The White Elephant

[kaney]

Hi Folks,

Just thought I would give you all bit of an update as this last weekend I had a push on 'The White Elephant' build. I am now just starting to get to grips with this rig a bit more, always learning, the Bios especially but all good!, as they say 'everyday is a school day' and I am loving it to the point that yeah I am definitely planning a bit more of a dedicated gaming rig soon and keep this as my workstation.

This build was an out in the wilderness for years type affair to return with a completely different world full of technology, which has been a great learning experience for me.

Now almost complete so thoughts turn to tinkering with my bios settings, I have researched setups, what does what, why, but just trying to get the most efficient setup with regards to overclocking the CPU with everything else running efficiently to a reliable level but I have been perplexed into how to get this just right and finding any sweet spot at all has been a bit of a challenge for me.

I know they say every chip is different but my system has been idling around 35-40+ which is too hot for my liking and overheating when I have ran stress tests with an H100 installed set to the max for cooling, I have blue screened the rig out at 90ºC ??

I have eventually discoved that the H100 was leaking?, slightly at first but then monitored this overnight to a pool of water in the bottom of my case the next morning, nothing was damaged just a few damp cables. Maybe the H100 was never working correctly from the start? I am hoping that this is the case and this would have affected the performance of the cooling and would be why everything was running so hot.

Anyhow the show must go on so I have just installed a PHANTEKS PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler in place of the H100 and all seems good in the world again, the temps have come right down on load and on idle.

I did research that the Phanteks is a good CPU Cooler but I didn't research that as I am running Dominator 'Shinnies' these were not low profile enough to avoid the cooler, I have had to turn the cooler 90º so that it is positioned with the fans expelling the air upwards and out through the top of the case, If I was not able to do this I don't think that I would be able to use any of the RAM slots as the Phanteks is a beast of a cooler, so be careful out there when purchasing these types of coolers and tall RAM.

When the H100 returns from an RMA I will most likely put this back in as for me It does make the case look tidier, I hope to see good temps throughout this time and of course that also gives me the option to add more 'Shinnies' if I wish too or at least put them in the proper priority dim slots.

Still a bit more cable tidying to do as I have looked at these pics and I know I could to a better job on the cabling.

I have taken a few pics to share and as always please give me your feedback and tell me your valued thoughts.


KANEY

 

[andrevautour]

Hi Folks,

Just thought I would give you all bit of an update as this last weekend I had a push on 'The White Elephant' build. I am now just starting to get to grips with this rig a bit more, always learning, the Bios especially but all good!, as they say 'everyday is a school day' and I am loving it to the point that yeah I am definitely planning a bit more of a dedicated gaming rig soon and keep this as my workstation.

This build was an out in the wilderness for years type affair to return with a completely different world full of technology, which has been a great learning experience for me.

Now almost complete so thoughts turn to tinkering with my bios settings, I have researched setups, what does what, why, but just trying to get the most efficient setup with regards to overclocking the CPU with everything else running efficiently to a reliable level but I have been perplexed into how to get this just right and finding any sweet spot at all has been a bit of a challenge for me.

I know they say every chip is different but my system has been idling around 35-40+ which is too hot for my liking and overheating when I have ran stress tests with an H100 installed set to the max for cooling, I have blue screened the rig out at 90ºC ??

I have eventually discoved that the H100 was leaking?, slightly at first but then monitored this overnight to a pool of water in the bottom of my case the next morning, nothing was damaged just a few damp cables. Maybe the H100 was never working correctly from the start? I am hoping that this is the case and this would have affected the performance of the cooling and would be why everything was running so hot.

Anyhow the show must go on so I have just installed a PHANTEKS PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler in place of the H100 and all seems good in the world again, the temps have come right down on load and on idle.

I did research that the Phanteks is a good CPU Cooler but I didn't research that as I am running Dominator 'Shinnies' these were not low profile enough to avoid the cooler, I have had to turn the cooler 90º so that it is positioned with the fans expelling the air upwards and out through the top of the case, If I was not able to do this I don't think that I would be able to use any of the RAM slots as the Phanteks is a beast of a cooler, so be careful out there when purchasing these types of coolers and tall RAM.

When the H100 returns from an RMA I will most likely put this back in as for me It does make the case look tidier, I hope to see good temps throughout this time and of course that also gives me the option to add more 'Shinnies' if I wish too or at least put them in the proper priority dim slots.

Still a bit more cable tidying to do as I have looked at these pics and I know I could to a better job on the cabling.

I have taken a few pics to share and as always please give me your feedback and tell me your valued thoughts.


KANEY

hey,
i guess i understand why the h100 is popular--because it cools fairly well, is low profile so you can still get a good view of the motherboard, and is much less expensive then doing a whole custom water cooled loop. but personally i have always disliked them. i have had a few different models and they all make a pump noise that is unacceptable in my opinion, and the fans that come with it are ridiculously loud. the temperatures are pretty close to something like an noctua nh-d14, but the d14 is almost silent by comparison, so i much prefer it. but i understand that low profile memory is required to run a good air cooler and some people like the big stuff (luckily i also prefer low profile subtle looking memory)

your story of a H100 leaking is something I haven't heard of before, but it certainly is something I have thought of--and what a horror in a case with that type of hardware to have something leaking like that! Im glad nothing major was damaged, as it could have been much worse.

as far as idle temps 40 is normal for a fully functional h100 or top end air cooler, and it's not hot for that chip. the only way you will get a lower idle temperature is with a fully custom water cooled loop. as soon as you start running prime or rendering you will certainly see higher temperatures, but 90 is much much too high for sure.

With the clock speed at stock (so 3.8ghz turbo) and a brand new h100 these are the temps our 3930k gets after an hour of prime (see the max column it ranges from about 58c to 68c across the cores) and that is totally fine.

i suspect with a fully functional h100 your temps will be the same and if you're worried about heat and the longevity of the chip then just leave it at stock clock speed and it should last for years like that.

 

[B3rni3]

What speed is your fans at on that H100 on the 3930k at stock speeds?

Because my H100 with a 3930k @4.6ghz temps are around 66C average and max 71C. That is with the fans set to medium speed. Thats running ibt for 4 hours.

 

[andrevautour]

What speed is your fans at on that H100 on the 3930k at stock speeds?

Because my H100 with a 3930k @4.6ghz temps are around 66C average and max 71C. That is with the fans set to medium speed. Thats running ibt for 4 hours.

i dont remember ill have to double check now but as long as the voltage isnt much higher than stock volts oc temps often are quite low and quite similar to stock temps. i found our 3930k easily got to 5ghz on 1.4v and i think its fine at 1.3v for 4.6ghz. the fans on the h100 are nf f12s .. i will go back and run prime and run an oc and run prime and check temps again

 

[B3rni3]

i dont remember ill have to double check now but as long as the voltage isnt much higher than stock volts oc temps often are quite low and quite similar to stock temps. i found our 3930k easily got to 5ghz on 1.4v and i think its fine at 1.3v for 4.6ghz. the fans on the h100 are nf f12s .. i will go back and run prime and run an oc and run prime and check temps again

I was just wondering to compare to my results. I am running 1.3 something volts cant quite remember the exact figures. I had mine at 5ghz too at 1.4 volts too wasnt stable for ibt or prime but was stable enough to get a cpuz validation.

I may try and get it stable at some point when I get bored and try some benchmarks but I didn't want to be putting more than 1.4 volts into a brand new chip.

 

[kaney]

aaaah Andrevautour hi dude,

thanks for the reassuring advice as always, I wasn't sure too sure where the temps would go for 3930k but yeah I was a little worried it was burning a bit to warm for my liking.

Was looking through some the project build on here and yeah some fully water cooled rigs did catch my but not ready for that just yet.

I will stick with this for now, did really consider the Noctua but went the PHANTEKS PH-TC14PE instead pretty similar but came down to aesthetics in the end but has definitely made a difference with the cooling it is much much better. do you think the Noctua would have done a better a job, but then both kits at this level should perform similar i would have thought ? a preference thing perhaps!?

I have overclocked to 4.6mhz @ 1.4V but I have rolled this back now to 4ghz.

BTW I got Cinebench going and managed 12.6pts on the CPU render, and 10060pts on 3D Mark 11, could maybe pinch a bit more !?!? everything runs very nice for now, considering another GTX670 sli :wacko:

Thanks also for the temp guide it is good to know that everything is kind of where it should be for my current setup.

Question, if you were to just use CPU fan cooling in this setup would you go for the Noctua D14 as your cooler of choice, that does seem to be very popular !?


Regards KANEY.

 

[B3rni3]

aaaah Andrevautour hi dude,

thanks for the reassuring advice as always, I wasn't sure too sure where the temps would go for 3930k but yeah I was a little worried it was burning a bit to warm for my liking.

Was looking through some the project build on here and yeah some fully water cooled rigs did catch my but not ready for that just yet.

I will stick with this for now, did really consider the Noctua but went the PHANTEKS PH-TC14PE instead pretty similar but came down to aesthetics in the end but has definitely made a difference with the cooling it is much much better. do you think the Noctua would have done a better a job, but then both kits at this level should perform similar i would have thought ? a preference thing perhaps!?

I have overclocked to 4.6mhz @ 1.4V but I have rolled this back now to 4ghz.

BTW I got Cinebench going and managed 12.6pts on the CPU render, and 10060pts on 3D Mark 11, could maybe pinch a bit more !?!? everything runs very nice for now, considering another GTX670 sli :wacko:

Thanks also for the temp guide it is good to know that everything is kind of where it should be for my current setup.

Question, if you were to just use CPU fan cooling in this setup would you go for the Noctua D14 as your cooler of choice, that does seem to be very popular !?


Regards KANEY.

You could probably drop that voltage a little for 4.6ghz. I think mine is around 1.3.. volts I think it is around 1.336 volts and is stable.

Also what speed was that cinebench test at?

 

[andrevautour]

What speed is your fans at on that H100 on the 3930k at stock speeds?

Because my H100 with a 3930k @4.6ghz temps are around 66C average and max 71C. That is with the fans set to medium speed. Thats running ibt for 4 hours.

hey sorry guys that was an old screenshot i just check and those are temps with the core a 4.6ghz after 1 hour of prime

it's running prime at stock now and the temps are around 53c average

 

[kaney]

Hi B3rni3,

I hear you, again new chip and was not too comfortable ragging it to almost an inch of its life so knocked it back a bit may even lower the Volts at the mo 4ghz @ 1.4V.

Now I am not sure of the fan speeds either the H100 is now out for the system but will make a possible return, at least now I have better information on how it should be performing but it wasn't right, everything was way too hot !

I did replace the stock fans with with Corsair SP120 Quiet Series High Pressure Low Noise exhausting out the top of 600t.

Maybe I stick with my current setup, its seems to be working pretty good !!

 

[andrevautour]

You could probably drop that voltage a little for 4.6ghz. I think mine is around 1.3.. volts I think it is around 1.336 volts and is stable.

Also what speed was that cinebench test at?

the chip was perfectly stable at 5ghz at 1.42 ish volts. it seems to also be fine at 1.40V

the score of 14.4 was at 5ghz if that is the one you mean?

 

[kaney]

hi B3rni3,

I will give that a try on the voltage, the cinebench CPU test i got a 12.6pts !

 

[B3rni3]

the chip was perfectly stable at 5ghz at 1.42 ish volts. it seems to also be fine at 1.40V

the score of 14.4 was at 5ghz if that is the one you mean?

Thats food for thought. I think when I tried to run 5ghz a few months back it was slightly over 1.4volts and wasnt fully stable. I was running intel burn test not prime so maybe that stresses it differently I am not sure but I might give it a bash some day soon. What is the max safe voltage for 24/7 use again on a 3930k?

I got 13.6 on 4.6ghz in cinebench so not sure if it would be worth messing around with tbh.

 

[andrevautour]

Thats food for thought. I think when I tried to run 5ghz a few months back it was slightly over 1.4volts and wasnt fully stable. I was running intel burn test not prime so maybe that stresses it differently I am not sure but I might give it a bash some day soon. What is the max safe voltage for 24/7 use again on a 3930k?

I got 13.6 on 4.6ghz in cinebench so not sure if it would be worth messing around with tbh.

oh i definitely would not run 1.4 daily or 5ghz daily i was just doing it for a cinebench score and to see what the chip could do.

i think 4,6ghz at around 1.33 ish seems to be good for a daily 24/7 clock. it is so fast at 4.6 that you really wouldnt need it to be 5ghz unless you're just rendering 24/7 or something but i wouldnt want to render very long at 1.4v because it gets quite hot.

realistically 4.6 seems to be the sweet spot and the temps are very good too. if you kept speedstep on and keep your power settings in windows to balanced it will notch it down to 1.2 or anywhere in between that when you're not using it so that helps it keep quite cool too.

another thing to take into note is that the prime 95 temps are always higher than the majority of things you normally do. even things like rendering for hours straight in cinema 4d which does use 100% of all cores still doesn't come close to producing the temps that prime does, if with a mac core temp of 73 for example in prime, in normal use you'd likely never get above 67 or so on the hottest core, probably even cooler.

im not sure about the 2011 stuff but if you remember toms video of the 3770 he said teh intel burn was producing insanely high temps much much higher than prime. i didnt run prime or anything at 5ghz i just ran cinebench a few times.


also sorry about that temp screenshot i gave earilier you were very right about the temps being more like that of a 4.6ghz over clock. i think that is what it was.

here is stock temps with h100 and noctua nf-f12s after 30 mins of prime

and here is 4.6ghz at 1.33v

 

[kaney]

Yeah always good to revisit and eek a bit more out of it !!

1.4v is Intel max safe. but depends where you go and ask tbh, i may when not OC knock mine now back to 4ghz and definitely go for a lower voltage as you have suggested 1.3 ish.

i gotta hit the sack knackered, more soon !

regards
KANEY !

 

[B3rni3]

I wasn't planning on running 5ghz 24/7 just more curious cause I couldn't remember what the recommended voltage was.

I have mine setup at 4.6 with intel speed step and the speed and voltage drop and raise depending on what cpu usage is on. I didn't feel the need to have it running all the time at full speed and voltage.

 

[andrevautour]

aaaah Andrevautour hi dude,

thanks for the reassuring advice as always, I wasn't sure too sure where the temps would go for 3930k but yeah I was a little worried it was burning a bit to warm for my liking.

Was looking through some the project build on here and yeah some fully water cooled rigs did catch my but not ready for that just yet.

I will stick with this for now, did really consider the Noctua but went the PHANTEKS PH-TC14PE instead pretty similar but came down to aesthetics in the end but has definitely made a difference with the cooling it is much much better. do you think the Noctua would have done a better a job, but then both kits at this level should perform similar i would have thought ? a preference thing perhaps!?

I have overclocked to 4.6mhz @ 1.4V but I have rolled this back now to 4ghz.

BTW I got Cinebench going and managed 12.6pts on the CPU render, and 10060pts on 3D Mark 11, could maybe pinch a bit more !?!? everything runs very nice for now, considering another GTX670 sli :wacko:

Thanks also for the temp guide it is good to know that everything is kind of where it should be for my current setup.

Question, if you were to just use CPU fan cooling in this setup would you go for the Noctua D14 as your cooler of choice, that does seem to be very popular !?


Regards KANEY.

hey there --

definitely 1.4 is very high for 4.6ghz and it will produce much more heat at the voltage. you can do 4.6ghz easily on 1.35 or even 1.3 just try 1.35 first but then try 1.32 or something like that and it will probably droop down to around 1.3v no need to lower the core speed though because even if you lower the core speed to 4ghz and run a high voltage like 1.4v the temps will be higher than if you run a higher vore speed like 4.6ghz and a lower voltage like 1.3v or so

here are my temperatures at 4.6ghz and 1.33v

As far as air coolers though i believe Tom has reviewed the PHANTEKS one before so I would have to go back and look at that (see high channel and just search or go to playlists under cpu cooler reviews) I believe the Noctua is better (NH-D15 and Thermalright silver arrow are still tied for best air cooler as far as I know there hasn't really been a better one yet)

Im sure the PHANTEKS one is quite similar as the form factor and everything seems to be almost the same. And if you are planning on going back to an h100 in ab it you could have gotten something much smaller just in the mean time if you wanted to save a bit of money. But if you are potentially going to stay with the air cooler and havent made up your mind yet then its good to get a good one.


Yes I use a NH-D14 myself and I have installed them on other people's systems. I personally love the look of them because I like taupe and brown and earthy colors like that (hench why I also use a sabertooth motherboard) but I konw a lot of people dont like the look of them. As I mentioned the Thermalright silver arrow is another option, but it has a fairly similar color palette.

http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/product_page/cpu/silver_arrow/product_cpu_silver_arrow.html

They also have a silver arrow extreme now but as far as I can tell its the exact same heatsinks and heatpips with higher rpm fans--personally i wouldnt go anywhere near that because i dont think the performance would be much better and it would likely be so loud (unless you manually turn the fans down)

the only reason you might consider it is because it is red and orange instead of the other color on the regular one

http://www.thermalright.com/products/index.php?act=data&cat_id=27&id=199

since you already have that PHANTEKS one i wouldnt recommend getting another air cooler because the performance different would be small!

 

[andrevautour]

I wasn't planning on running 5ghz 24/7 just more curious cause I couldn't remember what the recommended voltage was.

I have mine setup at 4.6 with intel speed step and the speed and voltage drop and raise depending on what cpu usage is on. I didn't feel the need to have it running all the time at full speed and voltage.

oh yes for sure that is the best way to have it definitely no need to have it full all the time!

i suspect some chips would need more to be stable at 5 because in Toms review he used 1.46 to get his stable at 5ghz which is quite a lot more than it tooks for ours to be stable so it just depends..

One other thing I found when overclocking my 1366 920 cpu was that mine would be stable for example at 4ghz and 1.25v, but the cinebench score would be much lower than at 4ghz 1.3v -- so it seemed like 1.25 was enough for it to be stable, but it wasnt getting enough to really perform at the full potential speed for that clock speed.

 

[kaney]

Hey Andrevautour,

I only when and bloody dunnit, I bought that beast that you said that you would steer clear of The Thermalright Silver Arrow SB E Extreme CPU Cooler TY-143 Fans (Socket 2011. Its a god damn beast and its beautiful !!!

I know I just literally got my hand on the Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Red......... BUT I reckon the Silver Arrow will do a better job.

With a dead H100 RMA (soon to receive replacement) and the Silverlight on its was which looks awesome this may actually be a keeper in my rig, basically I now have have a spare H100 and Phanteks PH_TC14PE !! could even be the start of another rig

check out ............
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-099-TR

 

[kaney]

Finally got a new H100 back from Corsair on an RMA and this one went it absolutely perfect, no tight fit around the CPU to be forced it just rested nicely on top of the CPU.

Ran a full load test for an hour just to check a little of bit of stability and all ran very nicely indeed OC to a gently 4ghz @ 1.3V with the temp sitting around 64º-65º.

Clearly the previous H100 was definitely faulty as this same setup blue screened with the temps hitting 98º which was not good.

Anyway all is good, would like more steelies more for aesthetics really but wouldn't hurt with some fat rendering in Modo.

Other than that for a 1st build this is more or less finished, just thought I would stick share a pic of my home setup, in my old forge outside you could call it a posh shed everyman should have one

And the little orange cheeky number is my next project I want to build a bit of a gaming rig mini ITX but to be a little pocket rocket.


Kaney.

 

[andrevautour]

Looking good!