T.E.C. on Socket 940 Opteron 280

[Malice007]

I am in the process of setting up a dual processor Opteron 280 gaming rig, which I plan on OCing the living crap out of. Does anyone know of a prebuilt setup T.E.C. that will work for a socket 940 cpu? I am a complete n00b when it comes to T.E.C., and I'm hoping to pull decent sub ambient out of the rig. Power draw and money are not an issue, as this will be in my internet gaming cafe. The specs on the system will be as follows:

Dual processor AMD Opteron 280 Dual Cores
Tyan Thunder K8WE motherboard w/SLI
Dual BFG 7800GTX 512Gb SLI video cards
8Gb Corsair XMS RAM
74Gb WD Raptor 10k HDD in RAID 0
X-Fi Elite Pro 8 sound card
Asus DVD Writer
Windows XP 64

Mountainmods U2-UFO custom designed case mod
Dual PC Power + Cooling 850 SLI power supplies
Dual cooling loop, each loop for one cpu and one gpu
Dual Weapon modded 2-302 heatercores with shrouds
Dual MCP655 pumps

With the proper blocks and pelts, do you think this system can keep up with cooling? Please help me refine this system with any suggestions you may have on cooling or system performance in general. Do you think the PC Power + Cooling 850 SLI can run two 350W pelts while the other can run the system, pumps, and two 80W pelts? If now, what are your expert collective opinions? Please help!!!

[uOpt]

Do you know about the overclocking options on the K8WE?

As far as I know there is no explicit voltage control. Some even say there is no explit control over the memory divider.

So even if you use clockgen to set the LDT, then your overclock might be severely limited. You might end up with 2500 MHz per core, limiting yourself to the performance of a $150 CPU for single-threaded games.

[Holst]

I dont mean to be rude but it might be an idea to read the stickies and some threads.

In answer to your questions -

do you think this system can keep up with cooling?
The weapon cores and 655 pumps will be ok as long as you use some decent fans. But with this sort of insane wattage the fans will need to be LOUD.
I would recomend using a bong cooler, or rads external to the building.

I would NEVER recomend running pelts on a PC power supply.
Dedicated PSU are going to be needed for such a system.

80watt pelt wont be enough for a 7800gtx, 172watt minimum and I recomend a 226watt. I dont think you can buy an appropriate waterblock for a 7800gtx either.

Pelts on this sort of system will be VERY hard to get working well, and probably wont give the sort of temps you expect them too.
I would very seriously consider building (or having built) phase change cooling .. its going to be 20*c cooler, easyer cheaper to run and more reliable.

[Malice007]

Thank you for the advice. I read the stickies and threads, and nothing on the 280 processor. I guess I'll have to look into phase. I'm about as knowledgeable about phase as T.E,C., meaning no knowledge whatsoever. I can buy extra dedicated power supplies, that's no problem. I can also upgrade to larger heatercores, like the 120.3 or the quad heatercore from weapon. Can you think of ANY way to make this work??? Also, anyone happen to know of any better SLI dual processor OC motherboards? Tyan was the ONLY SLI dual board I've found.

[afireinside]

Dual core will run TECs over. You will also need dual high wattage PSUs to run 2 TECs. And a water loop for each CPU.

[n00b 0f l337]

Or experiment into a bong :)

[uOpt]

Thank you for the advice. I read the stickies and threads, and nothing on the 280 processor. I guess I'll have to look into phase. I'm about as knowledgeable about phase as T.E,C., meaning no knowledge whatsoever. I can buy extra dedicated power supplies, that's no problem. I can also upgrade to larger heatercores, like the 120.3 or the quad heatercore from weapon. Can you think of ANY way to make this work??? Also, anyone happen to know of any better SLI dual processor OC motherboards? Tyan was the ONLY SLI dual board I've found.

Are you aware of condensation?

I think the Asus dual 940 board is a little more overclocking featured, but nothing spectacular either, and it is a piece of junk in other regards (Asus has no clue about server boards)

In any case, I highly doubt that even those games which are multithreaded today or in the near furture will be able to schedule more than 2 CPU eaters at any point in time. It is a safe guess that the game engines didn't split up individual computation steps, they almost certainly just manage to put two different steps in parallel. There will be a very sharp cutoff on the number of CPUs such a game can make use of, and it will probably be 2 CPUs.

[Holst]

I cant help much with the dual opteron overclocking.

If you are serious about this I would buy the hardware and see if it will OC .

There is no point in investing in CPU cooling if the motherboard cant OC much.

Phase with 4 seperate evaps will be complicated and expensive.
TEC with 4 devices will also be expensive and very very hard to set up.

Were I building such a system I would think VERY carefully about a waterchiller setup.
This will get you good temps (below zero with the right gear) will cost less to run and will be easyer* to set up than pelts or direct die phase change.
I think a waterchiller system would be ideal for your sort of system.

* = easyer in a comparative way.. not easy per say, you wil still need to insulate everything and the chiller itself will need to be powerfull to cope with 2 CPU and 2 GPU.

[Malice007]

Until the mbs get better, I'm screwed. The mb in question isn't really an OC dream. Getting SLI and a decent OC on a dual proc board is next to impossible it seems. None of the Asus are SLI, none of the Tyan are real overclockers. Back to the drawing board. Looks like I'll have to go to Plan B. In search of the illusive FX-57 gaming at 4GHz, hehe. I have a playable X2 4800+ @ 3.2 on modded Vapochill LS, new refrigerant and better HX. Might try and do that with an FX-57 @ around 4GHz. I designed a direct bolt on addition for the bottom of the U2-UFO 18Lx18Wx10H resembling the case which bolts into the existing caster mounts on the bottom. It will hold the modded Vapochill LS w/led plate on case exterior, a removable cylinder aluminum resevoir/finned heatsink at 1 gallon w/acrylic top and fillport, 6 of the 120mm fans 3 intake and 3 exhaust, fan controller, a 5.25" drive rack to hold 2 Meanwell S-320-12 dedicated ps for running 2 of the 172W pelts (most watts I can find at 40mm x 40mm) for video cards w/dual cooling loops in bottom addition to the case. This T.E.C. block will fit the 7800GTX, Acetal Top MAZE4-1GPU Peltier Version, but might take a bit of smart board shopping to find a board with extra space between PCIe slots to accomodate the extra width. I think some ASUS boards have the extra space, still shopping. Do you think the 172W will be enough beef for OC 7800GTX w/512 ram? I will heatsink the ram on the vcards, and will have beefy heatercores in the dual loops to wick out tons of heat from the pelts. A local machinist I know can build my addition to the UFO case on the cheap, so I think I may try this setup and see if I can get some serious horsepower out of an FX-57. What do you think?

[Malice007]

OK, I was right, the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe AiLife Gaming Edition has 2 PCI slots between the true 16x SLI slots, so looks like I may have room for the TEC gpu blocks. DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR appears a bit too cramped to fit the TEC water blocks.

[Holst]

Until the mbs get better, I'm screwed. The mb in question isn't really an OC dream. Getting SLI and a decent OC on a dual proc board is next to impossible it seems. None of the Asus are SLI, none of the Tyan are real overclockers. Back to the drawing board. Looks like I'll have to go to Plan B. In search of the illusive FX-57 gaming at 4GHz, hehe. I have a playable X2 4800+ @ 3.2 on modded Vapochill LS, new refrigerant and better HX. Might try and do that with an FX-57 @ around 4GHz. I designed a direct bolt on addition for the bottom of the U2-UFO 18Lx18Wx10H resembling the case which bolts into the existing caster mounts on the bottom. It will hold the modded Vapochill LS w/led plate on case exterior, a removable cylinder aluminum resevoir/finned heatsink at 1 gallon w/acrylic top and fillport, 6 of the 120mm fans 3 intake and 3 exhaust, fan controller, a 5.25" drive rack to hold 2 Meanwell S-320-12 dedicated ps for running 2 of the 172W pelts (most watts I can find at 40mm x 40mm) for video cards w/dual cooling loops in bottom addition to the case. This T.E.C. block will fit the 7800GTX, Acetal Top MAZE4-1GPU Peltier Version, but might take a bit of smart board shopping to find a board with extra space between PCIe slots to accomodate the extra width. I think some ASUS boards have the extra space, still shopping. Do you think the 172W will be enough beef for OC 7800GTX w/512 ram? I will heatsink the ram on the vcards, and will have beefy heatercores in the dual loops to wick out tons of heat from the pelts. A local machinist I know can build my addition to the UFO case on the cheap, so I think I may try this setup and see if I can get some serious horsepower out of an FX-57. What do you think?


Sounding good to me :)

The vapochill will allways beat a TEC, so thats a smart move on the CPU front.

172watt will work well on the 7800's and with your add on case you should be able to get good cooling for the water.

Personally I dislike dangerdan maze4GPU for TEC use, to quote a guy on systemcooling "maze4 is a dog for TEC"
Swiftech blocks would be a much better alternative, as they have a much higher surface area and were designed for TEC use.

Winchlabs did make a GPU block for nvidia cards, but im not sure if it fitted your cards (i suspect not)

I dont suppose your friend can make you some coldplates and mounts for some swiftech 6002 blocks?
This would be a much better solution as you can run 220watt TEC and the block design/performance will be MUCH MUCH better than commercial GPU blocks.

[Malice007]

I love Swifty blocks, only prob is, once again, I'm flying blind, I don't know dork about TECs! Do you know anyone who might have designed this mount? If I had tech/CAD drawings or a better understanding of how it's supposed to work, I could whip something up in CAD and my guy can make it. To make the addition to the case, I took accurate measurements from the original case, and made a CAD mockup for him. Have to give this one some extra thought. Hate to have to buy the Maze, Swifty, 172, and 226 just to take measurements and reinvent the wheel, if there is already a solution floating around out there somewhere. Thanks for the advice so far.