High temps, not enough rads / wrong case?

[Bacon?]

Hey all

End of last summer I got round to building my first watercooled system with a custom hardline loop. Specs are as follows:

Ryzen 2700X @ 4Ghz 1.45V
Nvidia 980Ti (left at stock)
Fractal Define C (non mesh)
1x 280 & 1x240 radiators

I switched to water because I wanted to dabble in some higher overclocking but predominantly because I wanted to make the system as silent as possible since it sits within 2 feet of where I game / work. For that reason I chose the Define C over a water cooling optimised case.

However even with everything running pretty much at stock I think the temps are pretty high. I should note the 280mm is at the front, and the 240 on the roof both in a push only config and the 240 only has a single 120mm fan as the second one cant fit due to space.

I've uploaded a pic in the spoiler below

Spoiler

The kinda temps I see during regular gaming use are along the lines of water temp mid system @45 degrees, CPU@ 64+ degrees, and GPU maxes out around 50 degrees.

I'm thinking those are some pretty high temps given the lack of a proper overclock in the system. Do you think it's due to not enough radiators and a different case would be better or something else I'm missing.

Cheers guys

 

[malfunkshun]

I'd say the temps are pretty much as expected, especially with that vcore on the processor (which I wouldn't want to run at long term).

 

[LuckyBenski]

I would suggest that's about right. You have one fan removed which will lose most of the benefit of that radiator section, probably 20% of the overall cooling capacity.

I have 360mm+120mm capacity with an i5-4690k and GTX 1070. So with your 980 Ti is probably 100W more heat than my setup. I get GPU temps about 53° at stock clocks and CPU around 60-65 depending on overall load, heat soak etc. To be fair it doesnt stay there long, so water temp is probably around 45-50.

This is a pretty quiet setup though - I can turn the fans up but temperatures only drop a few degrees for considerably more noise.

Water cooling is good but not magic unfortunately, as I learned!

 

[Bacon?]

I'd say the temps are pretty much as expected, especially with that vcore on the processor (which I wouldn't want to run at long term).

I've had to fiddle with my bios settings cause it would go higher than that, so it's restricted and boosts up that much. It'll boost to about 4.2ghz at 4.4v otherwise it sits at 1.37v at 3.9ghz. I can try and fiddle it again but it's not going to get much lower without dropping the clock speed. Leaving it to full auto settings makes the v-core bump real high at max boost.

I would suggest that's about right. You have one fan removed which will lose most of the benefit of that radiator section, probably 20% of the overall cooling capacity.

I have 360mm+120mm capacity with an i5-4690k and GTX 1070. So with your 980 Ti is probably 100W more heat than my setup. I get GPU temps about 53° at stock clocks and CPU around 60-65 depending on overall load, heat soak etc. To be fair it doesnt stay there long, so water temp is probably around 45-50.

This is a pretty quiet setup though - I can turn the fans up but temperatures only drop a few degrees for considerably more noise.

Water cooling is good but not magic unfortunately, as I learned!

What setup (ie case, rads and overclock) do you run? Cause I figured mine was unusually high and I could get it drop to pretty good with a larger case and more rads. I have the system setup with an Aqaeuro device to shut down if the water temps exceed 50 degrees and at 45 degrees the fans are running at 100%, so its petty loud (though still quieter than the gpu on air)

 

[flea.rider]

even throwing a 360 in there your only going to get 5-10 deg lower. the temps are fine for the size of the system .
as has been said the missing fan and the res position will be losing you a bit of cooling .. you could always cut a hole next to the psu and put you pump or res in there

 

[LuckyBenski]

I've had to fiddle with my bios settings cause it would go higher than that, so it's restricted and boosts up that much. It'll boost to about 4.2ghz at 4.4v otherwise it sits at 1.37v at 3.9ghz. I can try and fiddle it again but it's not going to get much lower without dropping the clock speed. Leaving it to full auto settings makes the v-core bump real high at max boost.



What setup (ie case, rads and overclock) do you run? Cause I figured mine was unusually high and I could get it drop to pretty good with a larger case and more rads. I have the system setup with an Aqaeuro device to shut down if the water temps exceed 50 degrees and at 45 degrees the fans are running at 100%, so its petty loud (though still quieter than the gpu on air)

bequiet Pure Base 600 - Full ATX but fairly compact.

360mm x 45mm radiator as front intake, 120mm x 30mm radiator as rear exhaust.

Top of case is sealed so all airflow is front to back. Fans are all Corsair SP120, known for being loud. I run them at 5V using the case fan controller, then motherboard PWM ramps them from 400RPM to about 1000RPM. Airflow is a bit limited, if I take the front bay covers off I drop 1-2°.

Graphics card is boosting to 1974-2012MHz typically, CPU is at 4.2GHz. So, mild overclocks but nothing serious.

 

[Bacon?]

even throwing a 360 in there your only going to get 5-10 deg lower. the temps are fine for the size of the system .
as has been said the missing fan and the res position will be losing you a bit of cooling .. you could always cut a hole next to the psu and put you pump or res in there

It's a very small case (on purpose I move somewhat frequently and can't always fit a large case in) as you can see in the photos and the setup I have is the maximum size possible.

Dropping 10 degrees at load would be massive cause I could run the fans a lot slower than currently (maxes out ATM at 1400rpm). That's why I'm wondering if I swapped to a case like the 0-11 with triple rads would I see an improvement or are the temps I'm seeing fairly universal anyways.

 

[flea.rider]

It's a very small case (on purpose I move somewhat frequently and can't always fit a large case in) as you can see in the photos and the setup I have is the maximum size possible.

Dropping 10 degrees at load would be massive cause I could run the fans a lot slower than currently (maxes out ATM at 1400rpm). That's why I'm wondering if I swapped to a case like the 0-11 with triple rads would I see an improvement or are the temps I'm seeing fairly universal anyways.

you would prob see a 5 deg drop rearranging pump and res for airflow
this would allow you to turn your top rad around and fit a fan to back of the case

 

[Bacon?]

Unfortunately that's not possible, that photo is the best one I had to hand but the final setup is a bit different cause I had the input and output the wrong ways round on the pump and I have other bits taking up space below the graphics card. I'm just wondering if it's worth switching case for more rads that'd lead to a temp / noise reduction

 

[momo56]

What fans are you using ?

 

[Bacon?]

Don't remember off the top of my head but I think the 2x 140s are noctuas

 

[wookiee87]

tbh as other have said the cpu seems to be in line under watercooling, dont forget 2nd gen ryzen was a hot beast even at stock speeds, you have got quite a high vcore in all honesty, long term thats going to cause damage internally, gpu on the other hand seems to be about right too keeping it under 50 degrees under load is pretty good, it will all come down to fans and what rpm's they hit when the pc is under load.

it all good going watercooling but if you have no fan curves set then the system will get overhelmed quickly heat wise, if you have no custom fan curves set head into the bios and tune in your fans, set them to run slow at idle and ramp up to deal with the extra heat

 

[Bacon?]

I'll have a fiddle with the bios tonight, see if I can fiddle with the voltage some more as I didn't think that 1.4v was that high to be honest. And I have a fan curve set with my Aqauero device based on inline water temperature

 

[Drumroll]

Temps are fine. Few things could help, as adding fans outside the case (top, wouldn't look nice).
Air intake from front isn't ideal, as the air just gets in from side vents, but not as bad as the ones where just allows from bottom and top (Phanteks P400S).
Push/Pull would allow the maximum performance from your radiators at slower rpm, but not sure if possible at the front rad.
The voltage for the CPU seems a bit high.
Mine here, Ryzen 3600 + RTX 2080, 280mm and 420mm rad, CPU under gaming, about mid 50's, GPU low 40's.
Under stress, CPU can go to high 60's and GPU stays at mid 40's.
But CPU is stock voltage.

 

[Bacon?]

Fiddled with the BIOS again, looks like the settings got reset actually as the clock speed and voltage was set to auto with pbo enabled.

Dropped the voltage down to 1.35v and all core speed to 4.3, will have a further fiddle later to see if I can get it to single core boost higher but the temperature now has dropped from around 68 degrees to 52 during gaming so that's a nice drop.

 

[WantoN]

Depending on your fan curves I'm not really surprised by the temps.

I've got the Meshify C and imo the front mesh makes a difference. Spec in Sig, vcore at default, GPU on max power allowance. Front 360, Top 240.

My fan curves are set for silence, I can barely hear it at full load. I get about 50C on the cpu and 50c on the GPU.

If you want to improve temps I'd look at fan curves, drop the vcore, tweak pump speeds and see if you can get the mesh front. I know just how tight space is in the case, but a second fan on the top rad would really help too.

My fan curves are dependant on water temperature, and my pump remains on about 20% speed unless water temp spikes. It's a much more reliable metric than chip temperatures, and means the fans move dependant on the load of the cooling system rather than individual components.

Are you monitoring water temps? If so what are they?