Log Skyreach 4 Mini with custom cabling and heavily modded and soldered Zotac 3060 Ti

Robotanv

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Dec 11, 2020
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26

I've been working on this build on and off for a while and finally finished the video this weekend.
The GPU needed some substantial modification to fit inside my brickless build!
Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for reducing temps while maintaining performance.
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
Great video! A nice build too :) Glad you got it stable. That gpu mod is really cool, and I like the soldered power wires!

One note: PC power supplies are rated for their output power, not input power, efficiency losses go on top of this - i.e. a PSU rated at 400W 90% efficiency should be able to deliver 400W of DC power, and will pull ~445W from the wall, with 45W being waste heat from power conversion losses. So the HDPlex 400 should deliver 400W output. There are of course some crappy PSUs that don't meet their rated output, but I would expect a HDPlex to do so.

Manufacturer PSU recommendations are also typically complete nonsense, as they have to account for people with all kinds of esoteric configurations. But you're entirely right that CPU turbo boost messes with calculations like this. In addition to undervolting your cpu you could always limit its PL1 and PL2 power levels, as those determine how much power the CPU is actually allowed to draw, as an extra safety precaution. Many motherboards set these much higher than Intel's stock numbers without user intervention (and might enable some form of multi-core-turbo, which is essentially an auto OC), so being careful with the cpu configuration in a power constrained Intel build is a very good idea.
 
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Robotanv

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Dec 11, 2020
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Thanks for your feedback. You're not the only person that has mentioned this PSU power calculation I got wrong. Previously, I watched a few videos which advised reducing the output by the efficiency rating but I'm not an expert by any means so concede that's probably wrong. That kind of makes the situation worse though - my system would cut out despite having 400w available! Thankfully, it has been stable since the CPU undervolt. I'll have to read up on the PL1 / 2 settings as I'm not at all familiar with that.
 

Robotanv

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Original poster
Dec 11, 2020
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I thought I would attach some pictures for those that weren't too interested in seeing the video.

The specs are:
Skyreach 4 Mini
Intel 9700K
Zotac 3060 Ti Twin Edge with heatsink cut to fit case and 2x Noctua A9x14 fans
Custom cabling throughout and soldered to GPU
ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac Motherboard
32Gb RAM
1TB Samsung 970 EVO SSD
HDPlex 400w PSU



 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
Thanks for your feedback. You're not the only person that has mentioned this PSU power calculation I got wrong. Previously, I watched a few videos which advised reducing the output by the efficiency rating but I'm not an expert by any means so concede that's probably wrong. That kind of makes the situation worse though - my system would cut out despite having 400w available! Thankfully, it has been stable since the CPU undervolt. I'll have to read up on the PL1 / 2 settings as I'm not at all familiar with that.
No problem, it's not an immediately obvious thing (especially with efficiency being presented as a percentage value), the only reason I know this at all is from having it repeated in a bunch of PSU reviews I've read (and seeing them test at 100% of the rated power). It is indeed a bit odd that if OCP was triggered given the 400W rating, but there are many possible culprits - there could be voltage droop under high transient loads, an overly sensitive OCP setting, tiny transient loads that significantly exceed what is registered by software, or many other factors causing crashes. Recent Intel CPUs can consume a lot of power during short-term boost, and GPU Boost 4.0 can also produce rather spiky power loads.

Also, I don't quite know if HDPlex accounts for conversion losses in the DC-ATX unit in their 400W rating - they are two separate units after all. 12V DC-DC PSU solutions (PicoPSU, J-Hack, G-Unique) sidestep this through producing 12V directly in the AC-DC unit, but HDPlex and their 19V setups need further conversion to 12V, so there's an inherent extra layer of conversion losses there, unlike pretty much all other PSU setups.

Actually, looking over the specs, this is likely the issue - and in a fun turn of events, this is perhaps the only PSU setup where your way of calculating things is actually correct! A great facepalm moment for me, at that :p The HDPlex 400W AC-DC is rated for 19V 21A (=399W), at 94% efficiency (so ~25W heat load in addition to the 399W output), but that's just a plain 19V output. In addition to that the HDPlex 400W DC-ATX is itself rated for "400W (500W Peak) >94% DC-DC Efficiency". Which, unlike other PSUs, must be subtracted from the output of the AC-DC converter, as that can only output up to 400W total for the input power of the DC-ATX. So with both chained together you are indeed looking at a ~400*0.94=376W peak output to the PC. The only way for HDPlex to avoid this with their two-stage conversion would be to actually rate the AC-DC unit for ~425W output. I would frankly have expected them to do so, but ... apparently not. I guess it's not technically misleading, given that both products can indeed deliver their ratings, they just can't quite do so when paired together. Which, being the most obvious implementation, is a bit dodgy.

In your use case things like motherboard and RAM power draw, as well as CPU VRM losses probably also counted for something. Motherboards and RAM don't consume much power - 15-25W is a reasonable estimate for a modern ITX board with two sticks of RAM at normal voltages - but CPU VRM losses can amount to a decent bit with a boost-heavy Intel CPU. CPU VRMs have ~94-95% efficiency at the high end, so for a ~160W draw registered in software (which might very well be higher in real life, at least for a short spike) that's ~another ~10W of power drawn from the PSU. And at this range, every little bit counts, of course. Taking that into account, that places you very close to 400W total power draw if the 3060 Ti is running between its measured 214W (average) and 224W (peak) power draw in-game, and definitely above the ~376W the HDPlex DC-ATX can output with a 400W max input.
 

Robotanv

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Dec 11, 2020
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That's fascinating! Like with most things in life, the reality is much more complex than one assumes! I have to confess I'm a bit of a jack of all trades - I know a bit about various topics - enough to get by most of the time - so this is a really helpful insight into the power mechanics. Folks have also suggested that my setup is overkill for my intended use which is 1080p gaming so I think I will actually look at trying to significantly reduce power use while maintaining 1080p at 60fps. I really don't think I need more than that to be happy. This project was always more about making something functional enough but with some beauty!
 
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akisu

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jan 15, 2019
103
53
I am wondering if you have such a high power drain from the CPU how much noise the cooler makes and how hot the CPU gets?

I am running just a Ryzen 2600 and already had some work to do to stay below 70 degree with a noise level that you don't hear from the couch.
On the other hand it's kind of easy to cool down the GPU. I am running my 1070 TI with 4 fans and even with OC and it's very quite and cool. Btw my setup (1070 TI + Ryzen 2600) end up at 250 Watt when gaming.
 

REVOCCASES

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REVOCCASES
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Apr 2, 2020
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No problem, it's not an immediately obvious thing (especially with efficiency being presented as a percentage value), the only reason I know this at all is from having it repeated in a bunch of PSU reviews I've read (and seeing them test at 100% of the rated power). It is indeed a bit odd that if OCP was triggered given the 400W rating, but there are many possible culprits - there could be voltage droop under high transient loads, an overly sensitive OCP setting, tiny transient loads that significantly exceed what is registered by software, or many other factors causing crashes. Recent Intel CPUs can consume a lot of power during short-term boost, and GPU Boost 4.0 can also produce rather spiky power loads.

Also, I don't quite know if HDPlex accounts for conversion losses in the DC-ATX unit in their 400W rating - they are two separate units after all. 12V DC-DC PSU solutions (PicoPSU, J-Hack, G-Unique) sidestep this through producing 12V directly in the AC-DC unit, but HDPlex and their 19V setups need further conversion to 12V, so there's an inherent extra layer of conversion losses there, unlike pretty much all other PSU setups.

Actually, looking over the specs, this is likely the issue - and in a fun turn of events, this is perhaps the only PSU setup where your way of calculating things is actually correct! A great facepalm moment for me, at that :p The HDPlex 400W AC-DC is rated for 19V 21A (=399W), at 94% efficiency (so ~25W heat load in addition to the 399W output), but that's just a plain 19V output. In addition to that the HDPlex 400W DC-ATX is itself rated for "400W (500W Peak) >94% DC-DC Efficiency". Which, unlike other PSUs, must be subtracted from the output of the AC-DC converter, as that can only output up to 400W total for the input power of the DC-ATX. So with both chained together you are indeed looking at a ~400*0.94=376W peak output to the PC. The only way for HDPlex to avoid this with their two-stage conversion would be to actually rate the AC-DC unit for ~425W output. I would frankly have expected them to do so, but ... apparently not. I guess it's not technically misleading, given that both products can indeed deliver their ratings, they just can't quite do so when paired together. Which, being the most obvious implementation, is a bit dodgy.

In your use case things like motherboard and RAM power draw, as well as CPU VRM losses probably also counted for something. Motherboards and RAM don't consume much power - 15-25W is a reasonable estimate for a modern ITX board with two sticks of RAM at normal voltages - but CPU VRM losses can amount to a decent bit with a boost-heavy Intel CPU. CPU VRMs have ~94-95% efficiency at the high end, so for a ~160W draw registered in software (which might very well be higher in real life, at least for a short spike) that's ~another ~10W of power drawn from the PSU. And at this range, every little bit counts, of course. Taking that into account, that places you very close to 400W total power draw if the 3060 Ti is running between its measured 214W (average) and 224W (peak) power draw in-game, and definitely above the ~376W the HDPlex DC-ATX can output with a 400W max input.

Good explanation.

Indeed you have to take the DC-DC efficiency into account. For the DC-DC ATX unit to output 400W you need at least 425W @ 19VDC of input delivered from the AC-DC unit (given their ratings are valid at full load).

Besides, don't forget about the temperature (thermal de-rating) of the AC-DC unit when putting it inside the case, just besides the GPU. Same like all PSUs the 400W rating is only valid if the PSU can be kept cool enough. Running it at the limit and having the additional heat source from the GPU could also cause the issues you have seen.

By the way, awesome build!
 

Robotanv

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Dec 11, 2020
12
26
I am wondering if you have such a high power drain from the CPU how much noise the cooler makes and how hot the CPU gets?

I am running just a Ryzen 2600 and already had some work to do to stay below 70 degree with a noise level that you don't hear from the couch.
On the other hand it's kind of easy to cool down the GPU. I am running my 1070 TI with 4 fans and even with OC and it's very quite and cool. Btw my setup (1070 TI + Ryzen 2600) end up at 250 Watt when gaming.

I'm not getting much noise from the CPU fan at all. I did undervolt the CPU by 90mV to get the power usage down so assumed that coupled with the noctua fan worked well.

The GPU fans are noisier though which is why I'm thinking about reducing the power usage to get the fan noise and temps down.
 

Robotanv

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Dec 11, 2020
12
26
Good explanation.

Indeed you have to take the DC-DC efficiency into account. For the DC-DC ATX unit to output 400W you need at least 425W @ 19VDC of input delivered from the AC-DC unit (given their ratings are valid at full load).

Besides, don't forget about the temperature (thermal de-rating) of the AC-DC unit when putting it inside the case, just besides the GPU. Same like all PSUs the 400W rating is only valid if the PSU can be kept cool enough. Running it at the limit and having the additional heat source from the GPU could also cause the issues you have seen.

By the way, awesome build!

Great info! It's so nice to get this detailed feedback. It's given me plenty to think about and read up on. Thanks!
 
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akisu

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jan 15, 2019
103
53
I'm not getting much noise from the CPU fan at all. I did undervolt the CPU by 90mV to get the power usage down so assumed that coupled with the noctua fan worked well.

The GPU fans are noisier though which is why I'm thinking about reducing the power usage to get the fan noise and temps down.
Funny so it's exactly the opposite in your case. You can try to install one (2 will not be possible because of your power connector) fan on the backside of the GPU.
 
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Robotanv

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Dec 11, 2020
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Funny so it's exactly the opposite in your case. You can try to install one (2 will not be possible because of your power connector) fan on the backside of the GPU.
I may just do that. I'll probably paint it white just like the CPU fan and place it in line with that to maintain the aesthetics.