clayton006

So I'm rock solid at 200clk without turbo boost on giving me 4.0 GHz exactly. What I want to know is, if I go with water can I turn on turbo mode and make this thing go to 4.4 GHz? Right now I'm running H50's for cooling and I fear that if I try turbo mode at 4.4 GHz with them I'd have to put in some crazy voltage and I'd risk killin my CPU's. Any thoughts?

Voltage really isn't the biggest killer, it is the heat. Yes you do not want to pump crazy voltage through it but I run 1.4375v through my CPU 27/7. I personally will not go higher than 1.45 depending on how good my cooling is.

clayton006

I wonder if with my setup turbo would be possible if I switch to water at those speeds.

dunno, how hot you running? every chip is differant. also depends on how long you want the chips to last. if you want 3 years of 4 hours a day out them it will probably be ok to find the bleading edge. if you run 24/7 and want more than 3 years, I would stay at 4gigs. thats a respectable oc for those chips.

that seems hot to me. I run bclk at 161 on my 5672's at 25x with custom watercooling at 18-22 degrees idle and 40-50 degrees depending on ambiant on full load folding on all cores at 100% for sometimes 36-48 hours streight. your coolers won't match mine for effitiency, but they should do better than that. I would redo the tim on them.

I don't see much of a point to be honest, as going from 4 Ghz to 4.5 Ghz represents a 12% increase in clock speed, and in performance terms that's wjhat you get assuming the application you're running is completely CPU dependent and not limited by anything else...To put this in practical terms, if whatever you're running is either taking too long or running too slowly when at 4 Ghz, it isn't going to be much better when running at 4.5 Ghz, so the trouble to push it to the very limit like that, unless you're aiming to beat a benchmark, simply isn't worth it really. 
 
 
I water cool my setup too and run at 4 Ghz even, but the main advantage is to keep temperatures under control and the system as silent as possible as the last thing i want is everything air cooled on both CPU's and using 4 video cards and extra fans inside the case, that combined, get loud enough it sounds like i'm firing up my vacuum cleaner each time i would turn the PC on...

Like i said earlier, in programs leveraging all the cores and being completely CPU limited, the gain is about 12% on clock speed, so if you were encoding blu-ray in about an hour, with the overclock to 4.5 Ghz you'll end up doing them in 55 mins....The performance improvement is there obviously, but not exactly what i'd call mind blowing either..
 
 
For a potentially much bigger improvement, the last couple generations of video cards support encoding using H 264 and there are programs already written to use the GPU's rather than CPU's for video encoding....I got 3 GTX580's and i'm going to move to 4 HD7970's and apart from the pretty large improvement in gaming, encoding movies should be a snap using that much GPU power too( water cooled of course)...

i do have to say that 200bclk 24/7 is unrealistic. 180 or 190 is more reasonable. i run 182x22 on my X5670s (4ghz) and it is solid as a rock. 

I guess I can bump down the bclk but I haven't had really any problems with it yet.

I think you are fine at 4ghz but I still think you need to work on your cooling. you should consider going to that corsair 100 or whatever it is with the dual rad if you have the room or full water I guess. you prob wont get it to oc much better, but you will get the temps down a bit. I bumped mine up to 4.4 to try it. this is stable for the last 18hours or so. I know i can get 4.7 but that would most likely take my temps to where yours are. I am going to back down to 4ghz as I am very happy with performance at that speed and the temps are 15 degrees cooler than what you see here.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can cut case holes with?  I know this is getting off topic but I think I'd like to get as much use and over clock out of this system as I can.

clayton006
#1) What program at the bottom that is partially hidden are you using to monitor CPU temps, I'm using eleet and it's somewhat lackng.

#2) I'm using the Xeon backplates for the Corsair H50 cooler. The stock backplates wouldn't work on the socket because of the VRM's (or whatever they are) on the back of the CPU. It was applying un-even pressure and I was concerned about that, so I opted for the Xeon backplate which has the same thread size as the screws for the cooler and it fits like a charm. I don't think this to be a part of my issue but you never know.

#3) I'm using Arctic Silver for my TIM. Some people recommend ceramique? I've seen (and googled) a bunch of different reviews on TIM. Any opinions out there / preference?

#4) I'm using two Ultra Kaze 120mm x 38mm fans for each of the H50's. They are louder than what I had before but flow a lot more air. I know this radiator isn't very thick so the fans are probably not doing me many favors. I cut out four non-functioning 120mm fans to use as spacers between the Ultra Kaze's and the H50 radiator in hopes to lessen the impact of the dead zone in the center of the fan. I may be way off on my implementation here, but any advice is greatly appreciated.

the monitoring is called core temp. google it it is a free ap. another free that works as good or better is Real temp http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/
i use core temp because it powers the gadget sidebar with the temps
I use the xeon backplates with custom waterblocks I designed and had another forum member make for me. you do have to make sure of even pressure. you can even watch the temp change on the cores by tightening a corner at a time till everything evens out. be carefull if you do this not to short anything as the computer is obviously running as you tighten and monitor temps. you can actually see your efforts in real time this way. don't tighten too much though. and do this under full load for full effect.
 
as far as tim goes. I really think its more about aplication than brand. there is a good guide here in the overclocking section stickies. I use all kinds of stuff as I am alwayse pulling the blocks for this and that as I build this case of mine. I usually use as5 as well. the ceramique is more for sub ambient in my opinion. but idk, it seems like something is off with your coolers. just a really stupid idea...do you have a protective piece of plastic on the bottom of the cooler block that needed to be peeled off? I don't mean to insult you by asking, but people have left that on b4 and had temp problems they couldnt figure out.
 
I have never used the h50's but I would imagine doubling the surface area by going to the h100 should make a diferance for you. true water cooling would work best though. I have a tripple rad on each cpu. it is overkill but ...whatever... so basically, can you feel the heat comming out of the rad? if it isnt blowing hot air then its not pulling the heat off the chips.

remember we don't have the same chip, so my numbers are definantly not an apple to apple comparison but i feel it is close enough to show you lower temps are posible. mine are 4 core x5672's for 16 threads where yours are 6 core for 24 threads http://ark.intel.com/compare/47922,52579

clayton006

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can cut case holes with?  I know this is getting off topic but I think I'd like to get as much use and over clock out of this system as I can.

Are you cutting metal or plexi? if it is metal then probably the best way for home cutting without shop equipment would be a fret saw. you would need to get the panel out completly to use it properly then draw your circle, drill a hole bigger than the blade on the inside of the hole to be cut then assemble the fret saw with the blade through the drill hole and the handle part outside. this may or may not work easily depending on your skill and saw and location.
 
you can use a ruter on metal or plexi. this would be much faster but requires a jig to be made and a router or dremel as well. use a bit with a bearing to ride on the jig so you get a perfect cut. use safty glasses or you will lose your eyes.

whatever is easier for you. I don't mind posting here or if you want shoot me a pm and I will give you my e-mail. I think with the 2 cpu and 4 gpu that sr1 style rad is awsom, but you may want  to use 2 of them. I am off to sleep. I will try to help more tomorow.

clayton006

Thanks I appreciate the assistance. I may PM you as I get further into the details. If the 4 fan - SR1 is good for two CPU's, the motherboard, and the four GPU's (and the GPU's are a maybe), then I may go that route with quieter fans with slower fans.

Any recommendations on CPU water blocks and a full coverage mobo block? I think someone on here makes a custom one that is supposed to be pretty good.

Unless anyone has a better idea, I'll probably use 1/2" tubing with koolance quick disconnects on the CPU's, Mobo, and radiator. I'd like to use them everywhere but that may make it hard to route 1/2" tubing?

the 4 fan sr-1 route is great for the cpu's and motherboard. but add on 4 more gpu's and you will heat up the loop pretty fast. a good rule of thumb is 1 120mm fan space on a rad per component. so that logic puts you at 8 120mm spaces so divide that up as you like to get the end result. eg. 2x 120x4, 1x 120x4 and 2x 120x2, 4x 120x2, 3x 120x3 ect.
 
http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?&m=943648&mpage=1
nate is a great guy and I use his blocks. I descided I wanted to do a custom cpu block to match his chipset blocks, so we worked it out and he made them for me. he has sold a lot of these over the last year. http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=1105103
 
ok so how well does it work? I can say great flow and works well. I can also say that honestly, it wont be better than the ek blocks. But I am happy with the look and performance. the other recomendations are ek, they make the chipset stuff and seem to be the most popular choice for cpu these days. (fotd) I think this new swiftech block for the cpu looks sort of cool
http://www.swiftech.com/ApogeeHD.aspx http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=1409348 I am not sure of weather the 4 nosels are a gimmic or not. nate could put the same setup on our cpu blocks if you like. swiftec doesnt make a chipset block for the sr-2 motherboard.
 
several other companies made a chipset block that was soposed to be ok. coolance, bitspower, ek being the most common. availability may be an issue on these now as the new sr-x is looming on the horizon.

i really like my d5 pumps you can use a ddc as well both these are fine.
http://www.swiftech.com/pumps.aspx
these two pumps have a lot of companies put thier names on the same pump. swiftech versin is called the 655=d5 or 355=ddc
as far as fans go gental typhoons or something similar work good on the low fpi rads where a higher cfm fan works better on the thicker high fpi rads like the sr-1. there are a million chioces but look for high static pressure and low noise. the liquid bearings seem to be the longest lasting

sorry to confuse you. my mistake. I was getting the sr-1 mixed up with the gtx. sr1 is good for low speed fans gtx good for mid to high speed fans.
 
the sr-1 is great for low speed fans up to 1200rpm one of the best rads you can get when you want a really quiet system. it does not cool as well as the gtx though when you use a 1800 or higher rpm fan. higher rpm = more noise though. for what you want to do with the high overclocks, a good option would be gtx 480 rad with the 20fpi and these noctua fans
 http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=42&lng=en
then use a double d5 pump top to get high flow and you will be good to go.
 
the problem with this setup is that it takes a bit more space and it is designed to run the higher rpm fans so will be a bit noisier.
what I use and love is http://www.swiftech.com/mcrx20-xp-radiator-series-1.aspx
these rads are thinner than the black ice gtx and by that reason dont cool quite as well, but the price and size make up for it in my mind. so I recomend 2 of these with the noctua fans listed above with the dual d5 pump top. use either the ek one or the bispower one in my opinion. this combo will cool nates blocks cpu and chip along with your 4 cards fine. start with one rad for the chips first, then add the second for the 4 gpu's later.
 
in my opinion running these fans at 1500rpm is quiet enough and lots of air flow to cool properly for higher overclocks.