Opinions on Build, specifically on cooling

[Balkce]

Hi,

Long time reader, first time writer.

I'm planning my first rig, but I'm worried about cooling.

I have put myself a budget of $2,500 to $3,000 USD and this what I have come up with (you're welcome to comment on it):

[strike]https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cGKPD8[/strike]
[strike]https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JMQyr7[/strike]
[strike]https://pcpartpicker.com/list/W8mF9W[/strike]
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kwm6gL

My idea is to build a nice, classy rig, which is a powerhouse for gaming. The classiness being provided by the Phanteks case, and the powerhouse coming from the 1080 Ti and just using SSD's.

So here is my worry: cooling.

First off, I would have liked to go with the i7-7700k, but I've read it has had some temperature issues, so I have opted for the i7-6700k. Not THAT big of a difference for gaming, and cheaper. I wanted a LGA 2011 CPU, since I'm aiming to use DDR4 (power, again). So in terms of cooling, this CPU seemed like a good balance between power and temperature. Am I correct here? Am I missing something?

Second, the i7-6700k is still quite hot, and the Strix variation of the 1080 Ti will be an important source of heat inside the case. Fortunately, the Strix has headers for external fans, so I could probably hook them up to some case fans for automatic control. In addition, the Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX case has been praised time and again for its ease of use and aesthetics (right on cue with what I want). However, doubts have been raised about how well the top part of the case is at being used as an exhaust since hot air coming from inside the case can bounce back in. So all of this begs the question of fan and radiator placement inside this case. Here are some ideas that have come to mind:

(a) Put three 120 mm fans in the top so that air has no way to go but out through the vents, and a 140 mm fan in the rear to seal the deal. However, that's a lot of air coming out of the case, and I want to have either neutral or a bit-positive pressure inside the case (to avoid dust build up). I'm thinking of maybe putting the H100 radiator in the front as in-take with a push/pull configuration (so to keep a good amount of air flow coming into the case through the radiator), with an additional 120mm fan in the bottom-front part of the case. This idea has a LOT of fans, and I'm not sure it would provide positive pressure.

(b) Same idea as (a), but no 140 mm rear fan. This could be enough to provide near-balanced air pressure inside the case, but the empty back grill will be kind of an eye-soar.

(c) Put the radiator in the top as an exhaust in a pull configuration, with an additional 120 mm fan to avoid that hot air bouncing back in, a 140 mm in the rear, and three 120 mm in the front. Since the static pressure of the radiator lowers the air flow considerably, I think this could be close to balanced. However, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the radiator sucking in the hot air being blown out from the Strix 1080 Ti.

And there it is... sorry for the long post. I've been thinking about this for a long while, and can't seem to arrive at a solution.

BTW, I'm open to any type of change to my build (even changing the case, if need be).

Cheers.

EDIT 2017-05-18: Some changes have been made to the build, so I've crossed out the old link (which still works, if you want to compare them) and I added a new link that points to the revised build.

EDIT 2017-05-19: Yet more changes were made. Thanks to Isokolon for all the help. I think we are almost there.

EDIT 2017-05-26: Finally convinced on the i7-7700k. Thanks everybody who contributed, but specifically to Isokolon for all the great tips. I think we have a seriously good build here. Now, to convince the wife. C'yall.

 

[CountMike]

I'm afraid you are overthinking it. That CPU cooler should be able to handle any processor unless you want to OC it for a world record. For case cooling just follow common wisdom, front/bottom/side fans intake and back/top including radiator fan(s) as exhaust. Most important is to have as much air flow thru the case over all parts of MB. Positive or negative pressure is secondary and only for dust management. If you use air intake filters even that is not important.

 

[Isokolon]

You're overestimating the heat.

However be advised that Corsair MLs need "true" PWM headers to work, which aren't offered by your board.
I'd opt for 140mm Phanteks fans instead.

Looking at your build, that's a great case with great cooling, you maybe need 1 additional case fan to the quality fans already coming with the case (as said Phanteks or Noctua would be my choices)

Not a fan of the Corsair 100, I'd personally go with air cooling or if you do want liquid get at least the 105i or the Kraken equivalent.

This build can easily handle the 7700k.

A 2 TB SSD I find excessive and unnecessarily expensive. Get a 512GB one if you want to store your games on it and a 3TB HDD for general storage. Spending 700$ on a SSD is hardly worth it

 

[Balkce]

I'm afraid you are overthinking it. That CPU cooler should be able to handle any processor unless you want to OC it for a world record. For case cooling just follow common wisdom, front/bottom/side fans intake and back/top including radiator fan(s) as exhaust. Most important is to have as much air flow thru the case over all parts of MB. Positive or negative pressure is secondary and only for dust management. If you use air intake filters even that is not important.

Overthinking is my middle name, so you're probably right.

When it comes to radiator placement, I'm probably not providing the best source, but BitWit made a video showing how, if your GPU is open and blows its heat inside the chassis (instead out the back like a reference/blower-style card), putting the radiator up top does increase the temperature of the CPU which that radiator is cooling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNAMxZgvves

Even JayzTwoCents made a video establishing that using a front radiator is fine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCZ5iP5cu8g

Again, not the best sources, but the physics seems legit.

My point here is that I'm not in love with the idea of putting the radiator up top, but I guess you're right: probably worrying over nothing.

Thanks.

 

[varis]

Are you planning to overclock?

Have you calculated the TDP of your parts? That's a measure of how much heat you must get outside of the case and just gives you a rough reading of the challenge (if indeed, any). You can find an old build from me where I aimed to reduce TDP considerably, and TBH, it was a bit of an overkill approach (but it worked, hey ). Nowaday's air cooling with large, slow turning fans is surprisingly good.

 

[Balkce]

You're overestimating the heat.

Overestimating (and overthinking) is my middle name.

However be advised that Corsair MLs need "true" PWM headers to work, which aren't offered by your board.
I'd opt for 140mm Phanteks fans instead.

The manual says that all the fan headers can be configured as PWM or DC, except for the CPU and PUMP fan header (since those require to be PWM for CPU temperature control). Are these not "true" PWM even if they are configured as such? In any case, the fan controller that comes with the case offers DC control (even though it has a PWM input), so I might as well change to DC-controlled fans.

Are these the ones you mean? https://pcpartpicker.com/product/nYMFf7/phanteks-case-fan-phf140spbk

Looking at your build, that's a great case with great cooling, you maybe need 1 additional case fan to the quality fans already coming with the case (as said Phanteks or Noctua would be my choices)

I really liked this case. And, boy, did I look for a case.

I need to admit that I didn't get what you mean (English is not my first language). Do you mean that you would get an additional fan to the ones I have included? Or that you would get better fans than the ones that are included with the case?

If the former, the Corsair H100 already comes with two fans, and the case itself already comes with three. With another four I'm including, those are a LOT of fans. You want me to add one more?

If the latter, would you replace all the fans with the Phanteks, including the ones that come with the Corsair H100?

Not a fan of the Corsair 100, I'd personally go with air cooling or if you do want liquid get at least the 105i or the Kraken equivalent.

I'm proposing water cooling really just because it seems cleaner, and I do want to show it off. However, if I did switch to air cooling, do you think the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is a good choice? https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hmtCmG/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2

This build can easily handle the 7700k.

The heat spikes really make me nervous:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/paul-taylor/core-i7-7700k-temperature-spikes-enrage-users/
https://communities.intel.com/thread/110728
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/5mk7b7/i7_7700k_temperature_spiking/

A 2 TB SSD I find excessive and unnecessarily expensive. Get a 512GB one if you want to store your games on it and a 3TB HDD for general storage. Spending 700$ on a SSD is hardly worth it

Those loading times... those darn loading times. And you should see my 1 TB HDD right now, is up to the brim with installed games. But I get your point: I think I need to learn to push that uninstall button.

Thanks.

 

[Balkce]

Are you planning to overclock?

Have you calculated the TDP of your parts? That's a measure of how much heat you must get outside of the case and just gives you a rough reading of the challenge (if indeed, any). You can find an old build from me where I aimed to reduce TDP considerably, and TBH, it was a bit of an overkill approach (but it worked, hey ). Nowaday's air cooling with large, slow turning fans is surprisingly good.

No, I haven't.

How would I go about calculating this? Is there a website/tutorial where I can learn to do this?

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[varis]

You can speed up loading your games on the HDD with an Optane (cache) disk/memory.

For starters even PCPartspicker seems to list TDP info (you can find it on paper elsewhere too) and eg. your graphics card is given 250W (pretty high). However the figures on paper somewhat deviate from reality, but they can still be a good starting point.

Reviews have improved over the years and nowadays almost every component review includes a section titled something along the lines "Power, temperatures and noise" where you also can find TDP info (wattage). Just take note whether they're giving you the watts consumed of the component or their whole system in the graphs - obviously you don't want to count in the watts from their complete test system when figuring out how much just your one component is!

Compare your figures against mainstream systems, their included components and TDP, and their cooling solutions, and think how much extra heat you'll be dissipating and what is really required to do it.

 

[Balkce]

You can speed up loading your games on the HDD with an Optane (cache) disk/memory.

Did not consider that. I'll look into it. For now I have switched the 2 TB SSD for a 3 TB HDD in a 2.5" form factor so I can remove the HDD cage. Thanks to Isokolon for the suggestion.

For starters even PCPartspicker seems to list TDP info (you can find it on paper elsewhere too) and eg. your graphics card is given 250W (pretty high). However the figures on paper somewhat deviate from reality, but they can still be a good starting point.

Reviews have improved over the years and nowadays almost every component review includes a section titled something along the lines "Power, temperatures and noise" where you also can find TDP info (wattage). Just take note whether they're giving you the watts consumed of the component or their whole system in the graphs - obviously you don't want to count in the watts from their complete test system when figuring out how much just your one component is!

Compare your figures against mainstream systems and their cooling solutions, and think how much extra heat you'll be dissipating and what is really required to do it.

Got it.

I'll need to go over that, and, yes, you are right, that Asus Strix is really warm. That's why I want to connect its fan headers to one or two of the exhaust fans to help with that.

Thanks.

 

[Isokolon]

Currently in my phone so quoting is a bit difficult.

If the manual states both PWM & DC mode for the system fan headers then mea culpa. It's a bit unusual for MSI boards to have all PWM headers, seems they either changed their philosophy or this is a top notch board from them.

Don't worry, English isn't my first language either.
What I meant was, the case you've picked comes with I think 3 fans preinstalled.
No need to replace those as those are pretty great Phanteks fans. So adding additional fans is not really necessary (I was previously under the impression it comes with only 2 fans so adding 1 instead of 4 would have been my advise, but you're right it comes with 3 already so no need to buy additional fans)


And yes those where the fans I meant. The 140SP are 3 pin, the 140XP are 4 pin, if you care.

Well it is more flashy with a rad in there and might help with GPU cooling due to the space.
If you're getting a AIO liquid cooler, I'd keep the stock fans for now. This is the tested manufacturer condition, should be sufficient.

As for aircooling - the 212 Evo is a bit weak.
If you go for aircooling, I'd go with a Cryorig H5 at minimum. Better a Scythe Mugen Max, a Phanteks TC-14DX or a Noctua NH-D14​ or D15, especially if you're worried about heat.

If you got a bunch of loading times sensitive games and got the cash then by all means get a big ssd. Personally I don't put multiplayer games on an ssd because...well...for example when playing BF1 or even csgo, I'm one of the first ones on the server anyway. So if I'm waiting in a waiting screen or a loading screen doesn't make a difference to me.
And for singleplayer games...if I have to wait 20seconds for a level to load in Hitman, I'm not broken up about it either.
But I understand if other people have other preferences. So if this stuff is important to you go with a big SSD

 

[Balkce]

Currently in my phone so quoting is a bit difficult.

No worries.

If the manual states both PWM & DC mode for the system fan headers then mea culpa. It's a bit unusual for MSI boards to have all PWM headers, seems they either changed their philosophy or this is a top notch board from them.

Let me be clear: this is what I UNDERSTOOD from the manual. Here is a screenshot just to be sure: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2PW68jXcgAANnhMLWFRajJ2Z2c/view

This was another piece of the build that took me a long time to decide upon. It is well-graded in its price range: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-z270-gaming-pro-carbon-review.html

The only thing is that it doesn't have WiFi builtin, but I'm not planning in using it since I'm going to put this right beside the switch. Besides, who games over WiFi? =P

Don't worry, English isn't my first language either.

Couldn't tell.

What I meant was, the case you've picked comes with I think 3 fans preinstalled.
No need to replace those as those are pretty great Phanteks fans. So adding additional fans is not really necessary (I was previously under the impression it comes with only 2 fans so adding 1 instead of 4 would have been my advise, but you're right it comes with 3 already so no need to buy additional fans)

And yes those where the fans I meant. The 140SP are 3 pin, the 140XP are 4 pin, if you care.

Cool beans, then.

Well it is more flashy with a rad in there and might help with GPU cooling due to the space.
If you're getting a AIO liquid cooler, I'd keep the stock fans for now. This is the tested manufacturer condition, should be sufficient.

That's more or less what I thought. Seeing that the MoBo has a CPU fan and a PUMP fan, I think I'll stick with the AIO cooling.

You mentioned the H105, and I checked it out. Wow, it really is an upgrade from the H100i (better mounting, better cooling, better pump) for basically the same money. It is thicker, but the case has the clearance for it in front. Thanks for this.

As for aircooling - the 212 Evo is a bit weak.
If you go for aircooling, I'd go with a Cryorig H5 at minimum. Better a Scythe Mugen Max, a Phanteks TC-14DX or a Noctua NH-D14​ or D15, especially if you're worried about heat.

Like I said, I think I'm going with an AIO liquid cooler, but these suggestions are great for reference if I change my mind down the line. Thanks.

If you got a bunch of loading times sensitive games and got the cash then by all means get a big ssd. Personally I don't put multiplayer games on an ssd because...well...for example when playing BF1 or even csgo, I'm one of the first ones on the server anyway. So if I'm waiting in a waiting screen or a loading screen doesn't make a difference to me.
And for singleplayer games...if I have to wait 20seconds for a level to load in Hitman, I'm not broken up about it either.
But I understand if other people have other preferences. So if this stuff is important to you go with a big SSD

I thought about this a while and, as I mentioned in another reply, you have a point: it's $700 USD (more than 25% of the price of the build, and almost as much as the monster of a GPU) only for a reduction of 10 seconds of loading times... I think I should be able to live with that. Besides, I can still store quite a lot of "vip" games in the 500 GB M.2 (Witcher 3, Skyrim, GTA V, etc.) and the rest (WoW, Overwatch, Diablo 3, COD, etc.) on a big HDD.

So, I've replaced the 2 TB SSD with a 2 TB HDD (with a 2.5" form factor, so I can ditch the drive cage). This, by itself, lowered the cost of the build quite a lot (almost $600 USD). Thanks, I appreciate it... more so considering that with this change, to afford this build, I only need to fast two weeks instead of three =P

All the changes I've made can be seen now in: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JMQyr7

I've modified the original post to reflect this.

Thanks.

 

[Isokolon]

Well as I read the manual you've screenshotted, only CPU & PUMP fan headers are true PWM
The SYS fan headers are DC mode, so voltage control. That's a typical setup for MSI & Gigabyte boards.

So I'd just go with the included fans, lose the Corsair MLs completely and get a 7700k instead with the money.

Furthermore you don't need an 850W PSU. 650W would do, you can get the 750W for quieter operation.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($329.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H105 73.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($100.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI - Z270 GAMING PRO CARBON ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($163.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($247.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 2TB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($86.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB STRIX GAMING Video Card ($768.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo EVOLV ATX ATX Mid Tower Case ($138.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit ($132.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $2260.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-19 08:41 EDT-0400

2 things in the build remain though:
- personally I don't think you'll need win 10 pro
- while I empathise with your 2.5 HDD thought this drive is only 5400rpm. I strongly suggest a 7200rpm drive, am unsure though they make them in 2.5 inches.

 

[Balkce]

Well as I read the manual you've screenshotted, only CPU & PUMP fan headers are true PWM
The SYS fan headers are DC mode, so voltage control. That's a typical setup for MSI & Gigabyte boards.

So I'd just go with the included fans, lose the Corsair MLs completely and get a 7700k instead with the money.

I guess you're right: https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/luke-hill/msi-z270-gaming-pro-carbon-motherboard-review/4/ Damn it. Oh well, l guess I can always add PWM fans later and hook them up to the ASUS Strix (it has extra headers for fans).

Furthermore you don't need an 850W PSU. 650W would do, you can get the 750W for quieter operation.

One of the things I was thinking later on for this build (really later on) was to have room (physically and power-wise) for a second GPU. The Phanteks case and the MoBo are able to handle this, and that's why I went with the 850 W PSU. I considered the 750 W, but in this 2-GPU hypothetical (which is in the 735 W range), it would be cutting it too close. I'm fine paying the $20 difference for this.

2 things in the build remain though:
- personally I don't think you'll need win 10 pro
- while I empathise with your 2.5 HDD thought this drive is only 5400rpm. I strongly suggest a 7200rpm drive, am unsure though they make them in 2.5 inches.

- How the hell did that get in there? Thanks for that.
- Now that you mention it, I focused on the form factor not the RPM, which is silly of me, considering the rant I did on loading times. Unfortunately, a 2 TB 2.5" 7200 RPM HDD costs around $200, which I'm not that comfortable with. I changed it to a 3.5" 7200 RPM, and with 3 TB... if it's going to occupy that much physical space, it might as well symbolize the amount of digital space it can bear. Thanks.

The new build is in: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/W8mF9W and the OP has been amended.

The only thing I haven't been convinced is with the 7700k. I know that with all the savings you've helped me with, getting this CPU is possible, which is to be considered because of its overclockability. However, its heat issues still worry me. Care to give your opinion about them? Do you think they're overreactions?

 

[Isokolon]

if you couldn't cool a 7700k with a 100$ cooler, than Intel would got serious problems.
that CPU can be cooled with a 212X before overclocking, a 50$ air cooler can handle an overclocked 7700k so you're good, really

nice build.