Discussion To what extent do you squeeze the last ounce of performance/cooling ability/noise reduction out of your system?

[HWOC]

Are you one of those people who gets annoyed when someone says "the thermal paste doesn't really matter, would make a 1 - 3 degrees difference at most", or "you'll be fine with any of those fans"?

For a performance/cooling enthusiast, those are simply not acceptable answers! We need to know what is the absolute best, and what gives us the 0.1 degree improvement in temperatures, or 0.5% improvement in performance, or 0.1 dB decrease in noise output.

Tell us about your methods to squeeze the last 0.01% out of your system or components, no matter how ridiculous!

Examples of my own would be to add bitumic/foam noise isolating material to every nook and cranny of my computer case that is not a fan vent, some bits as small as 1cm x 1cm, or disabling serial port in the BIOS because I don't need it, in order to make my system "leaner".

 

[kanewolf]

For a performance/cooling enthusiast, those are simply not acceptable answers! We need to know what is the absolute best, and what gives us the 0.1 degree improvement in temperatures, or 0.5% improvement in performance, or 0.1 dB decrease in noise output.

I will very much disagree. You won't be able to tell most of those changes in real use. 0,1dB is not an audible difference to the ear. 3dB maybe and even that is frequency dependent. Knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing something has to be improved.

 

[HWOC]

I will very much disagree. You won't be able to tell most of those changes in real use. 0,1dB is not an audible difference to the ear. 3dB maybe and even that is frequency dependent. Knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing something has to be improved.

I guess you mileage may vary. For me personally every ounce is worth squeezing, as long as it's decent value in terms of money and time. I wouldn't spend a hundred bucks to get 1 more fps, or 10 hours to do the same, but I would spend twenty bucks or a couple of hours for it. I understand nothing like that would be noticeable in practice, but that's not the point!

 

[rubix_1011]

I don't think that the conversation 'thermal paste doesn't matter....use whatever' has been a discussion here. Other times, fan discussions are the same also, nearly always with specific fans and models being suggested.

Nearly every instance of the thermal paste or fan discussion is one extreme or the other: the original thread owner does not care what thermal paste or fans they use, they only want to use correct amount and orientation, which is very evident in the thread. Or, the opposite is true: someone is looking for or using top tier thermal compound or already using it and looking for advice or wishes to get advanced setup and config for fans.

Seems like this thread is meant to simply incite debate in areas that isn't necessary or applicable. It also covers multiple areas of discussion, not only cooling, which this thread is listed under.

I wouldn't spend a hundred bucks to get 1 more fps, or 10 hours to do the same, but I would spend twenty bucks or a couple of hours for it. I understand nothing like that would be noticeable in practice, but that's not the point!

Then what is the point? I guess I don't follow your logic, here.

 

[HWOC]

I wasn't specifically referring to this forum when I said that people suggest "use whatever" etc, just internet in general.

But fair enough, if you think this topic was inappropriate, feel free to delete this thread. I thought it was a fun idea to discuss, my apologies.
I was curious to find out to what lengths others had gone, things that are often funny, like sawing off fan grilles from cases etc.

 

[GarrettL]

I don't chase a few FPS anymore with overclocking.

Times have changed and the way cpu's auto boost today any overclock may be so marginal it's not worth the time.

 

[rubix_1011]

Agreed. Also chasing synthetic benchmark FPS or scores over and over and over and over again hoping that each run nets a score of 8850 when you got 8848 the run before. Far too many variables exist for 1-2 FPS or a handful of points each time a benchmark is run.

Far too much time and energy (and money) is spent by far too many people to impress people they don't know or don't like....on the internet.

But if it makes you feel good, have at it.

 

[HWOC]

I get it that it's not your cup of tea, which is fair. Some of us enjoy this kind of thing. Perhaps I'm on the wrong forum, I should have probably posted this on hwbot.org.

 

[GarrettL]

To each his own.

"Back in the day" we could overclock as it was easier and chips weren't binned like they are today.

Have fun clockin'.

 

[HWOC]

I don't know much about the latest chips, I started overclocking on a Pentium 75MHz, simple motherboard jumper move to get it to run at 100Mhz. One extra 80mm fan for the case and you were golden.

 

[USAFRet]

Performance and complexity loses out to stability. For me.

Chasing a 2 degree temp reduction does squat for performance.
Chasing 5 FPS does nothing for my eyeballs.
Looking for a 6 second boot time can be done, by reducing the system to an otherwise unusable condition.

However, some people chase those numbers as the hobby.
In that case, go for it.

 

[rubix_1011]

I get it that it's not your cup of tea, which is fair. Some of us enjoy this kind of thing. Perhaps I'm on the wrong forum, I should have probably posted this on hwbot.org.

Oh, it's my cup of tea, but I'm not doing any of the things you are discussing. The items I'm interested in are network latency, read/write/access times of NVMe drives, NAS/RAID storage and computational power with a focus on stability. I could care less about getting 10Mhz extra when I could get 8 extra cores and double the on-die CPU cache while also doubling my DDR4 memory volume while also reducing timings.

I could care less about which thermal paste gets me 0.5C less temp (on custom watercooling) or if a fan has 0.35 mmHG of static pressure more, or 1.5CFM more than another.

In my opinion, the items you mention have little bearing on the overall hardware picture when it comes to absolute computational solution as a whole. A fan or slightly different thermal compound are not going to make any difference by reducing a core temp by 0.3C when you are already 45C under the CPU thermal threshold anyway.

 

[HWOC]

In my opinion, the items you mention have little bearing on the overall hardware picture when it comes to absolute computational solution as a whole. A fan or slightly different thermal compound are not going to make any difference by reducing a core temp by 0.3C when you are already 45C under the CPU thermal threshold anyway.

I agree 100%. It is merely a hobby of chasing numbers. A bit like accumulating money for money's sake, or running 100m in the fastest possible time etc etc.