Silent 13900kf Build (Water?)

[Andy9999]

Hi Forum,

I have recently upgraded my previously silent PC to an Intel 13900KF and an MSI Tomahawk Z690 (DDR4) Board. Am still using an old 1080ti (air cooled). I have plans to buy either a 4080 or a 4090 RTX.

The case is a Fractal R5 (no windows). I bought a Noctua NH-15 as CPU cooler.

The thing is running extremely hot. Some games are unplayable, for example BF2042, which is kind of CPU hungry if you play the 128 player mode. In benchmarks (for example Intel Extreme Tuning) it reaches thermal throttling after a few seconds (5-10).

In Passmark's performance test the CPU scores around 40.000 only instead of 60.000 which is supposed to be the average for this CPU model.

Case:
Is this case suited at all for the current generation of systems if you want a silent PC or would something mesh be better? We have a lot of dust here where we live, so I like the dust filters of the R5. With a mesh design, wouldn't there be a lot more of dust in the case? Airflow would be better, right? At the moment the air flow is basically 2 ins and 1 out (Noctua as well). So over pressure, to keep the dust outside.

CPU Cooler:
Would an AIO serve me better? For example an EK Nucleus 360? Mounted as top exhaust? But that would be 3 out and no more over pressure, right?

Custom Loop (?):
Don't know if I should go that route again. Had one 15 years ago. And was done with it until now with that 13900KF. With today's systems demands it seems one should use something external, like the MO-RA3. Would be difficult to fit 2 360s into a Fractal R5 for example. Saw these Corsair Kits going for around 600 Euro. But don't know if they are good. Had something from Aqua-Computers back in the days and still have some parts left, but maybe it is rusty inside (radiator, pump, reservoir). That would probably be a bit more expensive than the Corsair solution. They have an external radiator as well, called the Giant but it is currently out of stock.

GPU:
I guess I would be fine with AIR for now. The CPU is already tough to cool. Maybe with something like the MO-RA3 one could cool both CPU+GPU.

What are your thoughts on this? What would be the best approach? Just try to apply new thermal paste and hope it will work??

Andy9999

[Andy9999]

Oh....and now I got 52105 in the PassMark PerformanceTest. Had the wattage set lower to something around 220 and 200 long term. Now it is 288W, the default for tower coolers on this board. LOL. But still below average of 59464.

[CA_Steve]

Some thoughts:
- is the cooler attached well? If you can look at your CPU temperature as a data logged graph, load the cpu for several seconds and then let it go to idle. The temperature should drop rapidly in a very short period of time (like 90% delta drop in a second or two). If it doesn't, then the cooler isn't making good contact with the CPU.

- is the motherboard set to over volt the CPU? Some motherboard mfgrs go overboard and push more Core voltage than what is needed for stock frequencies. As power consumption is proportional to (V^2)*f, this can kick up the temps pretty quick.

[Japanese Capacitor]

Air coolers are not able to cool 13900K with unlimited power. If you want to use it like that, buy yourself some of the strongest 360 AiO - it will do better thermally and noise wise. My take would be limiting CPU to PL1=PL2=200W - loss of performance will be unnoticeable (up to 10% in the most multithreaded apps, so less in games) and you will have it way cooler and quieter. Another thing is 13900K boosting manner. It will boost the most performant cores as long as it rather hits 100C, so it's normal to see such temps or most of the time having package temp in e.g. 70-80 range with rapid jumps to high 90's.

About mesh cases, they just suck in terms of silence. They will be better than silence focused case as e.g. R5 only when you seriously lack airflow (removing side panel noticeably lowers temperatures and noise of components) or when your case fans need to be definitely the loudest part of the system to keep rest reasonably cool. The thing is, such conditions are rare, even harder than easier to achieve. Other than that and most important, pc just sounds better in sound-dampened case, less irritating or tiring - open your case and see for yourself. There're also potential problems with coilwhine what material used in Define cases fights great to the point of me finding it impressive.

About custom loops, to my taste it's a thing for enthusiast of water cooling, not people wanting to lower temps or noise - it needs knowledge and maintenance, so quite much effort rather needing being enthusiastic here. I personally hate even thinking about having CL in my computer, however nice results it would give.

[Andy9999]

Thank you for your replies!

I guess I had some really bad fan settings before with the intention of making it silent. Now I get better results, just 5% below the average for this CPU type. However, when the CPU load goes up, so goes the fan speed and noise.

I found something else concerning and that is maybe the reason for the stuttering I got in BF2042. My GPU is using only a single PCIE lane. I hope it is just the GPU. It had some problems before I got this new board and CPU.

I saw an MSI liquid cooled 4090 with a 240 rad.

Would that be possible in my case having a 360 for the CPU on top and the 240 maybe in the front? But if both are set to exhaust over pressure would be difficult to achieve. I would need 6 intake then, right? Just to get the same over pressure I have currently.

Would that make sense having both AIO water cooled? Would that be possible with my R5 or shall I opt for a different one? The CPU AIO should definitely help to get rid of the fan speed going up and down.

Some thoughts:
- is the cooler attached well? If you can look at your CPU temperature as a data logged graph, load the cpu for several seconds and then let it go to idle. The temperature should drop rapidly in a very short period of time (like 90% delta drop in a second or two). If it doesn't, then the cooler isn't making good contact with the CPU.

- is the motherboard set to over volt the CPU? Some motherboard mfgrs go overboard and push more Core voltage than what is needed for stock frequencies. As power consumption is proportional to (V^2)*f, this can kick up the temps pretty quick.

I have made a 1 minute test with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility:


It's not even thermal throttling anymore. The graph was set for 2 minutes and it went down fairly quickly.

Will check the voltage setting.

Air coolers are not able to cool 13900K with unlimited power. If you want to use it like that, buy yourself some of the strongest 360 AiO - it will do better thermally and noise wise. My take would be limiting CPU to PL1=PL2=200W - loss of performance will be unnoticeable (up to 10% in the most multithreaded apps, so less in games) and you will have it way cooler and quieter. Another thing is 13900K boosting manner. It will boost the most performant cores as long as it rather hits 100C, so it's normal to see such temps or most of the time having package temp in e.g. 70-80 range with rapid jumps to high 90's.

About mesh cases, they just suck in terms of silence. They will be better than silence focused case as e.g. R5 only when you seriously lack airflow (removing side panel noticeably lowers temperatures and noise of components) or when your case fans need to be definitely the loudest part of the system to keep rest reasonably cool. The thing is, such conditions are rare, even harder than easier to achieve. Other than that and most important, pc just sounds better in sound-dampened case, less irritating or tiring - open your case and see for yourself. There're also potential problems with coilwhine what material used in Define cases fights great to the point of me finding it impressive.

About custom loops, to my taste it's a thing for enthusiast of water cooling, not people wanting to lower temps or noise - it needs knowledge and maintenance, so quite much effort rather needing being enthusiastic here. I personally hate even thinking about having CL in my computer, however nice results it would give.

I have some plans for this CPU with higher work loads, running many VMs for example. Will try to evade a custom loop and mesh case then.

[Andy9999]

Got the PCIE lanes back as well by moving the card around a bit and then screwing it in position while it works.

And now I can even play BF2042 again.

But still would like to upgrade the CPU cooler to an AIO 360. And the GPU needs replacement as well.

[Japanese Capacitor]

I don't know how are your temperatures after your experiments, but generally there tend to be few aspects warming Intel CPUs above the norm to always check and correct if needed. Setting power limits was one obvious due to air coolers just not being able to handle 300+W this chip is able to pull when unlimited. Other than that is disabling so called Multi Core Enhancement, known under different names for every mobo manufacturer (and generally all kinds of quasi-OC boards like to use even by default). It would be nice if your board (like e.g. mine) had setting like "load Intel specs", so disabling any of such garbage for sure and run it as Intel intended. After that you just set power limits of your likings and it shouldn't need more tweaking. Additionally boards differ with voltages they run given CPU which tend rather being too high, what also increases temps, so in this case you can try undervolting (many guides online).

Thinking about changing the case; some AiO or maybe more case fans are easy to do ideas, but incorrect way of approaching your case and solving it well

[Andy9999]

I don't know how are your temperatures after your experiments, but generally there tend to be few aspects warming Intel CPUs above the norm to always check and correct if needed. Setting power limits was one obvious due to air coolers just not being able to handle 300+W this chip is able to pull when unlimited. Other than that is disabling so called Multi Core Enhancement, known under different names for every mobo manufacturer (and generally all kinds of quasi-OC boards like to use even by default). It would be nice if your board (like e.g. mine) had setting like "load Intel specs", so disabling any of such garbage for sure and run it as Intel intended. After that you just set power limits of your likings and it shouldn't need more tweaking. Additionally boards differ with voltages they run given CPU which tend rather being too high, what also increases temps, so in this case you can try undervolting (many guides online).

Thinking about changing the case; some AiO or maybe more case fans are easy to do ideas, but incorrect way of approaching your case and solving it well

I have now definitely better temps after tweaking some settings. What irritated me the most, was BF2042 reporting that it is CPU bottlenecked. So I thought it has to be a CPU problem, when in reality it was the PCIE lanes missing due to the defect GPU. It manifested for example, if just looking at the games menu and moving the mouse (having a poll rate >250hz).

Will try tweaking it some more to see if I can tame it. The most annoying thing is, as you can see in the graph above I posted, it goes up fast in temps and so do the fans and it stops equally fast again and cools down. I would assume with an AIO it won't do that anymore, unless running it on full load for a longer time.

GPU wise it seems an AIO would only make sense if there is constant heavy load on it.

Saw some experiments being made with a 360 AIO in the top and in the front of the Fractal Define and it seems front performs better CPU temp wise. Was about 10 degree Celsius in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNAMxZgvves

[CA_Steve]

Looks like the cooler is installed well. Here are a couple of articles on 13900k and performance vs power limits, etc. Note the Puget Systems one that's using the noctua NH-U12A

Anandtech roughly a 20% performance drop with a 50% drop in power limit for heavy tasks...not must diff in dps for games other than an improvement in mins.

Puget Systems messing with MCE, P1 and P2. Air cooling but an AIO thrown in for comparison.

PC Perspective looks at 241W power limit vs no limits. 5% drop in intensive task performance and no drop in games.

[Japanese Capacitor]

Generally tweaking should be always done first before replacing components. Not the best peformance is sometimes not on component's side, but lack of tweaking

Like you said with fan curves, if I understand well, they don't work ideally. My take here is to set case fans in bios for constant (0-100C) minimum speed and then before load using e.g. motherboard's app to switch them to constant reasonable one - it's like using some oldsql fan controller, but if all fans run on the same fan header, it's one-two clicks in app, so even less effort. With CPU cooling, usually running cooler faster than 2/3 of it's maximum speed doesn't change much, shaves like less than 5C. So I wouldn't let D15 run faster than 1000 rpm before it hits still fine 90C. Another thing is fan response time (to change of temperature) - set it to ~5 secounds (if you are able) to smoothen rapid speed changes.

Swapping D15 to top mounted stronger AiO will help with temperatures, because Define cases with their solid tops are just sentenced to worse CPU cooling. But with opening this top you get one big hole for noises to escape. The quieter your pc is, the less it hurts, but better not have any coil whine.

I'm not convinced to GPUs with AiOs. AiOs doesn't last that long as air coolers and I really wouldn't expect it to last as long as your 1080 (assuming you have it since it's times). Expecially when it's made by the most fishy and trashy company as MSI is

[Andy9999]

Generally tweaking should be always done first before replacing components. Not the best peformance is sometimes not on component's side, but lack of tweaking

Like you said with fan curves, if I understand well, they don't work ideally. My take here is to set case fans in bios for constant (0-100C) minimum speed and then before load using e.g. motherboard's app to switch them to constant reasonable one - it's like using some oldsql fan controller, but if all fans run on the same fan header, it's one-two clicks in app, so even less effort. With CPU cooling, usually running cooler faster than 2/3 of it's maximum speed doesn't change much, shaves like less than 5C. So I wouldn't let D15 run faster than 1000 rpm before it hits still fine 90C. Another thing is fan response time (to change of temperature) - set it to ~5 secounds (if you are able) to smoothen rapid speed changes.

Swapping D15 to top mounted stronger AiO will help with temperatures, because Define cases with their solid tops are just sentenced to worse CPU cooling. But with opening this top you get one big hole for noises to escape. The quieter your pc is, the less it hurts, but better not have any coil whine.

I'm not convinced to GPUs with AiOs. AiOs doesn't last that long as air coolers and I really wouldn't expect it to last as long as your 1080 (assuming you have it since it's times). Expecially when it's made by the most fishy and trashy company as MSI is

Yeah, you are right. At the moment am somewhat happy with the PC for the first time. Set it up in January I think, but I never had the time to figure these things out.

Will optimize the fan curve a bit more with your ideas and only let it go beyond 1000 at 90 degree. Also will try to set the delay to 5secs, currently it is at the minimum setting of 0.1secs.

Isn't putting the AiO in the front as intake an option? In the video I linked to, it seemed to improve the CPU temps by around 10 degrees. The test was repeated twice each time with a blower and normal GPU version and with the RAD mounted as top exhaust and as front intake. I think my PC itself is relatively silent, with the only annoying sound being the CPU fans when they spin up. I have the door open most of the time for better cooling and it is still inaudible from where I sit.

I bought the 1080ti not when it came out but a year later 2018 when it was cheaper. Just recently started to use a GPU holder. LOL. Am not playing the newest games because of the GPU and even my favorite game BF2042 runs at WQHD only (100fps). But the prices are sick for a new one, like a 4090 for example.

[Japanese Capacitor]

With delay time, isn't it MSI board? They have thia stupid range from funny parts of secound like 0,1s to only 1s - it really doesn't make any sense below good 5 secounds. Also Gigabyte isn't much better here with their 3s max, but to be fair maybe both offer higher range in their Windows software - I don't remember. If not, the best you can do is to make this curve as calm as it can be. For sure make cooler running constant minimum speed from 0 to as long as you want in case it being less often triggered by rapid jumps in temperatures when e.g. you open a browser with many tabs.

CPU AiO mounted on the front gives lower temps thanks to not feeding itself with warm air from (non-blower style) GPU. On the other hand it can worsen GPU temperatures due to front pushing air not so strong and warmer, one coming from rad.

About prices, you can be angry at them and sit on your 1080 Ti till the end of time, but I doubt they will get any lower

[Andy9999]

With delay time, isn't it MSI board? They have thia stupid range from funny parts of secound like 0,1s to only 1s - it really doesn't make any sense below good 5 secounds. Also Gigabyte isn't much better here with their 3s max, but to be fair maybe both offer higher range in their Windows software - I don't remember. If not, the best you can do is to make this curve as calm as it can be. For sure make cooler running constant minimum speed from 0 to as long as you want in case it being less often triggered by rapid jumps in temperatures when e.g. you open a browser with many tabs.

CPU AiO mounted on the front gives lower temps thanks to not feeding itself with warm air from (non-blower style) GPU. On the other hand it can worsen GPU temperatures due to front pushing air not so strong and warmer, one coming from rad.

About prices, you can be angry at them and sit on your 1080 Ti till the end of time, but I doubt they will get any lower

I just checked the MSI BIOS settings to control fan spin up and spin down. It is actually 2 settings for that, but the offered ranged is 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 or 0.7secs. LOL. Not a lot of options. Will try an optimized curve then.

My workloads are usually more CPU bound, but I may try a few AI things with my future GPU. And sometimes I game. Would probably depend on how much I will use the GPU in the future, to decide where to put the cooler then.

[Japanese Capacitor]

About fan response time, check MSI Windows fan control app (some part of Dragon Center?). E.g. ASUS doesn't even have such option in bios (or I remember wrong), but has such slider in his app, Armoury Crate. There're also third party fan control apps which tend to offer more opportunities, but here I won't advise due to I only heard about such, but have never needed, so used them. There's whole internet about it

Placing radiator on top as exhaust usually works best, especially with more power-hungry non-blower GPU - you have proper airflow from the case for all of components and AiO additionally helps as exhaust. And generally these few degrees shaved from CPU by mounting AiO on front doesn't change a thing