"Miller" - I9 7980xe - Ncase M1

[RT Studios]

First post here, and this is my first SFF build. I have built plenty of computers before, but never water cooled. This forum helped a lot. Thanks hope this helps! Here is a timelapse of the build...
Ncase M1
Asrock x299e itx/ac
Intel I9 7980xe
Quadro P5000
64gb Ram
1 tb Samsung 960 Pro m.2
Water cooled by custom EKWB loop.
Alphacool 92mm rad
EKWB 240 coolstream

 

[W1NN1NG]

That's one expensive parts list. Holy cow. Nice build none the less

 

[confusis]

Love it! I'm in the process of building a similar system

 

[rfarmer]

I have been waiting to see someone do a build with this motherboard, and your CPU choice is impressive to say the least.

Now I in no way intend to be rude but I am going to make some honest observations.

I have seen several different builds with this type of cooling setup, both with and without the rear mounted 92mm radiator. Most of those builds are with either 6700k or 7700k and GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti. I have yet to see one of those builds that had what I consider decent cooling. Most of them hit 80C on the CPU during stress testing. I am a bit afraid to imagine what it will be like with an eighteen core CPU.

There are a few things you can do to improve performance. I would get the Noctua 120X15mm for the bottom radiator, they seem to be the best on the market. The EK 240mm SE is not a great radiator, I have seen several people switch over the HWLabs Black Ice Nemesis GTS 240 and get much better results. The bottom of the case is restrictive on airflow, I have seen one user cut out the area between the fan mounting holes and got about 5C better temps.

I think it is a great looking build and I wish you luck, I just don't think you are going to be able to cool that beast with that setup.

 

[W1NN1NG]

There is someone on hf designing a new set of feet sorta for the ncase to allow 25mm fans to be mounted inside of them and hidden from view. I'd look into that

 

[RT Studios]

I'm getting about 64c as my top end on the CPU. I should mention that this build is purely for 3ds Max as a workstation. I have been running the CPU at 100% for over 12hrs at a time. The GPU goes idle during those times. Cooling has been a theoretical concern while building. But I have been pleasantly surprised by reality. I may try a stress test running both CPU/GPU at 100% later. But at the moment that scenario is not part of my workflow. I'll keep you posted.

 

[rfarmer]

Well that is not bad at all, hopefully you will still get decent temps with the GPU included.

 

[RT Studios]

One big reason I went with the Quadro p5000 was the difference in power consumption over a GTX 1080. That loop can only take so much.

 

[RT Studios]

Turned all my fans to push out, and ran a quick stress test today for 30 min. It yielded stable temp of no more than 65c. Feels pretty solid to me. I will do a longer one later, but everything was pretty flat for the last 20 min. Pretty happy with how this is coming out.

 

[rfarmer]

That's good news, very reasonable temps. That big i9 must not generate as much heat as I thought.

 

[AleksandarK]

NICE!

 

[RT Studios]

If you go to 2:44 in the build video you can see the underside of the Quadro card. I think the short block used for this allows for better airflow above the lower fans than other setups that use a full size cooling block. I also used the fan cage on the right side to keep the card away from fan.

 

[axtran]

I recommend picking up the higher feet from Mnpctech to help with the bottom airflow. I'm running dual rads (92mm Black Ice, EKWB Slim 240) and the "all fans out" configuration that you're doing is also what I've seen perform the best. Hot air exhausted downward like a laptop

 

[RT Studios]

Here's a few pics of the newly finished glass side panel. Looks ok..., learned a few things. Next one will be better. Chop saw=wrong tool. lol. Last thing to finish is the custom cables. The cables have proven to be much more difficult that I thought.

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[jack1940]

You use P5000, I guess you are the same as my needs. But I need to be portable. Considering the safety factors, I may not be able to use water cooled. Do you have any other cooler recommendations?

 

[jtd871]

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Miller time". Somebody was gonna say it, might as well be me.

 

[Wantabiggercpu]

Woah. What a tiny little beast. Can you share the temperatures under load?

Edit: Saw the temps in your post above. Pretty good. Impressive stuff.

 

[thefiend1]

Super epic! This gives me hope for my build which is about the same except im going with the Intel I9 7960x and Quadro P4000. The build video is very useful, thanks for uploading that.

 

[thefiend1]

Love it! I'm in the process of building a similar system

Actually I have a question for you guys - Ive never done an m-itx build before but im about to now because im sick of having such huge cases (I have an ncase now) but I still plan on putting a 16 core processor in there with 64gbs of ram... my question is, is there any performance loss of going with such a tiny motherboard versus full size atx? Obviously there are more pci slots (I only need one), but I didnt know if theres anything significant I should worry about.

Using this machine to do cgi rendering with so its going to see alot of 100% CPU loads for extended periods of time like the OP.

 

[confusis]

No performance loss on ITX at all - except maybe in the realms of quad channel RAM and top end overclocking. @thefiend1