Best AIO for the M1

[adamik17]

Hi! I'm looking to find the answer for the question in the title, the best aio (in terms of noise vs temps compromise, the best of both worlds). More precisely, what aio config (meaning for example swapping out the stock fans for something else), what physical configuration (push/pull, radiator inside/outside). I don't want to do a custom loop.

Thank you in advance owo

 

[Revenant]

My setup :

8086K at 5GHZ Prime AVX stable (Aka, I’m running a lot of voltage and unlimited watts).
RTX 2080



I chose the NZXT X52 over the Corsair H series. My last Corsair was a dud, and I had one other die prematurely. Also the X52 has more flexible hoses.

To keep the VRMs nice and cool as well as cut down on noise, I used a pull config.

Lastly, I swapped the stock fans for the new Noctua 120mms.

I tweeked fan and pump speeds with the NZXT CAM software, making the system very quiet overall.

I installed two Noctua 120x15 fans at the bottom and run them at 40% to feed the GPU which stays at about 2GHZ while gaming.

If you’re not going to overclock though my setup is overkill.

 

[Revenant]

Revenant,
You have the fans mounted inside or outside?

I have no plans to overclock the GPU. Based on the build below; what would you suggest as the optimal cooling/noise config?

My build will be:

• ASRock Z390 Phantom ITX
• i9-9900k
• MSI 1660 TI Gaming X
• 32GB Ballistix Sport LT (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3000
• ADATA - XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280
  
• NCASE M1 v5 vented panels
  
• Corsair Platinum 600 SF
• Kraken X52 modified with 2 Noctua - NF-A12x25 PWM 60.1 CFM 120mm Fans

I've mounted the fans on the inside for two reasons. First it's quieter. There's a substantial amount of turbulence noise when the fan is close to the panel. By mounting them inside in a pull configuration, it eliminates a lot of it. Second, it provides better cooling for the VRMs.

The 9900K is an amazing CPU. In 6 years time I bet we see people talking about it like they still talk about the 2600K. However, it does use a lot of power when overclocked. I would suggest, for silence sake, that you limit the longterm TDP to 115 Watts, and let the CPU handle the Turbo boosting, or just run it stock with XMP memory enabled. The performance difference between all core 4.6GHZ, which it will hit for the vast majority of uses, and 5GHZ, which will require substantial power and tweeking to get AVX stable, is minimal. Upping the wattage to 115 from 95 gives the system a little more leeway to maintain those higher boost clocks.

Remember something about SFF: There is always a price to pay. My father wanted a SFF system, but with a heavily overclock 7820K: 4.5GHZ, 24-7 PRIME AVX stable on all 8 cores/16 threads. Suffice it to say, his system now sits in a NZXT H700 with a 360mm rad. If he wanted it barebones stock speed, I probably could have put it in a NCASE M1.

One change I would make though, is get faster ram. DDR4-3000 is the minimum I would go on any new build. I would personally be looking at 3600 or 4000 range. While this won't be a big improvement in today's apps,but memory bandwidth pays dividends down the line as the system ages.

Also.... I would suggest the RTX2060 over the 1660TI. The RTX features are starting to be used, and it puts you in the same area as 1080 class performance. It's also not that much more expensive. I was VERY disappointed with the build quality of the MSI card I dismantled. I'd lean toward EVGA.

These fans for the CPU cooler: https://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a12x25-pwm

These fans for the bottom intake: https://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a12x15-pwm

I'm using my MI-6 system right now, but I'll send you the fan profiles from my M1 later.

I just got my new Corsair Platinum 600SF in. Great PSU, and the new cables ARE SO MUCH BETTER than the originals. 600 Watts should be more than enough power. I ran my 8086K with a power hog 980TI for a while and it worked flawlessly. There isn't much space for cables though in the M1, so you might want to consider custom length cables if your cablegami game is weak.

 

[Wyd4]

I came here to add my 2 cents, but @Revenant nailed it.
I haven't technically run an aio since I had an i5 8600k in my ncase, but at that time I was running an x52 and found it to perform well both in thermals and noise.
I was also running an accellero 3 on a 1080ti, so I had the x52 in push (but can see the merit of pull for vrm cooling) with 2 120mm fans in the bottom as exhaust pulling the GPU air out of the case. I then blocked the left side of the under case to stop the air re-circulating as much as possible.

I am currently sort of running an aio in the EKWB predator with 2 of the fancy noctua fans and a slim 240mm rad in the bottom with 2 slim noctua fans. While this allows me to keep my 1080ti over 2ghz and my 8700k @ 5.1ghz, this is a fair leap from a financial pov for minimal real world gain.

 

[Wyd4]

I cannot recommend the noctua fans enough for noise. They are fantastic!

 

[spyd3rman]

My build will be:

• MSI 1660 TI Gaming X

I haven't bought the GPU yet, however I chose the specific MSI 1660 TI Gamer X based on the review of its thermals and low noise. I am happy to consider an EVGA or moving to any brand of RTX 2060 if it is quiet.

May I ask a really stupid question ... why not use the integrated GPU (not a suggestion), but curious why you don't see any of this at all? With my Haswell build, that I plan to replace in short order, I have been running in this manner for years. If not gaming, I don't really understand why a GPU is needed? Also, if not used, wouldn't that allow plenty of space for a AIO cooler at the bottom of the case?

Thanks for being gentle - still trying to get up to speed.

 

[Revenant]

What type of work will you be doing with it?

 

[Revenant]

Do you do anything that benefits from Open CL or Cuda?

 

[spyd3rman]

Great question. I suppose I could use the built in GPU, however I figured a discrete GPU will not be limiting whatever I may fancy at the time. I tend to upgrade my systems every five years, and therefore like to get the best bang for my buck.

I didn't mean to threadjack, but this question has been at the top of my list of open items to research ... (thanks very much for understanding).

I ponder if the correlation between those building custom rigs and those builders being gamers accounts for the fact that 99% of custom builds have discrete GPUs?

Anyway ... to further my prior query::

• As a generalization, K silicon with iGPU disabled will produce a better OC than the same CPU with iGPU enabled, since that iGPU draws power from the socket, right?
  
• As it relates to the Ncase M1 + 9900K, I wonder if the benefits of using the iGPU may outweigh that con, as a discrete GPU + that beast of a CPU generate more heat than just the CPU, potentially allowing a higher OC to be reached?
• Perhaps of some interest ... there is a SKU with iGPU disabled (Core i9-9900KF) ...

 

[Revenant]

I didn't mean to threadjack, but this question has been at the top of my list of open items to research ... (thanks very much for understanding).

I ponder if the correlation between those building custom rigs and those builders being gamers accounts for the fact that 99% of custom builds have discrete GPUs?

Anyway ... to further my prior query::

• As a generalization, K silicon with iGPU disabled will produce a better OC than the same CPU with iGPU enabled, since that iGPU draws power from the socket, right?
  
• As it relates to the Ncase M1 + 9900K, I wonder if the benefits of using the iGPU may outweigh that con, as a discrete GPU + that beast of a CPU generate more heat than just the CPU, potentially allowing a higher OC to be reached?
• Perhaps of some interest ... there is a SKU with iGPU disabled (Core i9-9900KF) ...

These are relevant questions to his build.

The iGPU is actually a very low power portion of the silicon that runs at different clock frequency to the main CPU core itself. In essence, it's a chip within a chip. While it does draw power, it doesn't draw much power. Additionally, the iGPU will have a separate VRM from the CPU main VRMs on good mainboards so it won't draw from the CPUs VRMs (MSI has been dropping the ball on this one). Most overclocks live and die in the VRMs if you have good thermals. You can even overclock it separately in some case. It is possible...POSSIBLE...that in some cases it may lower your overclocking overhead...slightly. However, in my own uses, I keep my iGPUs active for Adobe Premier and Quicksync rendering purposes and haven't had any loss of overclock or stability.

As to usefulness....yes it can be very useful. Adobe recently began using the Quicksync aspects of Intel GPUs and it has MASSIVELY cut down on my Adobe Premier rendering times. Basically, I have the CPU cores, GPU CUDA cores, and iGPU cores all working on the render simultaneously.

There are other benefits of having a dedicated GPU other than gaming particularly when we start talking about rendering, CAD, etc. Nvidia doesn't even sell their highest end GPUs to anyone but the science community anymore.

That said, for someone who is doing basic MS Office tasks and playing WOW on low settings on a single monitor, it will be ok to use the iGPU. Much more than that, they probably need a basic GPU.

 

[Revenant]

I am eagerly awaiting the case...

I have a feeling it is going to be a while... :|
Current status:
美國, 海關查驗, 留置原因:禁寄物品 (United States, Customs inspection, Reason for retention: Prohibited items)

Uh... Prohibited items?

 

[spyd3rman]

These are relevant questions to his build.

• Awesome post - thank you very much for the pertinent info that I've been dying for an understanding of.

As to usefulness....yes it can be very useful. Adobe recently began using the Quicksync aspects of Intel GPUs and it has MASSIVELY cut down on my Adobe Premier rendering times. Basically, I have the CPU cores, GPU CUDA cores, and iGPU cores all working on the render simultaneously.

• Sounds like you need a render farm! I had no clue you could use disparate cores in such a fashion.
• I'm happy to spec out a nice not-so-SFF ESXi cluster for you (mine below), but thanks to you I have plenty of direction now - iGPU all the way (and o/c I have the horsepower to offload multi threaded tasks ...)

That said, for someone who is doing basic MS Office tasks and playing WOW on low settings on a single monitor, it will be ok to use the iGPU. Much more than that, they probably need a basic GPU.

• I think the iGPU will be more than sufficient for my needs, as I've had 2 x 24" monitors connected to the iGPU since '13 and 2 additional 24" monitors connected via DisplayLink. I plan to retire that 2 x 2 array (moving to a single ultrawide, so it will be quite nice to not deal with tearing etc anymore!)
  
• So it seems like this is almost a have your cake and eat it too scenario (for me at least): (1) M1 w/ window, (2) AIO cooler at bottom, (3) direct view of infinity mirror (all the "bling" I want, but I figure kinda neat) ...

THANKS AGAIN!

 

[Revenant]

That Render Farm is just scary, and your cablegami is legend! Well done.

Glad I could help!

 

[spyd3rman]

That Render Farm is just scary, and your cablegami is legend! Well done.

• Many thanks! The CPUs have some beef and there is some Optane in there (VMs + SLOGs), but between those two servers, there are two ZFS arrays replicated to 5 min @ 1/4 Petabyte raw, gross.

• Believe it or not there is a reason the servers are mounted on the wall + upside down: (1) home = condo = not so much room for a dc and the chassis depth exceeded the closet depth, (2) airflow through closet = intake under door => convection + negative pressure => ceiling exhaust / airflow through server directionally matches perfectly in that orientation, (3) Upside down orientation = HDDs enjoying coolest / densest air = HDDs Tavg lower by 5.3C @ 78F ambient (and still under 40C) vs. a server facing the ceiling (which would be fighting airflow through the closet).

Ever since I learned of this (even if not used / dated) ...

Spoiler: Cable Color Codes

... I had to attempt to emulate to some extent:

• Green Cat6 = ISP
• Yellow Cat6 = IPMI (from servers)
  
• Blue Cat 6 = Ethernet drops (to other areas)
  
• Grey Cat6a = Integrated Intel X540-AT2 - 10 Gb (from servers)
  
• 2 x 10 Gb DACs (from servers)
  
• I bought a couple of lacer bars with those cables and I still can't decide if I like the look, although highly functional.

Glad I could help!

• Me too! Thank You! Obviously moving to the complete opposite side of the spectrum here and there is some on-boarding to be done.
• I'll see if I can't post a planned build for validation / community comment today.

@Revenant : As a tangent, I love your sig (re: building) and couldn't agree more! I added a couple of pics of the server closet build in the event you care for a look.

Spoiler: Server Closet

Knocked out the sheetrock ...

Added 2x4 + 2x6 blocking to support weight (overkill, but metal studs = flimsy)

Added RockWool Safe n' Sound (sound abatement insulation = amazing)

French cleat = you didn't think it was actually fastened to the wall did ya?

Plywood panel held in place by gravity (also allows for quick / easy reversion to a somewhat stock closet, for when I sell / rent out condo)

Perspective from floor @ ceiling

 

[Revenant]

Very nice server closet.

Thank you for the sig compliment. I was inspired by my favorite character in Rick and Morty.

 

[HarvinDhillon]

I got a H100x from Corsair, its a relatively cheap AIO. The hoses are great as they are flexible and smaller in diameter from the H100i I had before.

Seem to work great, I got the noctua 12x15 pwn fans, though I might upgrade to the 25cm ones as seems like there is space in there for those.

 

[dorall]

Kraken x52

 

[Revenant]

Just thought I would post an update for my rig. Tonight I discovered BFV just COOKS the CPU in DX12 mode with Ray Tracing on. It hit 99C on an NZXT X52 with Noctua A12s. I'm not a fan of AIOs but SFF systems seem stuck with them. My VCORE is at 1.36v so I had to turn down the maximum wattage to 135w which dropped 8 to 10C, but causes the cpu to drop clocks a little bit under heavy, heavy load. DX11 doesn't cause this issue.

I'm at the thermal vs my personal noise limit for the NCASE M1 now.

SFF systems...there is always a price to pay....but that's part of the challenge and fun.

 

[Revenant]

One last update... I just did a cooling rebuild on my system. My cpu cold plate for the X52 was not making good contact, however the effect was minimal. What wasn't minimal was reversing the flow of the CPU fans. I now have them as an exhaust. This has further reduced my CPU head room. I've had to take the 8086K and drop it to 1.32V with a -2 AVX offset, and 130 watt TDP limit. It's still got an all core speed of 5GHZ. Temps are in the low 90s under heavy load, and mid 90s with AVX Prime.

The side effect though is that the noise of the CPU fans is far, far more noticeable.

I also swapped the thin Noctua 120s on the bottom of the case for Noiseblockers I had from my previous build. GPU airflow improved, but increased the turbulance noise at the bottom of the case.

What has REALLY changed though is that the GPU temps are a full 10C lower than before. I'm seeing 75C playing BFV with DXR Ultra on, at 2GHZ+ with a memory OC of +500 on my RTX 2080 Founders edition. The GPU fan speed has been reduced to 60% at load.

Overall, in gaming, the system is now quieter and faster. In everything else, it's louder and imperceptibly slower.

 

[Revenant]

One last last update.....

The 8086K continued to overheat with the fans as exhaust, and I had to reduce it to stock.

So I swapped the CPU fans back to intakes, and installed a 92x15mm noctua exhaust fan. This has allowed the CPU to get back to 5GHZ at 1.3V / 150 Watt with a -4 AVX offset, and reduced noise. Prime95 AVX hits 95C. Thus far, this seems to be the best config in my use case.

The GPU (2080 Founders) went from 75C under load to 80C under load. Still within spec, and is boosting to about 1980mhz after gaming for an hour. CPU temps are hitting spikes in the 80s, but otherwise not bad.

This is running the fans at about 1500RPM (Noctua Sterrox units).