Custom gaming rigs and the 7950gx2

[Engels]

Well, I finally got the rig I talked about in the physics card thread built. The case I'm using is a Antec p-180b, which I think makes a good case for accomondating the 7950. Here's an exterior image:



I got an antec trio 650 watt powersupply because I knew that on top of the heavy load on the vid card (250 watts under load) I was going to want to use as many fans as possible to keep the thing cool. Browse the following images to get a sense of what I'm talking about:





You'll notice that I have a 12 cm fan blowing directly on the monster of a card. What you can't see is that behind that fan is yet another 12cm fan against the front panel middle vent. Both of these fans are pulling air into the case. These two fans at the top rear are drawing air out:




Despite all this insane fan action, the card runs pretty hot at around 65 C under load, even with an internal ambient temperature of about 38 C.

I'm still wondering if there are any other more optimal solutions to cooling without reverting to water cooling mechanisms, of which I have an innate distrust. I have yet to put in the 4 SATA in raid 0 formation, simply because that'll cause even more heat issues, and I want to see if there are other ways to bring the temp down before I do that to the poor overburdened case.

[Trippy]

Omigod...need...some...cable management... :-D

You might want to search the Web to see if 65 C is actually on the high side or not. My 7800 GT idles at 50 C (though I have my Zalman GPU fan intentional undervolted) and the default core threshold slowdown is set at 115 C (!).

If the temperature bothers you some things you can try are:

Clear the cables from the fan blowing directly onto the card.

Open up some of the slot covers around the video card.

Reverse all of the front fans so that they are pulling air out of the case and open up the slot covers around the video card and reverse the rear fan so it is pushing air into the case.

Install one or more slot coolers like one of these.

[Engels]

Ya, there's a mess of cables, but it looks worse than it is. I was in the process of removing the aftermarket Asus cpu fan I bought (MarsX is the model name) and putting back the factory default one when I took those pictures, so the cabling is all over the place. When its closed up, the fan on the GPU is unobstructed.

I was toying with the idea of having cool air blowin in from top and back, and have it funneled out, but I think I want cool air being blown directly on the GPU rather than on the motherboard/cpu area, simply because the card gets the hottest of all three. If you can persuade me by logic that it works otherwise, I'll gladly futz about with it some more.

Please note that not all aftermarket fans are great. This Asus cpu fan absolutely blew chunks. First of all, the fan is under volted and doesn't go over 2k rpm, which is nuts. Secondly, after closer inspection, I found that the cooling fins on it are not soldered to the plate well, in essense, making heat transference shoddy at best. I went right back to the regular AMD cooling fins and fan, which RPMs at 1.4k to 3k, lower if you're using cool n quiet, and that seems to be doing great.

Finally, there's a 5th fan I didn't mention, probably out of embarassment, that lies right next to the powersupply on the bottom. The default positioning is to have it blowing air over the PSU and sucking air from the hard drives. I bet you see the problem right there, especially since the PSU has its own fan blowing its heat out in the first place.

I reversed the fan, and Nvidia Control Panel states the GPU is now at 52 C at idle, which is good enough for me. I'll report back when I use this new configuration under load.

[Miasma]

And the decibel level is...? 

[Trippy]

And the decibel level is...? 

120 mm fans are pretty quiet as long as they aren't spinning very fast.

[Engels]

Most are dead quiet. The one on the back has a regulation dial, so at 1.7k rpm its pretty quiet, but at 2.3k its annoying. I keep it at 1.8 or so, which is liveable.

[sinij]

First, your cables are mess. If you are at all concerned with air flow in your system tidy them up.

Second, how odd. I just finished putting my rig together and testing network now. It works. First post from my new computer.

[sinij]

Ok all seems to be working, I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow I will have to overclock my system, hopefuly I will get another 10-15%.

[Lt.Dan]

Noobler question:  What's the best way to tidy up cables inside (and outside for that matter) the case?

[Strazos]

Well, his PSU is on the Bottom of the case - something I've never seen before, so the wiring would be slightly different. But anyway...

What are the black ribbons? IDE?

At least in those pics, there doesn't appear to be much that can be down about the wiring. Maybe thread some of the stuff back behind the mobo tray (if that case has one)? When I use to have unused power lines in my system, that's where I tossed them.

But really, there's not a whole lot to be done with PC wiring - you're inevitably going to have cables and wires running all over the place - wires running from the mobo to the optical drives, and stuff running from the PSU to...everything.

I think it would be interesting to see a mobo designed with power plug banks or something on the outlying edges, so at least some of the stuff wouldn't have to snake a wire clear across the case for a power connection, though it might require the mobo itself to be thicker to handle the added juice, and who knows what other problems that could introduce.

[NiX]

The one thing you can do is buy mesh wrapped wiring. Power cables and IDE cables come in the wrap. They make it look clean and often nice looking. The other option is to hunt down "origami" IDE wiring. It's not commonly used, but it sure does tidy stuff up.

[Engels]

If by origami IDE cables you mean the stuff that's tube wrapped instead of a flat ribbon, I'm actually using one in that case. The reason those pictures look so cable-busy is because it is supporting a -lot- of devices. Let me give a quick run down

one IDE cable for DVD rom
one IDE cable for Floppy drive
one IDE cable for one IDE Hard drive
one Sata cable for one Sata drive
one sata power cable
three IDE molex cables
    one for the DVD rom, one of the fans
    one for IDE hard drive, floppy drive and one of the 12 cm fans
    one for the motherboard connection and one of the 12 cm fans
various separate smaller wiring bundles for motherboard connectors, including psu monitor, switches, usb hub connector, cpu fan and two 12 cm fans
Edit: forgot two more. The two power cables to the motherboard and the power cable to the video card.

Here's the main issue for some much 'extra' wireing; since the PSU is at the bottom of the box, the cable lengths are longer. Additionally, the IDE drive is at the bottom of the case, and the dvd rom is at the top, so I need to use two independed IDE cables. There are a few cables I think I could run under the motherboard, but I'd worry about heat melting plastic with proximity to the board itself. The board is itself designed to act as a heat spreader.

[Trippy]

Noobler question:  What's the best way to tidy up cables inside (and outside for that matter) the case?

The best way for the inside is the master the art of "cablegami" as practiced by people like Ralf Hutter from Silent PC Review.

But really, there's not a whole lot to be done with PC wiring - you're inevitably going to have cables and wires running all over the place - wires running from the mobo to the optical drives, and stuff running from the PSU to...everything.

No.

[Engels]

Well, I'll take up the challenge next weekend when I have two more SATA drives to do a 4 drive raid configuration. Unplug everything, and start from scratch, see how much better I do, but more as a fun exercise than anything else. The case is closed, no window, and as long as airflow is not obstructed, I'm not going to go all Mr. Monk on the issue.

To be honest, there are limited resources here without going out and recabling some fans, and buying extra lengths for molex cables, which I can't be bothered with. Fans obstructed by a mass of cables is one thing. Thin cables criss crossing the board ain't going to improve ventilation much.

[Lt.Dan]

Noobler question:  What's the best way to tidy up cables inside (and outside for that matter) the case?

The best way for the inside is the master the art of "cablegami" as practiced by people like Ralf Hutter from Silent PC Review.

Great googa-mooga, where'd all the cables go?  Something to aspire to I guess.  Is he recabling by cutting/buying to fit?

[Trippy]

Xerapis's problem with slow boot times has been split off to here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8084.0

[Yegolev]

I have not looked at cooling in a while (standard disclaimer) but as far as I know you just have air, water or heatpipe cooling.  I don't really consider Peltier units a solution, but maybe there has been some advances in the tech recently.  Heatpipes could be used with water, I guess.  I had a hard time finding a vendor that just sold the heatpipes (harebrained scheme to build my own unit), and the risks with a do-it-yourself water solution were a bit too much for me (and the off-the-shelf ones stank), so I kept using standard HSF.  I keep the case open, but of course that means noise.  My 80mm CPU fan has a long white beard on it.

I have entertained the idea of ducting chilled air into the case, but $$$ and space cost are high.

I'll know more in 2007, when I start looking at building a new rig.  I think I might be done with my case (gasp) as well; I like the look of yours, and my other option is to cut metal on my current one.

[Engels]

In retrospect, I am not sure I would recommend my case, even to myself. It has great cooling solutions, since it can fit 5 12cm fans, and its well insulated for sound, but its hard drive space is somewhat limited. It has two 'shelves' for hard drives, the one at the very bottom, which I'm using, can fit 4 drives, and then one in the middle which can also fit 4 -instead- of another 12 cm fan. Since I wanted to have a 12 cm fan blowing directly on the graphics cards, I am left with space for only 4 drives. This is great if you don't give a fig about raid, but my inner nerd rebels.

There may be some mods available to mount single drives into the 4 CD ROM bays, which will work for me, but that's just extra hassle. The bays are set up to be swappable pull out bays rather than bolted ones.

[Sky]

I was checking that case out and noticed a few irregularities like that. Still looks like a sweet case. I'm torn between refitting my Coolermaster Wavemaster, in all it's brushed aluminum goodness or moving on to a newer design.

Apple taught me cablegami like tucking IDE ribbons behind the mobo plate.



You can see mine in the corner here, at least it's LED:

[Strazos]

You just wanted to show your monitor again.

I should take a picture of the inside of my case when I get a working system again. It's a mess.

[Yegolev]

In retrospect, I am not sure I would recommend my case, even to myself.

I am mostly interested in easy access to weird things, like the back of the mobo so I don't have to unbolt the bitch to swap the HSF.  Plus I only have three 3.5" bays now, which could be a problem later.  They are difficult to access, and yours looks like it has a removable bay.  I might skip the extra 12mm, if it was me, and put some sort of heatpipey-aftermarket cooler on the GPUs; looks like the stock ones are pretty basic.  Hard to see, though.

[Sky]

You just wanted to show your monitor again.

Bwahaha!

To make up for that blatant whoring I'll mention that newegg is selling the X800XT AIW's for $156! I'm very tempted to grab one before they're gone, as ATI is phasing out AIW altogether. $156 to get a decent gpu for the 6 months until I build the conroe system...hmm... That's a pretty good price for a 16 piper, even if I'll never use the dumb tuner :)

[Engels]

In retrospect, I am not sure I would recommend my case, even to myself.

I am mostly interested in easy access to weird things, like the back of the mobo so I don't have to unbolt the bitch to swap the HSF.  Plus I only have three 3.5" bays now, which could be a problem later.  They are difficult to access, and yours looks like it has a removable bay.  I might skip the extra 12mm, if it was me, and put some sort of heatpipey-aftermarket cooler on the GPUs; looks like the stock ones are pretty basic.  Hard to see, though.

The coolers on the Asus 9750 are pretty stock. Smallish fans with aluminum-looking spreaders. I don't think you can get an aftermarket dodad for it, however, or at least not for the bottom gpu. The top gpu might be possible, I've not looked at it too closely. Personally, I have had bad experiences with aftermarket GPU coolers; my 6800 ultra was water cooled, so I took the sink off of that and installed an air cooled one. It seemed to work fine, but one good day the whole card just blew while playing DDO.

I'm not sure what you mean by accessing the back of the mobo to swap out the HSF (heat sink fan?). I saw one case, by CoolMaster, I think that had a removable motherboard plate, which seemed like a nice gimmic. However, the design was otherwise inadequate for my tastes, since it used double 90mm fan at the back instead of one 12cm, which to me says 'more noise, more power suckage'.

If you're only going to be installing 3 hard drives of any sort, then this Antec case may be a good idea. It is especially nice to work on since the power supply segregation allows a lot more fiddling room.

[Yegolev]

My HSF bolts to the mobo, so I have to take out the mobo to reach the nuts.  It would be totally sweet to have a hole on the other side of the case, and I am planning on cutting one when Upgrade Day arrives.  If newer boards utilize some sort of clip, even the one that easily removes fingertips: glee!  I have not seen a detachable mobo plate that impressed me, but I admit that I haven't been looking too hard.  If the modern mobos do not require the bolts, then I'm not sure I care, actually.

I'm interested in obtaining the most enormous, cavernous case I can find.  Modularity is a plus.

[Miasma]

I'm interested in obtaining the most enormous, cavernous case I can find.  Modularity is a plus.

I almost bought one of these just because it was so big but I wound up buying the exact same case Sky has because it is so damn gorgeous.

[Engels]

This case is pretty huge. Just look at the original pictures, and you'll see my old box behind it, an Antec LanBoy. So this one fits your cavernous requirement. I'd also recomend looking at the Thermaltake Armor case, shown here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133155. This was my first choice, but I opted for the antec one simply because of the sliding drawers for the drives.

[Yegolev]

Both of those seem to be smaller than my current one.  But thanks for the tips.  I might have to construct my own from the bones of infidels.

[Engels]

Oh, and most modern motherboards these days do the clip-on heatsink cpu fan thingie. No more cross bolting nonsense. Didn't that go out with the P2?! What the heck are you running Yeg?!

[Yegolev]

A7N8X-E Deluxe

Yeah, I know.  Still performs well enough with the XP3000+, GF6800, and ... uh ... PC3200, if I recall.

[Engels]

Ok, ya, its all coming back to me. Even the first Asus 939 sockets required you to mount the fan bracket yourself. I think starting with the A8V http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131541 the motherboard came with the readymade clip on bracket.

[Trippy]

Oh, and most modern motherboards these days do the clip-on heatsink cpu fan thingie. No more cross bolting nonsense. Didn't that go out with the P2?! What the heck are you running Yeg?!

Pretty much all the top Socket 939/775 heatsinks (haven't worked with any AM2 ones yet) use some sort of back plane support because of their weight and/or size. This includes the Scythe Ninja and the Zalman CNPS9500.

[Yegolev]

I guess I should have mentioned that my sink is really fucking heavy.  If bolts are how the heavy-hitters are attached in modern times, then that's what I'll be doing.  I might stick with air-cooling like some sort of nancy, but I don't put just anything on there.