Need advice to fix build.

Dragoic · May 5, 2013

Thread closed.

[strike]Dear Tom’s Hardware users

I need some advice to fix my build. In the past ½ year, it feel more or less like I keep throwing money on something that is just not performing as it should. Even if I’ve done everything to insure maximum performance

Now to the build and the issues.

Build
CPU: I7 3770 3,4GHz “not overclocked”
GPU: Radeon HD 7970 ”Not overclocked”
MOBO: EVGA Z77 Stinger
RAM: Cosair Vengeance 8GB ”not overclocked”
HDD: 2x Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB
PSU: Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 10 650W
Fans: 4x Noctua NF-F12 PWM and 1x Noctua NF-P14 FLX
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II

Water Cooling: Complete EKWB set with Laing 1plus (18W) Pump.
GPU: Full cover block.
CPU: Supremacy Nickel.
RADS: 1 x dual 120 65mm. 1x single 120 65mm. 1x single 140 65mm

Now to the issues

CPU: When I made my build, I ask around what the best and most efficient CPU were. The answer quick. Intel Ivy Bridge. It is expensive, and consume almost no power. However, have I never had a CPU that have been such a corner- cutter and downright dreadful when it comes to cooling it. It’s like fighting a nuclear reactor on its way to meltdown. It stays at 31.C at idle and 65.C under load.

Just to kill the fact. Yes, the thermal past is placed and applied correctly and the thermal past is Arctic Silver 5

GPU: I see my Radeon HD 7970 as an anti-material rifle. Powerful is all its specs. Nevertheless, the issue is that its scope is a toilet paper roll (Its driver). Bugs, bugs, bugs and performance issues. Yes I could downgrade the driver, but that will only leave me with another very annoying fog/smoke rendering issue.

Therefore, my question is. Is the green grass on the other side better or do I have to stay with my red grass.

Cooling system: Lately I found out that my pump is u unstable and sometimes do not run (have nothing to do with my CPU heat issues). The easy solution would be to just buy a new pump. But by time I’ve both grown paranoid and annoyed by the many issues and the maintain requirements just to keep it cool’n’quiet

So what do I do here? If my desire is to have a PC that does not make more noise than a whisper and Is still able to keep the system cool. [/strike]

ingtar33 · May 5, 2013

ok... you meantion 3 problems... 2 of them are connected so lets start there.

1) the cpu and cooling system.
-Fix the pump issue asap. You already spend a small fortune on that cooling setup lets make it work right. replace the pump.
-You need to overclock this bad boy. you're mistaking how watercooling works. it's more effective the hotter the cpu is... it's also sensitive to ambient temps... so a warmer day = warmer cpu. 60c is hot, but not hot enough to matter for an intel cpu. You can safely run an intel up to 90C before you start to run into issues.
-if cpu temps are an issue you're concerned about none the less, i suggest you delid that cpu. IBs run hot in large part because intel messed up on the heatspreader. delidding solves that problem and will give you great temp reduction and overclocking potential.

2) team red's gpus have suffered driver issues for a while. I'm not sure what your problem is, but you might have to deal with it. The grass isn't necessarily greener on the green team either. There most certainly are and remain driver issues from update to update for different titles... for example, i've had to roll my drivers back to 4yo drivers just to play Mass Effect... because the last 2 or 3 new drivers crash my system when playing that game. both companies have driver issues, theyre just more pronounced right now on team red... i somehow doubt it will be worth the cash to switch sides on this issue.

~sidenote. if you decide your water system isn't worth the hassle feel free to send it to me. I'll pay the shipping. My whole rig is something i've collected for free (it sucks being a poor missionary sometimes), so i'm always looking for upgrades over current eq. you should see my cpu cooling setup. pure mcguiver.

manofchalk · May 5, 2013

1. Idle temps aren't indicative of cooling performance, they are very much subject to ambient temperatures. I also run a custom water setup on on some hot days my chip can idle at 40°C. Currently its idling at ~20°C, load temps are around 50°C.
Your temps are completely to be expected and are nothing bad.

2. Driver issues, dont know. Never had any issues myself with AMD drivers, conversely nor have I with Nvidia (though admittedly my last Nvidia card was a 9800GT).

The artifacts (rendering issues) your seeing can be the result of three things, driver issues, its overheating (not necessarily the GPU, the VRAM) or you have unstable clockspeeds.
Drivers you cant do much about other than test them out. Try bumping your voltage up a bit on the card and see if that fixes it. If not, you may have to unmount the waterblock and make sure the VRAM thermal pads are making proper contact between the chip and block. Those overheating can cause just as many issues as the GPU can, and they don't have temperature sensors on them.
Make sure you didnt accidentally leave the plastic on the thermal pads as well.

3. Buy a new pump, dont even know why this is a question.
One of the quieter pumps on the market is the Koolance PMP-450.
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2011/04/03/koolance-pmp-450-d5-vario-pump/

swifty_morgan · May 5, 2013

I know nobody wants to hear this but, to fix the other problems I would remove the water cooling set up so I could start to nip each one in the bud as they go.

the ivy bridge isn't the sandy bridge. in the ivy bridge Intel changed the way the processor was cooled....under the cap..... talk about infinite wisdom. must have saved 1 cent per processor........

I don't know what other people are talking about when they say the red teams drivers are causing all kinds of problems....... guess they would if you tried to install them to run your nvidia card.

you should also inspect your BIOS settings, from the speed fan/sensors to the ram voltages/timings to your raid set up with your ssd's.

by the way, exactly what ram?

and a better explanation of what performance issues..

TenPc · May 5, 2013

EVGA is only deals with Nvidia graphic cards (among other things) and the chipset for the motherboard is Intel, even though AMD is an acceptable manufacturer, I'd go with a Nvidia video card instead for this Intel Z77 motherboard.

The PCIe slot is only x16, there is no mention of it being 2.0 nor 3.0 so I'd say that you'd need a fairly old graphics card, probably in the range of the GT 9000's. Even with backward compatibility, you won't get the full value with a PCIe 3.0 video card.

5 x fans is a bit overkill, the motherboard is a micro board barely big enough to even fill half a PC case.
You should have the case weighted down, it might fly away with all those fans

One would assume the 650 watt PSU to be adequate but the use of all those fans and a water pump, video card, and everything else, might be a bit of drain on the 12v rail, I'd probably either opt for only 2 fans for that PSU or go up a notch or two in watts for having 5 x fans (and the water cooler pump).

marshallbradley · May 5, 2013

I don't exactly see quite the issue here, your temps aren't amazing, but neither are they bad by any means.

Could you possibly be more specific about the driver issues. If you're looking for flawless gaming on every single title, that simply is not going to happen, no matter if you are nVidia or AMD. I recently switched from a 7950 to a GTX 670 (it was a noise issue, not game performance) and either way there was always some small issue (recent drivers for example caused stuttering in FC3, something which never happened in that game with AMD). I think this is just a case of the grass always being greener.

If you don't want to overclock, why bother water cooling? What sort of temperatures are you aiming for, and what's the ambient temperature like? I think it would be better for you to simplify a lot and just go to air cooling, given that you don't seem to interested in over clocking. Perhaps delid your CPU as well if temperature is such a big concern to you.

M

Dragoic · May 5, 2013

Okay.

The MOBO is 3.0.
1 x PCIe 3.0 x16
1 x PCIe Mini Card

Why I even bother about water cooling is that: 1: Air coolers often blocks the RAM slots 2: It makes much lesser noise and is able to run on very low fan speed. 3: Graphic cards so very often comes with the most dreadful fans. All cards I’ve had from AMD almost drove me insane by its noise.

The graphic issues IS driver related. Its things like, the UI in league of legends, time to time flickers (checked it up and others had the same issues with the AMD 7series.).

No. 5 fans is needed. 2 to the dual RAD and 1 for each single RAD. The last one to ventilate the MOBO

Why I have taken a mini-ITX is that I NEVER and will NEVER SLI or Crossfire. Therefore, it was pointless to have an ATX. Also that EVGA is the only company I truly trust when it comes to customer support. Sorry but ASUS have just thrown too much crapware at me to respect them anymore ( Yes it was high-end ATX boards like CROSSHAIR V FORMULA and the Sabertooth Z77)

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Need advice to fix build.

Dragoic

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ingtar33

Glorious

manofchalk

Glorious

swifty_morgan

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TenPc

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marshallbradley

Honorable

Dragoic

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