Hey,
After almost a year of DC abstinence, I recently persuaded myself that I'd like to have a new GPU (mostly for gaming, but also for folding etc.), after my old one was in its eight's year of duty. Never had that before. The final status of my rig can be seen in this older thread:
A personal paradigm shift... Or from "DC on a gaming rig" to "gaming on a DC rig" | AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals
I decided on getting an RTX 4090, as the 4080 is too much "salvage" for my taste. As I'm using liquid cooling in this rig, as some of you might still remember, I'm somewhat limited in terms of waterblock compatibility. I prefer Watercool, and therefore, I could get the Asus models, or the FE. As the Asus cards tend to be almost 100% unbearable due to coilwhine, I tried to get an FE. A few weeks ago I got lucky, and could purchase one during the brief availability here. A nice coincidence was the availability of the Watercool block without any acrylic and RGB nonsense. I briefly tested the GPU with its air cooler (by the way, a really good cooler, very quiet and good temperatures), which was more difficult than I initially imagined. The card is so large, that I had to remove my case's clamp mechanism for the expansion cards and look for some fitting screws. I also had to install a bypass for the loop in order to power on the system. But all worked, and the card was really quiet. Coilwhine could only be heard with an ear close to the card (open case), during 3DMark sessions and Cyberpunk on highest raytracing settings. Therefore, I decided to keep the card and "put it under water".
As this card's main purpose is supposed to be gaming, I switched my CPUs, as my Xeons had too many cores for high frequencies. I now have a pair of E5-2667 v4 installed. These will most likely remain in the sockets until I'll retire the platform from gaming. Due to the placement of the waterblock's terminal, I had to rethink the loop a little. Previously, it was inlet --> GPU --> CPU 2 --> CPU 1 --> flow sensor --> outlet. I decided on changing this, and rotated the CPU waterblocks 180° to acommodate for this. Now, it's inlet --> flow sensor --> CPU 1 --> CPU 2 --> GPU --> outlet. The waterblock is really nice (but big and heavy), and under full gaming or benchmark load (raytracing), the core temperature hovers around 40°C. The first few WU's were folded under Windows, and the GPU consumed roughly 200W. Unbelievable Then, I added another SSD for Linux. Debian unfortunately doesn't have a stable release with fitting drivers, so I went with Mint for the time being. Now it's running 24/7 since Tuesday, and I plan to keep it running another week, before taking a break.
The external cooling solution... Two Watercool MO-RA3 420 Pro with four NF-A20 HS each. D5-Dualtop with two D5-Vario at full speed (very quiet). This gives roughly 190L/h. I got rid of the extension cables and crimped my own cables.
After almost a year of DC abstinence, I recently persuaded myself that I'd like to have a new GPU (mostly for gaming, but also for folding etc.), after my old one was in its eight's year of duty. Never had that before. The final status of my rig can be seen in this older thread:
A personal paradigm shift... Or from "DC on a gaming rig" to "gaming on a DC rig" | AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals
I decided on getting an RTX 4090, as the 4080 is too much "salvage" for my taste. As I'm using liquid cooling in this rig, as some of you might still remember, I'm somewhat limited in terms of waterblock compatibility. I prefer Watercool, and therefore, I could get the Asus models, or the FE. As the Asus cards tend to be almost 100% unbearable due to coilwhine, I tried to get an FE. A few weeks ago I got lucky, and could purchase one during the brief availability here. A nice coincidence was the availability of the Watercool block without any acrylic and RGB nonsense. I briefly tested the GPU with its air cooler (by the way, a really good cooler, very quiet and good temperatures), which was more difficult than I initially imagined. The card is so large, that I had to remove my case's clamp mechanism for the expansion cards and look for some fitting screws. I also had to install a bypass for the loop in order to power on the system. But all worked, and the card was really quiet. Coilwhine could only be heard with an ear close to the card (open case), during 3DMark sessions and Cyberpunk on highest raytracing settings. Therefore, I decided to keep the card and "put it under water".
As this card's main purpose is supposed to be gaming, I switched my CPUs, as my Xeons had too many cores for high frequencies. I now have a pair of E5-2667 v4 installed. These will most likely remain in the sockets until I'll retire the platform from gaming. Due to the placement of the waterblock's terminal, I had to rethink the loop a little. Previously, it was inlet --> GPU --> CPU 2 --> CPU 1 --> flow sensor --> outlet. I decided on changing this, and rotated the CPU waterblocks 180° to acommodate for this. Now, it's inlet --> flow sensor --> CPU 1 --> CPU 2 --> GPU --> outlet. The waterblock is really nice (but big and heavy), and under full gaming or benchmark load (raytracing), the core temperature hovers around 40°C. The first few WU's were folded under Windows, and the GPU consumed roughly 200W. Unbelievable Then, I added another SSD for Linux. Debian unfortunately doesn't have a stable release with fitting drivers, so I went with Mint for the time being. Now it's running 24/7 since Tuesday, and I plan to keep it running another week, before taking a break.
The external cooling solution... Two Watercool MO-RA3 420 Pro with four NF-A20 HS each. D5-Dualtop with two D5-Vario at full speed (very quiet). This gives roughly 190L/h. I got rid of the extension cables and crimped my own cables.
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