To monoblock or not to monoblock?

[LiveOrDie]

I see that no one has mentioned the rockit custom IHS plate, they made it with increased height that accounts for the decrease from delidding.

I'm actually considering delidding and putting the custom IHS on, as I'm currently running 7900X with the EK monoblock at 4.8GHz on my best core, rest cores are 4.6GHz without delid. Temperatures are alright but occassionally the 4.8GHz core does hit 90 degrees.

Yeah i just ordered one ill see how it goes with the monoblock haha.

[zoobzone]

Cool, can you please let me know how well the custom IHS goes? Where I live, the cost of shipping costs more than the actual IHS so I'm still on the fence.

[Brighttail]

This is a very interesting discussion. I never had a problem with my EK waterblock. I'm not sure if the milling is different but when I took mine off to clean the loop, the VRMs all had the indention of the chips and I could see each were making contact with the chip and the heatsync. VRMs underload never break 70C. If anything I might believe because of the delidding, the monoblock might be a mm too high but the spread of the paste seems even enough.

Considering that I had mine delidded from Silicon Lottery, I am quite happy with the result. They tested the capability of the chip and got it to 4.8GHZ steady on a 240mm AIO so with my cooling my 7900x can reach 4.9 and even 5.0, tho the idle temps are a little higher than I prefer so when I'm not doing multicore work, I scale it back to 4.8.

I'm interested in seeing the pix Justin of the new refresh build. Having a second ATX board in that Elite case (which you chided me for getting. ) would be interesting to see.

Concerning the 2080TIs, I just don't see the reason for them. Unless you have a 3k monitor that does 4k, with G-sync at over 60 Hz or even if you managed to find a game that can do ray tracing, I'm not sure it is worth sacrificing 1/2 your FPS for it on. I think my next purchase will be an HDR monitor with 4k, g-sync and the capability to go beyond 60Hz because even my 1080TI will be able to drive most of my games between 80-100FPS. So in the end, just not seeing the need for a 2080ti as the uses of it hasn't caught up to the technology yet. In the next year I think we'll see new monitors come out that can run DP 1.4 with the high FPS and 4k HDR within reasonable prices. I like my 32 inch 4k g-sync monitor and would hate to lose 5 inches off of it. I think the next GPU I'll buy will be when the 3080TIs come out.

[JustinThyme]

This is a very interesting discussion. I never had a problem with my EK waterblock. I'm not sure if the milling is different but when I took mine off to clean the loop, the VRMs all had the indention of the chips and I could see each were making contact with the chip and the heatsync. VRMs underload never break 70C. If anything I might believe because of the delidding, the monoblock might be a mm too high but the spread of the paste seems even enough.

Considering that I had mine delidded from Silicon Lottery, I am quite happy with the result. They tested the capability of the chip and got it to 4.8GHZ steady on a 240mm AIO so with my cooling my 7900x can reach 4.9 and even 5.0, tho the idle temps are a little higher than I prefer so when I'm not doing multicore work, I scale it back to 4.8.

I'm interested in seeing the pix Justin of the new refresh build. Having a second ATX board in that Elite case (which you chided me for getting. ) would be interesting to see.

Concerning the 2080TIs, I just don't see the reason for them. Unless you have a 3k monitor that does 4k, with G-sync at over 60 Hz or even if you managed to find a game that can do ray tracing, I'm not sure it is worth sacrificing 1/2 your FPS for it on. I think my next purchase will be an HDR monitor with 4k, g-sync and the capability to go beyond 60Hz because even my 1080TI will be able to drive most of my games between 80-100FPS. So in the end, just not seeing the need for a 2080ti as the uses of it hasn't caught up to the technology yet. In the next year I think we'll see new monitors come out that can run DP 1.4 with the high FPS and 4k HDR within reasonable prices. I like my 32 inch 4k g-sync monitor and would hate to lose 5 inches off of it. I think the next GPU I'll buy will be when the 3080TIs come out.

What prompted this was the fact that with the delidded 7900X I always had 2 cores running significantly hotter than the rest. After some digging those two cores were on the outer edge opposite the memory controllers. Then looking at this new build when I did my dry run with the monoblock on is when it hit me that the entire IHS was not even close to being covered. Does it cover the die, well yes but Im not doing direct die. If you check any of the hardcore competitive overclokers, none of them are using monoblocks and I believe with good reason. Every bit of contact with the IHS counts, even more so with all the 99XX being HCC dies. More heat off the IHS is more heat off the die. I wouldnt question it for a second if, again, I was running direct die and it made good contact but then you would be forced to modify something as the block would be sitting too low on the VRMs. Previously My VRM temps were in the 65-75C range depending on ambient not within the polar vortex. Now with separate blocks they don't pass 40C with 4 more cores to power.

I dont see adding a second system as that means a second PSU. The basement of my Enthoo Elite (that I gave you a hard time about buying) is slam full of 480XE rad with push pull fans. Ill be posting up pics later as I have a new cable kit coming from Cablemods which is another story in and of itself. Talk about slow!!!! Then to add insult to injury I their website was screwing up when I was trying to make my order. The corsair dominator mod kit and extra combs went through just fine but after two hours of not being able to get past the point in the cable process to select which type of pro combs because it didnt show any I gave up and send them an email immediately. They responded within 24 hours and suggested I try a different method and it worked. When I asked them to credit me one of the shipping charges they responded immediately that they WOULD NOT!!!! A few back and forths with their CS rep Matt made it like I ordered 2 weeks apart and said that had I made the order together there would have been no problem. Then changed and said had I ordered before the first one shipped ( less than 24 hours apart) It would be no problem. When I showed him all the info as the first order didnt ship for better than a week with all the dates of the back and forth and the tracking info showing it in fact did not ship before he went back to just saying that It could have been avoided if I had ordered them at the same time and BS story about slow email responses due to high volume so I showed him all the time stamps on the emails which were still well before the first shipped, still flat out refused...ARGGH!!! Total waste of time and I have begun the onslaught on the social media pages and now will continue on every forum I can! They make decent cables but all this over not paying attention to the customers emails then trying to place blame anywhere but with them. I showed them screen shots of the ordering page and all and they still insist that it was my error and nothing wrong with their web page. They wont be getting any more of my money!!

[LiveOrDie]

This is a very interesting discussion. I never had a problem with my EK waterblock. I'm not sure if the milling is different but when I took mine off to clean the loop, the VRMs all had the indention of the chips and I could see each were making contact with the chip and the heatsync. VRMs underload never break 70C. If anything I might believe because of the delidding, the monoblock might be a mm too high but the spread of the paste seems even enough.

Considering that I had mine delidded from Silicon Lottery, I am quite happy with the result. They tested the capability of the chip and got it to 4.8GHZ steady on a 240mm AIO so with my cooling my 7900x can reach 4.9 and even 5.0, tho the idle temps are a little higher than I prefer so when I'm not doing multicore work, I scale it back to 4.8.

Silicon Lottery most likely use silicone to relid which most people don't, I used super glue so the IHS was flat on the die, theres a reason why the copper IHS is made thicker so it can sit flat and still make normal contact.

[Brighttail]

Yeah I get that with the two cores being hotter. I have two that do the same so you are probably right, tho if I remember correctly this also could be a result of a convex chip cover. One thing I haven't done yet, is spin my CPU around to see if it spins at all or stops. Most have a little convex and it can be sanded down with some fine/wet sandpaper a quarter of a mm to make it more flat so everything sets on it squarely.

I don't think the monoblocks were ever intended to be milled to such precise standards so I'm okay with it. My biggest problem is i have a 45 mm rad on top and thus pretty much NO room for a separate block up there that I'd have to water cool without some very creative tube management. I barely have room to plug in my motherboard's 8-pin 6-pin.

I'm still with the soft tubing. I want to go hard tubing but never could convince myself to spend the extra $200+ on new fittings for it all especially with other bills. Still with the exception of the top tube, I think everything else looks pretty darn clean.

Corsair ML-RGB fans with two fan controllers and the monoblock and Asus lighting strips around the edges running off a single four pin splitter.

[LiveOrDie]

It depends what cores are hotter and the gap, when i was using EK Evo the max temp difference was 6c which is nothing, I've seen temps differences of 18c on a mates CPU and he also has a delidded CPU running a EK monoblock.

[Brighttail]

Retesting I saw a wide skew of temps so yeah, might have to relook at all of this later on when I next switch out my fluid. It could be just the plate on the CPU, it could very well be the monoblock. The VRM cooler that you all have it is it water cooled or fan cooled?

[feedmeink]

decided to ditch the monoblock for personal testing. Ordered a copper ihs that is supposed to make up the difference in thickness after LM delid. Ordered an ek velocity cpu block, and vrm block by watercool. Will be getting new fittings and tubing mid next week. Gonna stress test as is and compare the difference. By next weekend I should have a bit more info if anyone interested. Should be a fun a project.

[LiveOrDie]

decided to ditch the monoblock for personal testing. Ordered a copper ihs that is supposed to make up the difference in thickness after LM delid. Ordered an ek velocity cpu block, and vrm block by watercool. Will be getting new fittings and tubing mid next week. Gonna stress test as is and compare the difference. By next weekend I should have a bit more info if anyone interested. Should be a fun a project.

I guess you skipped reading lol, we have been talking about the copper IHS already, and I've already got my copper IHS just waiting on my thermal paste, also changing out my 7900x for a 7940x so ill be putting the copper IHS on that instead now, but yeah post up your finding if you get to it before me, ill post mine up once I get my thermal grizzly.