooling. And no backup pump.

So you have the risk factor reversed.

The advantages are that you can fit a LOT of radiator area. I will be fitting 3 rads. So that you needjust very low airflow due to the massive water/air area. So even at 100% CPU, overclocked all cores, at maybe 300 watts or more overclock theres almost no noise. Properly watercooled PCs are literally almost completely silent.

[Burgerman]

Steve... Have a careful look at this.
I was water cooling computers for silence and overclocking 20 YEARS ago, long before such things existed to buy, before it was thought of, long before any water cooling you tube "experts" or water cooling parts existed in any shape or form.

Heres a page from 21 years ago showing my home made CPU block, my Home made geothermal water filled oxygen bottle buried 6 or 7 feet under the ground where its always 11 centigrade, using an aquarium water pump mounted under my bench. Remember this was long before the likes of "youtube experts" existed, long before the likes of Jay2cents and all the rest of the "experts" had ever heard of water cooling or even had a computer in some cases...

Yes its a prehistoric machine today, but state of art at the time! And so is that web page.

https://www.wheelchairdriver.com/water/ I was always active in many directions not just powerchairs.

[steves1977uk]

That's very impressive BM! Always watch Jayztwocents videos and his builds. My Brother likes things that are easy to install and work on.

BM, what are your thoughts on the NZXT Kraken AIO's? I'm looking at the Z53 one... https://www.amazon.com/NZXT-Kraken-Z53- ... ics&sr=1-1

I might have to use slim fans since I'm hoping to use the Corsair 300R case I have for my 11th gen build.

Steve

[Burgerman]

I think it would be OK if not clocked but likely to run hot. I dont tthink it would throttle. With a 360. And good airflow.
200 watts if clocked and I think its not enough.
The only way would be more powerful fans and liquid metal. You should use that anyway. Makes a huge difference IF your cooler can lose the heat.

When I looked at the new 12900k it initially looked impressive. Till I looked at it closer. In NON clocked form, it beats a non clocked amd 5950X on single core stuff by 10 to 15 percent depending on benchmark used. And equals the AMD on multithread tests like cinebench.

But to do so its using a massive 242 watts intel. Compared to 105 amd. All as stock. But no matter what cooling used you really cant clock the intel chip much at all - it already is! And when you do the needed volts and extra heat becomes huge and so uncoolable no matter what cooler you use. And it jumps to 350 and above watts with tiny gains.

Now if I allow the same 240 watts as a STOCK 12900 uses, on the AMD 5950X it beats the new intel chip on multicore. By a fair margin. And almost equals the single core performance. To within a couple of percent. So that means the new intel is only better if we ignore overclocking. I never had a board I didnt overclock yet!! (And the board I chose has a special mode for switching overclock with load), Next thing was that this means the INTEL even if mildly overclocked really needs a couple of large radiators and a custom loop... And the new 3080Ti and 3090 that I want, will add another 350 watts to this loop! Fortunately when gaming, CPU power draw is low because it uses just 3 or 4 cores. Otherwise the 3 radiators I will be adding would not be enough. Or at least run super hot.

So yes. Go big on radiators. At least if you do its future proof too. I wouldnt buy a all in one cooler with todays graphics cards and CPUs. A full custom loop really isnt hard. I used to be a plumber! All in ones use feeble pumps. You want some flow. Like the DDC and D5 pumps. (basically the same, except that the DDC has less flow but higher pressure abilities. For our purposes they are interchangable). Pick a size like 14mm. Then order any 14mm fittings, and a kit to bend. Practice a few bends, its really quite easy.

[Burgerman]

ASUS Crosshair Dark Hero
Two of, 2TB 4th gen. 980 PRO NVMe M.2 drives
128GB of 3600 DDR4 Crucial Ballistics Memory
16 core 32 thread 5.1ghz binned Ryzen 5950X CPU
Nvidia 3080 Ti graphics card
EK Monoblock water cooler for motherboard / CPU.
EK Water block for GPU
EK Water block active backplate for rear side GPU/memory/Card

[Burgerman]

That kraken cooler is only 2x 120s sized. Thats a 25mm thick and 120 x 240 radiator. So it has only 29 square CM of area. Will be OK if not clocked.

A 360 rad which is 3x 120 fans is much better. With 360 x 120 = 43 square CM. Much better. And quieter as less fan speed needed.
A 140 fan dual radiator, has 140 x 280mm or 39 sq cm. So also also a bit better.
A bit borderline with on your CPU if clocked with a 120 x 240 thin rad.

To put it into context I just ordered 3 radiators for mine.
420mm x 140mm (thats also 45mm thick!) and 4x 140mm powerful fans.
And a 140 x 280 x 30mm thick one in the top...
And a 140 x 140 x 45mm thick one on the rear case outlet with another 140 fan. So a total of 7x 140 fan/radiator areas. And the 45mm 4x one on the case front is equal to 8 normal ones, as its double the core thickness. This is why custom cooling is much better if you want high power and silence with very slow turning and bigger fans.

[Burgerman]

My case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgQ-DrrO3E0



youtu.be/GgQ-DrrO3E0

[fishinjunky]

Nice Bm!!! this pc is going to be a work of art. PC builds done right like this with water blocks look badass. I've always wanted to build a pc but I've got a full plate of projects now. After the lifepo4 build I'm going to make a bm roho cushion guage and also keeping my eyes out for r-net deals for a future swap of the linx.

Good job can't wait to see how it turns out

How hard was it to get the graphics card?

[Burgerman]

VERY!

At least at a sane price. Took months!

There are 7? RTX "30" Ray Tracing modern video cards.
3060 too slow cant do MS Flight sim at 4k
3060 Ti? Not sure if it exists.
3070 as above... ALL these are reasonable prices and at 1440p gaming are ok.
3070 Ti can do some 4K games at low settings.

Now for the more serious cards... Only use with fast CPU.

3080 quite a bit faster and cheap rec retail price. But actually go for 3x that IF you can find one. And you cant. So theres that! And the one most people want as its price to performance ratio is theoretically great. Except its not! But still strugges with high detail on MS Flight sim... ALMOST good enough! And unavailable

3080 Ti. Available now, at 30% overprice, Is very close in performance to the rediculously priced 3090. Within 3% rame rate in most games same in others. Its basically the exact same card, with 12GB ram in place of 24GB. And most games use less than 12GB in 4K anyway. So its a 3090 at 3080 Ti pricing in reality. Considerable performance increase over the non Ti 3080. NEEDS a fast single core performance CPU to get full performance in games. So only makes sense with very high end processors.

3090. RETAIL 2.5K! Double the price. And only 3 to 5% better in 4K games than the 3080 Ti.

3090 Ti rumoured... God knows why or how much!

[Burgerman]

Almost built. Its super heavy. All those heavy radiators and water blocks are copper and a good few pounds each alone. The case and power supply wih glass sides feels like a heavy PC even before you add all the innards. Never seen a PC that is this heavy. And I built it on my stomach in bed so far. Getting up next weekend to do the pipework. And to plug in, add the newest firmware, flush loop, fill with a blue EK Cryofuel for now. Yellow in the end, its grown on me!

Then clone my Laptop to it. Win 10 64, LTSC and everything all preconfigured. So it should be around 20X faster with 16 times as many cores as I need. And with its fancy 3080 Ti graphics I should finally be able to run a 4K on my OLED monitor/TV with MS Flight sims latest ultra realistic "game" at a sensible frame rate. Cant believe that this takes around 700 watts of energy/heat.

[Burgerman]

Whilst STILL on my bed, I completed the pipework, and everything else.



Does it work? Will tell you soon. Should have tested it before assembly. And before fitting later blocks, liquid metal heat past, and all the rest. This is almost done!

Will be filling loop, teting tomorrow and monday. 16 cores? 32 threads? 5 plus GIGAHERTZ? 64GB fast mem? And a stupidly expensive 3080 Ti graphics card. This is a years or more savings! Around 5k.

My carer took these pics. Sadly it looks a million dollars in real life but these are flash shots in a dark room... So bloody awful photos. Like its caught in the headlamps.

But will do some proper pics when the top, front, and glass sides are on. With the acid green or yellow solid coolant, and the RGB lighting is on. Later!

[Burgerman]

£215 Enthoo Evolv X CASE
£300 2TB SSDs. (2 of)
£425 ASUS ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero MOTHERBOARD.
£660 AMD 5950X 16 Core 32 Thread Ryzen CPU.
£280 4 off 16GB (64GB) Ballistics (Crucial) RGB Memory. CL 16 18 18 38 3600mhz.
£135 MONOBLOCK EK-Quantum Momentum ROG Crosshair VIII Hero D-RGB - Plexi.
£146 EK-Quantum Vector RE RTX 3080/3090 D-RGB - Nickel + Plexi.

£126 D-RGB lighting on EK-Quantum Vector RE RTX 3080/3090 Active Backplate D-RGB water block.
£160 EK Water Blocks EK-Quantum Kinetic TBE 160 DDC PWM D-RGB Pump Reservoir Combo - Acetal
£250 NVME system drive, M.2 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe PCIe 4.0.
£250 NVME system drive, M.2 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe PCIe 4.0.
£28 PCIE NVMe add in card PCIE to add a 3rd M.2 to allow 3 total M.2 NVMe drives for storage.
£26 ADDIN PCIE CARD 4X USB3.0
£30 PHANTEK Neon D-RGB LED Strip - Combo-Set, 40cm (2X).
£84 PHANTEKS Glacier D140 Distro Plate

£15 Thermal Grizzly TG-C-001-R - Conductonaut Liquid Metal Thermal Paste
£1440 3080 Ti card.
£18 Corsair Hydro X Series XT 14mm Hardline Clear Tubing - 3 x 1m
£72 3 off ThermalTake Toughfan 14 High Performance Fan - 140mm
£27 Barrow Hard Tube Tool Suite for 10mm ID/14mm OD Rigid Tubing
£159 Corsair Professional Series HX 850W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply (CP-9020138-UK)
£36 ARCTIC P14 PWM PST A-RGB 0dB (3 Pack)
£8 Bitspower Temperature Sensor Stop Fitting - Black

£98 Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Full Copper 420mm radiator V.2
£75 Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper 280mm radiator V.2
£100 SCREWS, SPACERS, BRACKETS, PUMP MOUNTING cables for joining rgb etc.
£32 EK Water Blocks EK-Quantum Torque 45° Rotary Fitting - Nickel
£108 18X EK Water Blocks EK-Quantum Torque HDC 14mm Hard Tubing Fitting - Nickel
£56 7X EK Water Blocks EK-Quantum Torque 90° Rotary Fitting - Nickel
£9 1X EK Water Blocks EK-Quantum Torque Angled T-Adapter Fitting - Nickel
£22 Bitspower black fill/drain 1/4 pass through.

£16 EK Water Blocks EK-CryoFuel Navy Blue 1L and green, Premix Watercooling Fluid - 1 Litre each. May use antifreeze.
£17 Alphacool Eisfluegel flow indicator G1/4 square - Acetal
£8 FIVE OFF TechForge 24 Slot Cable Comb (Small) 3mm - Black
£7 EK Water Blocks Filling Bottle (1000mL)
£24 2X BitFenix Alchemy 8-pin PCIe extension cable 45cm sleeved - black

So, no messing about. Do it right! This will be silent. And very future proof.
It has a water temp sensor to control fan speed, and cpu tep censor to control the pump speed. And all the d-rgb contrlled by the motherboard.

[Scooterman]

So should be futureproof for the next decade for me by which time I may be dead.

Aw don't say that

[snaker]

How much is the total

[fishinjunky]

wow now thats a proper PC. Work of art

[Burgerman]

How much is the total

You dont want to know.

But £5k plus 6.5K dollars?
But that includes the best of everything possible and 3x, 2TB fastest nvme drives, as well as 2x, 2TB ssd's. and an impossible to get graphics card £££. Its a monster but quiet. And uses little power. But if its worth doing...

Matched to my LG 4K OLED beautiful 55 inch TV as its monitor on my desk its going to be very immersive! MS FLIGHT SIM will be on max detail, max settings. Thats the plan. Nothing less will run my sim.

[Burgerman]

Steve. If I can do this laid on my bed, with a 55lb computer laid on top of me along with screws, tools, pipe, heat, bending stuff, liquid metal, waterblocks, cable ties, etc. Then you and your brother have no excuses!!

I wait to see your new one.

I know you worry about pump failure. Its speed and rpm are monitored by a fan header. So if the pump rpm is less than your minimum set in bios then the PC will shut down in the same way a CPU fan failure (far more likely for a fan to fail) would do. But DDC or D5 pumps are industrial, run for decades and nothing really to wear.

[Burgerman]

Theres not even any mess. I have a fill loop at the top (the silver cap with EK on it. Its a 1/4 thread. And 2 vents from a bathroom towel rail on top to vent any air from the two high points on the front rad. And a drain port that looks the same, on the front behind the front cover. I attach a 6mm rubber tube and a 1/4 thread fitting to these ports to drain or fill. Without even moving the computer. There are 2 red valves connected inline behind the side panel, to shut off any flow until I have the tube connected. So unlike all the mess you see on jay2cents etc I dont have a single drip...

SEE below.

UNDER TOP COVER, which removes with 2 thumb screws, is the following.
1. A nickel coloured fill port. Remove with fingers... Reveals a 1/4 thread.
2. A black temp sensing resistor probe screwed into the top 280mm radiator.
3. TWO air release vents that are really designed for a bathroom towel rail. But they are also 1/4 BSPP thread just like the water fittings to vent traped air.
4. The top radiator. This is smaller and only 30mm thick like an AIO sized radiator. Unlike an AIO it is copper... So no corrosion!

With and without a plastic plate that prevents the air cycling back to the case.