Any PC Builders Out There?

Yeah EK makes great waterblocks. Their fluid gaming line is a bit more inexpensive as it is aluminum. My entire loop is aluminum in lieu of your typical copper/nickel plated components.

AIO pumps are small and optimized for the amount of fluid they have to push which isnt an issue but the smaller fluid capacity and limited thermal efficiency from the small radiators they come installed with really don't outperform most air cooled setups. The wraith prism cooler works great, just remember to switch the fan speed switch to "Hi" on the side.

Ironically, AIO's are a mix of copper and aluminum components. Manufacturers utilize corrosion resistant coolants to try and mitigate galvanic corrosion but AIO's ultimately fail because of this intermix of dissimilar metals.

Typically a loop will have to be cleaned out every 6 months. I have been replacing my fluid every two months or so trying out different brands of uv sensitive coolants. I would highly not recommend running the same fluid for years but many people do without any substantial issues.

I added a 120mm radiator to my existing 360mm radiator and temperatures dropped a significant 8-10c under load. I also have adjusted custom fan curves and have my water pump plugged into the motherboard header to adjust PWM speeds. Alot of small tweaks have "gained" me a few C's of temperature drops. Fun stuff!

 

3600x are $170 with compatible motherboard from microcenter! the 2700x I have was purchased for $210 a few months ago, price has dropped to $150 from what I see. AMD will only get cheaper over time. Hopefully a 3950x will be 2700x pricing in a few months... jk

 

The 2700x has been $150 with 15% cashback at Amazon if you use an amazon prime card. Great deal for ~135 bucks IMO. Crazy what you can get performance wise per $ these days

 

The reason really is I thought that was the only way to go for better sound. With computer speakers I have only really had just multiple klipsch 2.1, I would like to upgrade the sound to somthing better but I’m not really sure where to go beyond that all in one box options don’t seem to be recommended. When I started to research I just kept Seeing sound cards. Any recommendations on a system or where to start looking? The current 2.1 pro media’s are starting to die so I would like to do a new sound system from the ground up. I’ll start looking into DAC

 

Your limiting factor is your sound system and not so much the card. Built in cards nowadays are very effective and you will be hard pressed to require a sound card, even with 7.1 unless you have a really old setup.

That being said, I run an 1100w 5.1 Sony system with wireless subwoofer. It outperforms my older 7.1 and is hugely more compact. It rarely gets used because I typically run my wireless bose headphones anyways. No wires from computer to sound system, all Bluetooth and it is quite impressive.

 

Headphones or headsets are the way to go usually, especially for gaming. There is a reason hardly anyone makes prosumer speaker setups anymore when that used to be a huge market a couple of decades ago.

 

I'll disagree on the failure point. Have you seen the video from Jay where he cuts open his old H110i after a couple of years of use? Zero corrosion. Most AIOs fail because most are made with cheap components. Believe it or not the corrosion inhibitors hold up well. Most of the claims that they don't are from people who haven't actually had a failure themselves. I build PC's for friends and family. I've never actually had an AIO leak within five years, usually on the cheap crappy Corsair ones the pump fails before anything else.

AIOs come from 2-3 manufacturers in China, the key is to pick one that is made with high end components. I prefer Fractal. My 240 is way more effective than a stock AMD cooler trust me lol, but a D15 or the new gravity fed heat pipe cooler I mentioned would outperform it. A custom loop would as well but I don't need one, there is no point in overclocking Zen 2/Ryzen 3000 parts since they're pretty much dialed in by boost anyways. Also my 2080Ti is one of the larger custom models with ample cooling and I've hit 2100 mhz without trying when I've played around with it. I ended up rolling back to stock though since I don't need the extra power consumption.

Custom loops are all about the physics. Keep the equilibrium temperature in the fluid low and you get more efficient heat transfer in the blocks. In general there is no such thing as too many radiators lol. That's why most models suggest at least a 240 mm and 360 mm radiator even for just a 2080Ti alone. Cooler fluid means cooler parts and better luck overclocking.

 

Good points about AIO and interesting information.

2080ti and AMD CPUs generally run pretty darn hot. After overclocking I got to almost 80c when my setup was air cooled. I can tell a huge difference in my room temps after my last Intel build. Quite toasty.

I would say your radiator requirements are on point. Typically you want 120mm per component but as you have stated, 2080ti's are in their own league when it comes to heat and power consumption. Add in overclocking and an additional 120mm per component is what I basically did to mitigate any temperature variations.

All in all, as long as it works for you and you're happy that's all that matters! Now to delve into disto blocks.... Lol

 

Funny story, a 3900x pulls less power than a 9900K even though the posted TDP says it should be the other way around. The TDPs aren't rated the same. AMD rates TDP at boost while Intel rates TDP at idle. Pretty much anything Haswell or older from Intel runs pretty cool. Anything after that runs hot. The reason is simple. Add more cores and more aggressive boost clocks, the temperatures go up.

AMD Zen designs also do one neat thing that Intel Core doesn't. An Intel chip will only hold full rated boost for so long before dropping back to a mid way point between base and boost speeds. As long as an AMD chip stays under 80c and has access to enough voltage, it'll hold full boost pretty much forever lol. That makes a big difference in heat production but it also often gives AMD the advantage on stock settings.

It also doesn't help that Intel puts garbage Tim on their products between the chip and the heat spreader. You could have the best cooler in the world and still post crappy temperatures on the 9900K just because the heat isn't even getting to the heat spreader efficiently. You have to love Intel for producing a fast and hot chip then cheaping out on the Tim lol.

 

The blocks with built in pumps seem to be all the rage now lol. What a PITA.

 

Oh Linus lol, his all around $300-400 CPU pick for this year:

 

So idk if anyone might know, but I had a Zotac Amp GTX1060 and the fans will shut off, kick on, shut off, kick on repeatedly, and it's the only noise coming out of my computer and it's so god awful annoying. Are the fans going out or is my computer cooling it so much that it on the threshold of kicking on with temp fluctuation? I don't think my ASUS fan controller is able to put a fan curve on it.

 

Hmm maybe i utilized the wrong terminology.. This particular blocks goes over the motherboard. Obviously there wont be much of a performance gain if at all, just mostly nice eye candy. See below:

 

I'm sorry to say it's a feature. Everything from 10 series up is supposed to use some sort of silent running mode, which actually means the fans shut down under certain low load conditions. I've had a card in a build before that would make noise when the fans started every time and this annoyed the hell out of my family member. Luckily it was a gigabyte card and their software was able to disable the silent mode. Check if Zotac has something similar.

 

After ASUS refused to warranty my router/wifi-ap by sending me 4 dead ones I will never buy anything they make again.

 

https://youtu.be/gX-bvIx_5qw

Yeah to me what he talks about in this video is a distribution block. At least that's what I've always heard it called. Motherboard blocks are usually called complete or chipset blocks in my past but that could just be me.

The Asrock Aqua is crazy nice but I would only if got one if it made sense to overclock the new Ryzen, which it doesn't.

 

ASUS quality control hasn't been great for about a decade now. Seems like Gigabyte has strangely become the goto got quality from what I've seen. I've used MSI and Asrock lately also without issue.

 

My current machine has a Gigabyte mother board and graphics card.

 

My last two mainboards have been Asus Sabertooth boards. Supposedly military grade. No issues.

 

Lolz. I hope you're not serious about thinking military grade means anything lol. It's the same marketing as behind the Alison transmission and the Ford Aluminum body. I'm not against using Asus but they used to be the standard in the early to late 2000s. I can't say that anymore in my experience.