ケイ - Watercooled Enthoo Primo

Pretty certain that there is a few hundred more points in it as it was barely scraping over 1600MHz on the core and there's probably more left with the HBM clock. Might need to use a V64 bios to get more out of the HBM though.

I've left it folding all day today so that the small amount of air left in the loop can slowly bleed it's way out. Seems to be doing quite well too.

Put the two cards side by side yesterday and apart from the slight change to the terminal bridge design, they are very similar to look at once the waterblock is fitted.


All back together and running. It's a pretty decent gain over the GTX 780 but certainly a bit fiddly with the overclocking/undervolting.
 
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Been running for nearly a month now. All told, it's been quite a big improvement in some things and barely a change in others. I ended up sticking the V64 air bios onto the card which has allowed me to push the HBM all the way up to 1100MHz without issue and the core quite happily runs up to 1682MHz with a voltage of 1075mV.

I've also noticed that the watercooling system has been having trouble maintaining decent temperatures on the cpu if I hammer it hard. The CPU gets up to 87 degrees and the VRM up to 97. (Prime In place FFT, using FMA3 instructions) Under less strenuous usage it peaks around 70 degrees on both the CPU and VRM. It suggests that I have an airflow problem which is a bit baffling considering the 7 intake fans and 6 exhaust fans I'm running.
 
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Those Vega overclocks are fantastic. You should be at or above Vega 64 with that!

An airflow problem with a Primo? That's unusual. Could it be something else?
 
That clock on the vega 56 is good enough to beat most 64's and a majority of 1080's too for that matter.

I'm starting to think that the heat problem is caused by the fact that the case is in the corner of the room under the desk where it's quite tight on space at the top and back which is creating a hot spot.
 
Just re-seated the waterblock on the cpu and now after 25 mins of prime small FFT, it's peaked at 75 instead of 87. The paste I used first off had almost separated as there was an oily residue at the lowest point of the IHS. That was the Thermal grizzly supplied with the block. I've replaced that with EK ectotherm using the large blob in the centre of the Z method as gamers nexus suggest as being the best approach.
 
I was gonna suggest trying to reseat the CPU block and reapply TIM. I've heard some people have trouble with them.

Glad you got it sorted!
 
Rearranged the room so that the pc could come out from under the desk and benefit from greater airflow. Seems to have worked wonders as it runs about 5-10 degrees cooler again.


Only disadvantage is that I can no longer see any of the fancy bits as it butts up to the hifi rack. Will need a case that can flip to be an upside-down design in order to have the pretty bits face outwards in the other direction.


I am considering changing the tubing out for 1/2" flxible blue silicone hosing designed for cars along with some stainless steel norma clamps. It would solve the tube clouding and plasticizer leeching problems that clear hoses are prone to. Still making my mind up as to whether or not it would look good or weird. I'm still not willing to go down the rigid tubing route due to it's unforgiving nature regarding building, maintenance and future modification. Plus my ethylene glycol coolants don't play nice with PETG at all and not great with acrylic so I'd have to go glass.

I've still got to consider making up some new sleeved cables for the seasonic psu too.

In other news, the Vega 56 card improved quite in super position using the higher clock speeds.
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Why not acrylic? It's a bit harder to heat, but it just takes a bit more patience. I'm still using glycol-based additives as well, and if a moron like me can bend acrylic, you can too. :) It just takes a little more effort in the heating and deburring the ends, but well worth it IMO.
 
I find that acrylic looks quite nice for about 6-12 months than it starts to craze (micro cracks) and stain up. That's why I went with a glass reservoir and I only have black acetal blocks.
 
Ahh, interesting. I haven't seen that myself. The only time I've ever stained acrylic tube was due to using too much dye, but that was my fault in trying to find a nice deep translucent purple. :)
 
Gave the cable side a tidy up. Things are a lot less crowded since moving to a modular power supply. I miss my home braided cables, so will probably have to figure out how to make some new cables up for the PCI-E, EPS and ATX runs. I also finally figured out why the side was such a nightmare to reattach. Turns out the magnetic dust filters were sitting just in the area where the side panel contacts the edges of the case which pushed the side panel outwards making the screws a nightmare to get in place.
 
Replaced the one monitor with a bigger 27" smasung CHG70. The difference is astonishing, it's made the old 60Hz displays look like a slideshow and feel jerky as hell not to mention the lag.
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Also gave the case a quick dusting as it's been roughly 7 months since I put it all together. Needs a proper vacuuming by the looks of it.


Some more artsy ones.

 
6 months down the line and all is well. Threadripper & Vega working in perfect harmony. Added a replacement sound card a few weeks back as the on-board doesn't cut it in the ASIO department, so an RME HDSPe AIO went in which is much better working with audition and FL studio.

Not all that bad in the dust department either considering I've not dusted it since may. BMW nitrite free coolant still looking nice and teal. In the 6 years I've been watercooling, car coolant has always remained the same colour and kept everything 100% corrosion free. Still missing a blanking plate from the back, which I think may be in the server. I'm also still considering putting the GTX 780 back in along side the Vega to act as a cuda and physx card for applications that don't do opencl.

 
RME HDSPe AIO professional sound card added to make up for the loss of the xonar.


Decided to shove my old GTX 780 back in to use as a CUDA and physx accelerator along side my vega 56. Since I didn't fancy the pain of draining and refilling the loop, I stuck the old air cooler back on for now. I also discovered that I've managed to misplace the spare cables for the psu meaning I've had to power the 780 via the daisy chains which isn't ideal. Since it's only being used for basic tasks, the power draw is actually pretty low 99% of the time so it's not caused any problems.


I now have the following cards stuffed in there:
Vega 56
AJA Kona LSe
RME HDSPe AIO
GTX 780
 
Started stripping down everything this afternoon. Draining is quite easy provided you have the pc about 8-10" off the ground so the drain is downhill.


Picked up a few more fittings as the drain would be nice to have as a tap. Sadly the old fatboy barbs don't seem to be available anymore so XSPC black chrome was the next best thing. These should only be used on the drain for now anyway.


One well stuffed case. Some fluid always seems to like getting trapped between the radiator, cpu block and gpu block which always makes disassembly more interesting.


Old thermal paste contact patch. Covers the dies but not the whole IHS. You can see where the screws that are in the base of the block have no contact. It's most obvious in the lower left corner.


The sheer difference in size of the blocks is staggering. EK's first attempt at a sTR4 block was truly woeful.


The cold plate doesn't look quite so obvious but it's still quite a lot bigger. The weight difference is huge too, but that's down to the full plated copper build vs acetal top.
 
Checked the seals on the fittings that have been in use for the last 6 years. Look a bit squashed and feel slightly harder than the seals on the new fittings, so I've replaced them. I also replaced all of the PTFE tape.



Refitted the 780 block and fitted the new cpu block. Tubing routing is just about sorted, just need to persuade the tubing to go over the barbs now. The tap is put on the pipe from the top radiator to stop it from persistently dripping coolant as I work. I've shifted the AJA capture card back underneath the 780 as it needs the airflow from the radiator fans to remain reasonably cool.
 
All back together now. Ran the pump on an external supply all night, no leaks detected. EK filling squeezy filling bottle made filling significantly easier. Just filter the coolant into the bottle then squeeze it to fill the reservoir. So far in testing using prime 95 small FFT with FMA3 instructions, the highest I've seen is 71 degrees, compared to previously where it was peaking in the low 80's.


Also took apart the old block to see how it was fairing with debris and nickel plating. There was a small amount of plasticiser sitting in the jet plate which literally just washed away under the tap. No sign of any corrosion or plating loss.
 
As part of my network 10Gbe upgrade, two intel x710 NICs arrived today for the windows pc's.


The workstation is now completely filled with expansion cards.
 
New bits picked up over Black Friday.
1TB WD_Black SN750 M.2 DDS
3m EK ZMT black tubing for when I eventually drain the loop
MS pro intellimouse to replace my antique original intellimouse and WMO 1.1a


The new intellimouse vs my original intellimouse (pre explorer 3.0)


I also have a collection of Wheel mouse opticals in addition to the pair of intellimouse. I have been a steadfast fan of these ancient mice for over 15 years. Sadly the wheels on all of them are showing their age. The sensor behaviour definitely feels quite different and obviously I'm very used to an ambidextrous design but it does feel quite good in the hand. Time will tell if it's as good as my oldies


I couldn't believe how cheap 1TB M.2 SSD's have gotten. I paid a bit more for the 256GB Samsung SM961 I use for the OS barely 2 years ago and a lot more for the 512GB samsung 850 pro sata ssd. Ironically, I now have the same amount of storage space in my desktop as I do in my server. (2TB of SSDs and 11TB of HDDs vs 12TB of HDDs)
 
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