HDplex H5 / Core i7 7700 build - temps

[arisilent]

Looking for guidance/advice RE normal temp profiles for a new H5-based silent linux workstation build, as I couldn't find a useful reference point so far.

Using hdplex H5 / 300W AC-DC+400W HiFi DC-ATX / micro ATX asus maximus hero vii / kabylake i7 7700 / nvme samsung 960pro, with passive CPU cooling. 16GB ddr4 slighly overclocked (2933 Ghz)
No GPU yet (coming soon though). One 3.5" green WD HD (spins downs after 180secs of inactivity, it's sleeping most of the time)

When installing the copper heatsink base, I followed the H5 installation guide recommendation:

You could apply a very thin layer of thermal paste to the copper base plate. Since the copper base is mirror polished, we actually recommend not applying thermal paste in this surface.

... so I didn't apply thermal paste on that surface. I did apply thermal paste on the heatpipe grooves, as indicated in the guide.
The build works great - stable, totally silent, looks awesome.

My software environment:

* Idle / light use: Fedora 27, firefox 57, nautlus, various terminals.
* Heavier use environment: darktable / raw photo editing (normally with OpenCL but I didn't install the GPU yet); software compilation (large: kernel / kodi / etc) or small. HD Audio playback via audacious to USB DAC.
* Extreme use / testing: all 8 threads @100% CPU using openssl test mode: openssl speed -multi $(nproc --all)

This is what I'm seeing:

Idle temps (light browsing, occassional youtube video): 45 - 48 degrees
Normal "heavy use" temps (darktable denoise batch filtering): 70-75 degrees
Extreme use temps: 98 to 100 degrees (the meter (lm-sensors) never goes above 100 degrees (wondering if this is because the CPU starts throttling - the system does remain very stable and the case gets a kind of warm (although not hot to the touch).

I do notice significant "quick variations" in temps (specially for the 'package-id-0' sensor) quickly going from 45 to 65-70 and coming back down when for example playing back a full screen youtube (html5) video in firefox.

Questions for silent PC builders
- can the temps I'm seeing be considered normal for this type of build, or are them too high?
- for people that have built using hdplex h5 - did you use thermal paste on the CPU / copper (mirror-polished) heatsink surface?

Before the H5, I had basically same hardware on an inexpensive cube case + Hyper 212 EVO + noctua fan. Idle/light use temps were typically in the 30-35 and 60-65 for heavy-use. I don't recall testing extreme CPU use on that build but I don't recall ever seeing temps in 80s range.

[arisilent]

For reference, found this post of one guy that tested with/without thermal paste for the CPU heatsink, and the temp difference in his case was massive.
Guess I'll follow the same route shortly and see what happens.

I could also confirm that the CPU was throttling during the OpenSSL speed test (all 4 cores). However, I could not get it to throttle with a prime95 test

CPU4: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 66090)

[CA_Steve]

Do you see 45C with a true idle (not browsing or youtubing, etc...just letting the CPU sit there)? If so, it seems high.

Mirror finish or not, all these metal interfaces have some level of imperfection. Nothing would be harmed by having a thin (nearly transparent) coat of TIM between the base and CPU.

Check your motherboard voltages - see if it's overvolting the CPU.

[arisilent]

Took the plunge, added thermal compound between the 'copper mirror' heatsink and the CPU.
Huge improvement! I guess as Steve and the guy in the other thread said, even if the copper side is highly polished, the CPU side is certainly not.

From 45deg. on true idle, I now see 29-31! with light use (writing this note on firefox), 32-34'sh
OpenSSL torture test on all 8 threads, that was reaching 100 deg in about 15 seconds before this change, now runs stable at 59-61 deg.
prime95: 58deg.
No CPU throttling whatsoever.
I have no idea why the H5 official guide recommends not using thermal compound but I guess that doesn't apply to my build. I can tell with confidence now that the H5 on this setup performs even better (with the same mobo/CPU/etc) than my prior standard case that was using the EVO and a couple Noctua fans (one on the evo and one on the chassis) - Under very heavy load, I used to see temps reaching 69-70deg. I couldn't go past 61 degrees on the new setup.

I added a watt-meter to see what happens when torture-testing the system - consumption increases around +45W (jumps from 60 to 105W), at the same time temperature (package-temp) jumps from 30 to 60 degrees. Wonder if this is a useful metric (0.66 deg/watt) to compare with other builds. I also wonder how this is going to change once I add the GPU later on

[CA_Steve]

My wild guess is with the gfx card loaded, you'll see a 5C bump in the CPU temps from GPU VRM and PSU waste heat.

[arisilent]

Just to share my consistent results so far with my H5 build with a week+ of daily use - no temp issues after adding thermal compound between CPU and heatsink in spite of what the H5 guide says. Idle temps are in the 38-40 range, medium to heavy use (e.g. darktable exports of hundreds of images) is stable in the 65 deg range. This is pretty much the same range I had before with a conventional case and two noctua fans! It's really nice.

I attach a few pictures of this build.

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The build components are:

• Asus ROG Maximus VIII Gene Micro ATX
  Intel Core i7 7700 Kaby Lake
  Intel PCI WiFi Intel7260
  RAM 16GB DDR4 G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series
  Samsung 960 PRO Series - 512GB PCIe NVMe

122730-lq.jpg

And now for the GPU.
All Intel-CPU + discrete GPU-based well-documented builds with H5 that I could find references of are based on NVIDIA GPUs. I could only find just one reference to an AMD GPU build, using an old RX460 card that is not being sold any more.
Mine being a linux workstation (development + photography), NVIDIA wasn't in my plans. My basic use case for the GPU is OpenCL compute for darktable/GIMP and friends, not high end gaming. Finally after some research I took a big leap of faith based on low-resolution pictures I saw of a particular RX560 model that seemed to be the only one where the HDPlex GPU heatsink/heatpipe kit for H5 would fit. Luckily, it idid fit - greatly and with room to spare.
The card I bought is:

• Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 GAMING OC 4G REv2.0 (GV-RX560GAMING OC-4GD REV2.0)

181958-lq.jpg

And here's the card with the heatsink mounted:

183753-lq.jpg

This particular model has the full 1024 stream processors, so 20% more than the older rx460, and the clocks are a bit higher. It's all bus-powered with a TDP of around 70W, and 6W on idle. Perfect match for the H5.

[CA_Steve]

So, what temps are you seeing now with the GPU added?

[arisilent]

So, what temps are you seeing now with the GPU added?

GPU tests are coming next! Still waiting for the PCIE riser cable for the GPU, I bought the one from HDPlex and it should arrive this week, I'm hoping I'll be able to mount the GPU card in the H5 this weekend and test it out... will post my results!

[CA_Steve]

cool beans

[arisilent]

Completed build - with the PCI riser from HDPlex

153810-lq.jpg

GPU kit / build notes: with a micro ATX mobo like mine, there is very little clearance between the top of the PCIE riser connector and the bottom of the graphics card. A mini-ITX build OR a lower-profile riser like 3M's will probably not have this challenge. I believe there is still some minor clearance but I did add a strip of electrical+thermal isolation tape, just in case. On the graphics card side of the riser, the riser cable needs quite some bending to clear the heatpipes. No issues at all though, the riser cable ribbon is very flexible; the card connected at x8 speeds (this is an x8 card) and it just worked, no stability issues whatsoever. The installation guide recommends adding a thermal strip and a small heatsink over the graphic card MOSFETs (none of which come with the kit) - I haven't done that yet but plan to do so -
soon.

Thermals are great:
Idle:
CPU ~37 to 39 C
GPU: 35-38 C

Light use after 2 hours:
CPU hovering 41-42 C
GPU 39-40 C

Furmark stress test / 30 minutes: GPU temp 56 C, CPU 52
The GPU is running at stock speeds (no overclocking) but the system RAM is overclocked (2.9Ghz, stock is 2.4Ghz)

On Fedora - using the Radeon open source drivers + this trick to enable opencl: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_th ... p?id=11417
This works fine with the 17.10 drivers (but doesn't with the latest 17.50) - accelerates complex darktable operations e.g. de-noising by 5X or so.
Tried a few steam games - working perfectly. Did not benchmark them b/c I'm not using the proprietary drivers so not really optimized for gaming.

[CA_Steve]

Nice. +1 on adding VRM heatsink(s).