Bolt II Overhaul

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Yes, I meant unlocked...thoughts getting ahead of my typing there...

Today, AMD revealed some details of their next generation GPU architecture and chips. They are addressing some of the issues in the recent couple of generations of their GPUs have had with low performance/watt, lack of HDMI 2.0, and not enough VRAM for 4K/UHD and greater displays. I hope they have the 10-bit h.265 Main10 decode entirely in hardware as well as be able to support HDR content. A wish of mine would be for integral support of CEC over HDMI (there are external devices but I'd prefer it to be integrated with better functionality).

 

[EdZ]

I think "not enough VRAM for 4k" is somewhat of a myth. I've yet to see any sort of test or benchmark where memory capacity could be pointed to conclusively as the performance bottleneck that also had the game running at a useful performance level (i.e. it dosn't matter that memory capacity is bottlenecking you at 4x supersampling with super-uber-awesome textures if the bottleneck is bringing you from 5fps to 4fps).

Think of it in terms of framebuffers: a 3840*2160 4-channel (RGBa) 24-bit per channel (LOLoverkill) buffer will take up ~95megabytes of vRAM. Even if you had 10 buffers per frame all with that obscene bit-depth (most obtuse buffers like depth buffers are single-channel, and some are single-channel with very low bit-depths) you still have over 3GB to play with for texture and geometry storage.

A lot of confusion comes from the fact that almost all game engines actively try and fill vRAM with as many textures as they possibly have. Even if the chance that texture will ever be loaded is zero (e.g. it's only present on the next level) there is literally no reason not to keep vRAM filled at capacity and simply flag unlikely-to-be-used textures for flushing. It loses you nothing, and saves time loading data over the PCIe bus later.

 

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A benchmark that would take a Titan X and selectively removed the amount of memory available in each VRAM module equally, keeping all of the ROPs active, could make for an apples-to-apples comparison, where the only thing that varied would be the amount of memory. This would then need to be tested in realistic operating scenarios, not just synthetic benchmarks, to evaluate if there is any reduction to the achievable frame rate.

Keep in mind that the bits-per-channel will increase with extended color space and HDR (somewhere in the region of 10-16 bits-per-channel).

 

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Here are some fitment checks of the pump and fans/radiator:

It was a very tight squeeze, but I managed to get the D5 pump with EK top in the bottom. I'm not sure if I will even bother securing it to the case, it is that tight of a fit.

Here are the GT fans on the 240GTS rad. I was initially planning to carve out a notch in the EK pump top to fit the radiator in place, but...

...it appears like a better solution would be to remake the bracket to mount the fans and radiator (much easier), which shifts the fans up to where there are more perforations in the door (bonus!).

 

[iFreilicht]

Very cool project, I'll be following along! Maybe I missed this in the previous posts, but will the radiator cool just the CPU or CPU and GPU?

 

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Thanks! In the first part of the build, I only have a CPU to cool. But I'll be adding a next-generation GPU and including it in the loop sometime down the road. wovie has shown that is is possible to cool a CPU plus two 980 Ti GPU's with a single slim 240mm radiator (thanks wovie!). The temperatures wovie was seeing are a bit high...the D5 pump has a maximum water temperature of 60°C and the PETG tubing I'm using has a heat deflection temperature of 69°C, so I wouldn't want to push it quite like he is (my radiator is a little bit larger and more capable than his, too). I'm also playing around with ideas for supplemental cooling, if needed.

 

[CC Ricers]

That's such a heat load for a slim 240mm radiator. But well, I'm planning on using a slim 240mm for a future build, just with one graphics card, though.

BTW I really like The Bolt II case. It's the best of the Bolt cases, I think and its really bad that they can't be bought separately. When they went with the Lian-Li case their current generation I was like "Nope, too big". How are the noise levels of that 1U power supply? Are they bearable when gaming?

 

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Well, wovie is using two 980 Ti's, which I cannot support. The only way to come close would be to use a dual GPU card, but the Titan Z at least was power limited by it's power connectors...and that would be only if I were to get a dual GPU card. I reckon that I have about a 10-20% advantage in terms of radiator power dissipation using the Nemesis 240GTS over the Darkside Dual LP240 Extra Slim. My airflow isn't as good as in the Air 240 case, however, so that may negate some of those benefits.

As far as the sound from the PSU goes...it sounds like a high-pitched aquarium. Not loud, but noticeable; it gets drowned out fairly easily, though. I have gotten a Sunon MagLev fan to try out and see if that helps at all (I think a lot of the noise is from transmission of fan vibrations), I just need to get around to opening everything up.

 

[CC Ricers]

Yeah, the 750w heat capacity of the 240GTS would give you a lot of headroom to cool both GPU and CPU, and maybe even offset the airflow to let you run the fans a little quieter.

Also, maybe adding some noise dampening foam may help quiet down the PSU with the fan?

 

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Yeah, the 750w heat capacity of the 240GTS would give you a lot of headroom to cool both GPU and CPU, and maybe even offset the airflow to let you run the fans a little quieter.

I would think the loop would be running pretty hot to get a large thermal gradient between the working fluid and the air to dissipate 750W. Considering that Extreme Rigs found the 360GTS dissipates 191.5W/10°C, I'd expect my radiator to be around 2/3rd's as effective (conservatively, should be slightly higher in spite of what Hardware Labs charts says the heat capacities should be) and I'd want it no more than around 30°C above ambient. That puts me around 383W of total heat dissipation. That puts me ballpark of 400W, which is what reviews are finding the maximum draw at the wall of a system with a high end 250+W GPU and i7 processor draw with the PSU, motherboard, memory, storage, and anything else in the system included.

Also, maybe adding some noise dampening foam may help quiet down the PSU with the fan?

The issue is there isn't much room around the PSU. You can see in this picture that the case sheet metal literally wraps around the PSU on the bottom. It is also rigidly mounted to the case in the back.

But this got me thinking. Here is an updated version of the PSU I have, but it is the same layout:

You can see the fan is exposed due to 1U height restrictions. I am wondering if I didn't screw the fan into the PSU and put some thin foam strips on the top and bottom of the case around where the fan would be, it could sort of freely float on the foam with a much looser coupling to the case. I'm going to look into this some more...

 

[iFreilicht]

You'd probably have to file the case of the PSU down a bit to make sure the fan doesn't touch it either, but that is a really cool idea and I'd be interested to see whether it works

 

[CC Ricers]

I would think the loop would be running pretty hot to get a large thermal gradient between the working fluid and the air to dissipate 750W. Considering that Extreme Rigs found the 360GTS dissipates 191.5W/10°C, I'd expect my radiator to be around 2/3rd's as effective (conservatively, should be slightly higher in spite of what Hardware Labs charts says the heat capacities should be) and I'd want it no more than around 30°C above ambient. That puts me around 383W of total heat dissipation.

I see you are referring to the Push-only 1GPM performance at 750 rpm fan speed. I guess that would keep the system relatively quiet, though I would be fine with two fans up to 1000-1200 rpm. That would allow more room for heat dissipation at lower delta temps.

For my own build I'll probably get the Magicool 240 slim, which would not be quite nearly as good as the HW Labs Nemesis, but I am going for as slim as a radiator as possible without hurting performance by a lot (so the Coolstream SE is out of the question).

Another thought, would the Corsair H5 SF fit in that case? It looks too close of a call to just figure it out using pictures (plus Corsair should really have provided measurements for the entire cooler-motherboard assembly put together). But if it were to fit, you can have the CPU cooled by that and have the entire 240mm rad just to the graphics card

 

[iFreilicht]

Another thought, would the Corsair H5 SF fit in that case? It looks too close of a call to just figure it out using pictures (plus Corsair should really have provided measurements for the entire cooler-motherboard assembly put together). But if it were to fit, you can have the CPU cooled by that and have the entire 240mm rad just to the graphics card

Which would probably make the whole system louder, at least from what I've heard about the H5 SF

 

[CC Ricers]

Which would probably make the whole system louder, at least from what I've heard about the H5 SF

True, but how loud is the question. I haven't seen too many videos reviewing or evaluating the unit yet. This video is the only one I can find that has an audible test. But I would be interested more in the cooling advantage of having a dedicated CPU cooler in place of having it share the 240mm radiator in the custom loop.

 

[jeshikat]

I did my own audio test of the H5 SF here: https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/the-synjet-project-it-sucks-and-blows.358/page-2#post-6015

How loud something is is extremely subjective, what I find obnoxiously loud some (probably most actually) would call "quiet". So your mileage may vary, but I find the H5 SF really annoying at idle. The actual whoosh of air isn't too bad but the fan makes a droning noise that I believe is due to the bearing and I find it to be audible all the way across a quiet room.

 

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Another thought, would the Corsair H5 SF fit in that case? It looks too close of a call to just figure it out using pictures (plus Corsair should really have provided measurements for the entire cooler-motherboard assembly put together). But if it were to fit, you can have the CPU cooled by that and have the entire 240mm rad just to the graphics card

I have roughly 3.75" above the motherboard available; the H5 is 84mm high, so it should fit. But as iFreilicht and Aibohphobia mentioned, the H5 would be fairly loud.

My goal with this case is to make it as quiet as possible. This includes asynchronous fan curves on the two GT fans, with one always spinning faster than the other to spread the noise over the frequency spectrum to reduce the perceived sound (excluding when both fans are at max speed or completely off). I do not think the H5 will help much with this. I did consider possibly going with a 120mm AIO for the CPU and then having a GPU with an AIO cooler on it. I would have to remake the bracket to my case, still, if I had decided to go that direction.

I have also looked around for hybrid air/water CPU coolers but have not found any good solutions. Having a water block which can passively dissipate heat (possibly using air flow from the radiator fans) would be an effective and efficient way to dispel CPU heat.

I see you are referring to the Push-only 1GPM performance at 750 rpm fan speed. I guess that would keep the system relatively quiet, though I would be fine with two fans up to 1000-1200 rpm. That would allow more room for heat dissipation at lower delta temps.

Yes, I am using the 550-1850 RPM GT fans. I would like to keep their speed low and just run one if the temperatures are low enough; I'll experiment with the fan profiles to give me the most pleasing response.

For my own build I'll probably get the Magicool 240 slim, which would not be quite nearly as good as the HW Labs Nemesis, but I am going for as slim as a radiator as possible without hurting performance by a lot (so the Coolstream SE is out of the question).

The Magicool radiators are pretty good for keeping the radiator thin and within 120mm width. Another option that is not highly publicized is the Hardware Labs L-Series radiators. They stay within the 120mm width constraints, although they are slightly thicker than the Magicool and dissipate less heat than the Nemesis GTS radiators.

And for those interested, here is a video of Digital Storm's hardline implementation in a Bolt II:


Here is a user with a Titan Z Battlebox version with some of the panels removed. You can see the routing of the hardline up to the top where there is a T fitting or manifold in the area immediately behind the front cover and a soft tube fill/drain port splits off.


You can see the Swiftech MCP35X they use at the end of this video:


The loop I will be putting together initially will be somewhat similar, although there will be some changes for packaging of the D5.

 

[FCase]

In those videos, what pumps did they use and where did they put them?

Mal

 

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They use the Swiftech MCP35X (or a similar DDC) pump. Same place as where I am putting the D5 pump but oriented facing up instead of to the side like I have the D5; you can see it in the end of the last video with the blue and teal cable.

 

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I got some parts in for the filter in my system. I wanted to go with a Koolance filter that had a nice large domed filter in it for low flow restriction, however I wouldn't be able to fit it in any reasonable orientation where I wanted to put the filter in my system. So, I ended up going with an acrylic Barrow unit.

The Barrow filter comes with three stainless steel screens with different mesh densities. I wanted to improve the galvanic compatibility of the screen, as well as improve the flow through the part. I found and ordered some brass pipe screens sight unseen and luckily they came with perforation sizes similar to the medium screen that came with the Barrow piece.

I then created a dome with the brass mesh.

I put a flange on the dome to interface with the acrylic part as the original screens did (Sorry my camera focused on the back half of the screen)

I cut the flange down to size and installed into the acrylic piece. This was my second attempt...I botched the first one creating too many splintering pieces of the screen sticking out and ended up cutting too much off.

With one of the fittings on here:

Hopefully the dome will also direct debris toward the side and keep the flow path clear, too. I will say I was a bit disappointed with the acrylic quality. There were some smears in it and some other irregularities to it...oh well, only so much you can expect from a direct-from-China part.

 

[hat1324]

PC enthusiasm is recognizing a Maximus VI Impact and Corsair Dominator Platinum from a 6-foot-away top view through a case window.

On another note, RIP Bolt series cases, DigitalStorm uses big heavy Lian Li cases now