ROTM: Guru3D Rig of the Month - June 2016

#5301857 Posted on: 07/06/2016 09:25 PM

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In my computer, I have a FX-6300 overclocked to 4.5GHz with a ~650g air cooler. If I turned off Cool'n'Quiet, I'd probably be able to reach 4.8GHz. I've never seen the temperature exceed 64C, on a hot day. This heatsink is sucking up a lot of ambient heat from the motherboard and GPU too. This CPU has a significantly higher TDP than a modern i7, and is much more prone to being maxed-out. So, when someone has not one, not two, but three radiators cooling non-overclocked parts in a relatively open case, then yes, there is such thing as overkill. Don't forget the wattage involved powering all those fans and the water pump, and the collective noise of it all.

It's a great cooling system, there's no denying it. But I'd like to see those parts get overclocked and the resulting temperatures. That's exciting to me. But without an overclock, this cooling system is so overkill that the creator could probably turn off all the fans and still have safe temperatures after an hour of load. So in another perspective, why spend so much money on such an amazing system and not take advantage of it?

His parts are definitely overclocked. Given the hardware listed and the reported 3DMark Fire Strike score of 23,501 points, the CPU is likely overclocked to around 4.7 GHz (a great overclock for Haswell-E) and the GPUs are OC'd and boosting to around ~1500 MHz (pretty standard for GTX 980). This can be checked by searching 3DMark's database for similar scores from machines with matching hardware configs:
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8778144
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8692877

The CPU is 140W at stock and is likely pulling ~250W when overclocked to 4.7 GHz. Similarly, the GPUs will pull ~175-200W each under full load at stock speed and ~250W each when overclocked. With two GPUs plus the CPU this machine is likely putting out around 800W+ of heat when including the motherboard's power delivery and other components.

Three 480mm radiators is probably a little overkill; two would be fine for most people in this scenario. But if he wants to run his fans at extremely low speeds and have this rig run near-silent while still keeping those chips frosty then I can see the case for 3 radiators. After all, isn't that what water cooling is really about?

#5302953 Posted on: 07/08/2016 02:15 PM

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AMAZING setup, but that slimy green color gives me this extreme headache for some reason Maybe I have found my weakness lol

#5303002 Posted on: 07/08/2016 03:57 PM

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Relevant avatar.