Question Custom loop - worth it?

[ZowieR]

I want to buy new PC and I dont know if this worth it and what is the benefits..
it was really cool and more beauty? much lower temps than D15 for example?

And what about upgrades in the future? when I want upgrade GPU or CPU.. only find new waterblock and connect?
some AIO costs maybe 300$ .. and this full custom loop costs 1000$
And I think if I have it I dont need to open the coolers and clean dust anymore.. because it was all waterblocks without fans for the cpu and gpu..

 

[WhiteNoise]

I used to build custom water loops. I was heavily overclocking and back then it helped a lot but after so many years of having to keep filling up the fluid, cleaning the tubes (I used silver coils but the tubes would still get a film within) I decided it was more effort than I was willing to put in. I also discovered some really good AIO water systems that performed very well. IMO I'd just stick with a good AIO for simplicity. Not only will you save money, and a lot of money, but AIO units cool good enough for anything you want to do.

IMO going full custom loop is more for the looks these days but in some cases when extreme OCing, a custom loop will perform better.

 

[A5]

Custom loops and AIOs still require maintenance, just in different places. I’m of the general opinion that even AIO coolers are of dubious value over a good air cooler in most situations.

 

[guidryp]

And I think if I have it I dont need to open the coolers and clean dust anymore.. because it was all waterblocks without fans for the cpu and gpu..

You still have to clean the dust out of the Radiator.

Custom loops seem to have two purposes: Style (vast majority), and extreme performance (tiny minority). Neither interests me in the slightest.

 

[aigomorla]

And I think if I have it I dont need to open the coolers and clean dust anymore.. because it was all waterblocks without fans for the cpu and gpu..

ummm.... lemme show you how bad it can get even when 90% of the PC is watercooled.

I learned its far easier controlling the dust in the room then trying to keep the dust out of the PC.

Grab 20inch box fans and slap 20x20 HVAC filters on them:

it was really cool and more beauty? much lower temps than D15 for example?

And what about upgrades in the future? when I want upgrade GPU or CPU.. only find new waterblock and connect?

That picture from above is probably from 2010 seeing how its a eVGA Classified.
In the span of 10 yrs, watercooling has evolved to be art.
Lots and Lots of fittings, customized distribution plates, hard piping for less water loss from natural evap.

Is it worth it? Its more of a hobby. Its not required, its not needed, but its enjoyable if done right, but at the same time very expensive when you make a mistake.,

Will it drop temps a lot over a D15, depends on load and usage.... if your going to compare idle all day long, then probably not by very much.
If your looking at low heat loads, then again not by much.

But if you look at GPU watercooling, then it can get significant.

 

[dlerious]

For CPU only I go with air, unless it's high core count like Threadripper. All my custom loops have been CPU+GPU - with a brief foray into monoblocks, RAM blocks, and HDD. I've never done a SFF build, but I'd consider water if space didn't allow an appropriately sized air cooler.

 

[fluffmonster]

I've never done a SFF build, but I'd consider water if space didn't allow an appropriately sized air cooler.

This is really the only practical reason for water imo...move the heat by water when airflow in the case isn't friendly to moving it by air.

 

[Stuka87]

AIO's can be a bit better than air coolers, but they are mostly about aesthetics. Air coolers are just ugly, and if you are going to have a glass case, it means you may like to look at it.

But custom loops are rarely "worth it". You go that route because you want too, not because you need too.

 

[knght990]

My computer is in a 75x30 ft room that somehow doesn't efficiently send air back via the central air return so I get tons of dust. I've been using a medify for the last year which has helped but isn't enough. I love this idea using a box fan with a central air filter. I'm going to give this a try.

 

[aigomorla]

My computer is in a 75x30 ft room that somehow doesn't efficiently send air back via the central air return so I get tons of dust. I've been using a medify for the last year which has helped but isn't enough. I love this idea using a box fan with a central air filter. I'm going to give this a try.

You want the box fan as close to the PC's as possible as it will force the filtered air directly to the PC and not let it blow from a distance for better efficiency.

I have mine right smack up in front of my server racks as they have HDD's up front.
I still get a bit of dust, but its noticeably less then when i didn't.

 

[thigobr]

I am debating on this... I will try soon an Arctic Freezer II 280mm and compare to my current Thermalright True 140.

The Thermalright has a convex baseplate which is not making good contact with the 5950X... Using PBO the CPU draws around 200W and it's getting up to 90°C on heavy loads
I will also try some lapping to flatten the cooler base and see if it helps.


But maybe a good and current CPU block (those 7nm chiplets have high heat density) joined by some used pump/reservoir/radiator would be another option to keep costs down and get good performance/low noise? And down the road add the GPU into the loop...

 

[Macandme]

I think its more for the looks.. but that's just me...

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Maybe as early as 2007, I was looking at really exotic water-cooling options. I thought it might be cool (pun) to build a chilled-water assembly that used evaporative chilling. I made plans in my thoughts for some type of vessel like an Igloo 10-gallon plastic water jug that farmers throw in their truck to have ice-water when pausing during farm-labor on a hot day. There might be a shower-nozzle dropping water from above, with a fan pushing air down a 4" PVC pipe intersecting above water level, and a pump circulating water from the CPU-block into the device and back again. Some designs involved simply freezing large water-filled Coke bottles in a trough and circulating the water through it.

Other ideas involved digging a hole in your back yard for a water-filled tank, and using a pump that would feed water to that tank and back again.

Some of these designs would cool the processor to keep it just below room ambient but above any dew-point, to avoid condensation. Then, of course, there were the $1,000 kits you could buy -- I forgot the name of the outfit -- which employed phase-change and refrigerant to chill your processor down to 0 C degrees and more or less keep it there. You had to have foam insulating material to avoid condensation and keep water from shorting your motherboard.

All this time, AigoMorla and I would have exchanges about the general topic.

But when push came to shove, and I could see how well I could clock my processors with top-end heatpipe coolers -- I never did it.

I lapped my processor caps to bare copper. I used IC Diamond paste TIM. I would research heatpipe cooler reviews for weeks and weeks to build a cross-referenced rank order of all the coolers available, and I'd pick the best-performing units, and likely the bulkiest and ugliest of them. Since Sandy Bridge, I've been sending my CPUs to Silicon Lottery for their delid-relid service. When people whine and complain about Skylake and Kaby Lake running too hot, my temperatures are superb.

I use my computer to "do stuff", in addition to modest gaming and simulators. I've tried GPUs in SLI a couple times. But these days, with deca-core Intel chips and other options (Ryzen seems to be big now), a hyper-threaded quad-core fills all my needs.

I guess, from other posters in this thread and their experiences, I had correctly anticipated the maintenance problems. I just didn't want to spend my time with all of it.

Anyway, there are other aspects to building a fast computer than over-clocking a powerful CPU. With the ability to use gobs of RAM and the best NVME drives, you open up the biggest bottlenecks in traditional PC systems. I'm more interested in what I can do with that approach.

 

[Aikouka]

As someone that has bounced between custom water and air-cooled setups a few different times, I think I'd say that it might be nice, but I would consider limiting it to your GPU. Frankly, unless you're planning on crazy CPU overclocks, you won't see a ton of benefit over just using a nice air cooler with the CPU. Yeah, it'll probably be a bit cooler, but not enough to warrant it. On the other hand, I've always found GPUs too noisy for my taste. Even the ones that are arguably fairly quiet (somewhere between 40-50 dB) are still quite audible. Although, as a secondary option, there are some video cards that have AIOs built into them. They do still have fans (for the VRMs and MOSFETs), but the majority of the cooling is handled by the AIO.

I went back to air a few months back due to both of my EKWB D5 pumps dying, and in the process, they spewed all their glorious oil into my loop. Although, I can't really stand how loud the video card is. (As noted before, it really isn't that bad.) After spending hours cleaning the GPU block from all the oil, I'm tempted to see if I can go with something simpler... something like an EK MLC Phoenix 240mm just hooked up to the video card. Unfortunately, all of my Phoenix radiator units are 360mm! The idea there is that I'll get just about the same simple setup as an AIO with far better full-block performance of a true water block. The other bad part of this plan is that the Phoenix units didn't sell well, and they're mostly just available from EK's web shop. Oh, and given the whole "oil spewing" thing... I don't know if I want to trust EK anymore. One of my 360mm Phoenix units has a dead fan and the other has this white crusty stuff formed near the reservoir.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

As someone that has bounced between custom water and air-cooled setups a few different times, I think I'd say that it might be nice, but I would consider limiting it to your GPU. Frankly, unless you're planning on crazy CPU overclocks, you won't see a ton of benefit over just using a nice air cooler with the CPU. Yeah, it'll probably be a bit cooler, but not enough to warrant it. On the other hand, I've always found GPUs too noisy for my taste. Even the ones that are arguably fairly quiet (somewhere between 40-50 dB) are still quite audible. Although, as a secondary option, there are some video cards that have AIOs built into them. They do still have fans (for the VRMs and MOSFETs), but the majority of the cooling is handled by the AIO.

I went back to air a few months back due to both of my EKWB D5 pumps dying, and in the process, they spewed all their glorious oil into my loop. Although, I can't really stand how loud the video card is. (As noted before, it really isn't that bad.) After spending hours cleaning the GPU block from all the oil, I'm tempted to see if I can go with something simpler... something like an EK MLC Phoenix 240mm just hooked up to the video card. Unfortunately, all of my Phoenix radiator units are 360mm! The idea there is that I'll get just about the same simple setup as an AIO with far better full-block performance of a true water block. The other bad part of this plan is that the Phoenix units didn't sell well, and they're mostly just available from EK's web shop. Oh, and given the whole "oil spewing" thing... I don't know if I want to trust EK anymore. One of my 360mm Phoenix units has a dead fan and the other has this white crusty stuff formed near the reservoir.

I've never chosen the top-end nVidia cards. In 2014, I had SLI with 2x GTX-970. When I built my Skylake system (currently under repair for a new mobo), I bought a Gigabyte GTX-1070 Mini OC graphics card. The smaller card compensated for space used by the Grand Macho CPU cooler, and it integrated with my Lexan duct construction, which may see further improvement as a matter of convenience with the machine already apart.

I could get some pretty good overclocks with the Mini card and still keep the temperatures managed with a comfortable margin. I think I could replace the thermal interface material if I can take the Mini apart and restore it as it was or without damage. I window-shopped for the same card a couple weeks ago, and the only available unit was priced at what I paid four years ago. Then, I did a search to find a Gigabyte RX-2070 Mini card, confirming that there was such a model. I think they're over $1,000 and I can't even find a source where they're currently available. If I want another graphics card, I can use my spare GTX 970 until I find another Mini.

I'm a simulator enthusiast, and would rather keep trying to get better playing Grid 2, Rally and Assetto Corsa, than to learn new games that don't wick my willie or the ones that need a huge amount of graphics performance. And as long as I can land my P-51 Mustang or FA22 Raptor, the graphics is good enough, the weather is good enough, and the topography is tangibly titillating.

I don't even see a need for an AiO cooler. Instead, I had an idea for an extra fan and duct-box for the graphics card that vents from an open PCIE slot-plate. I might try and revisit that idea and cut some Lexan to fit something like one of those Zalman 90mm fans they made for graphics cards. They're basically a 1/2"-thick square 90mm design, and they'd always seemed quiet. The other idea was to do the same thing with a 40mm x 3/4" mag-lev fan. My mobo has so many fan ports I cannot use them all.

As long as that box is apart, I can probably make a couple improvements.

 

[thigobr]

I just tested 3 different coolers on a 5950X with PBO enabled (PPT/TDC/EDC 220W/180A/180A) running Cinebench R23 stability tests (10min):

- Thermalright True Spirit 140 power TY-143 full speed 2500RPM (loud!!!): 4400MHz all core 90°C CCD1 / 80°C CCD2
- Arctic Cooling Freezer II 280mm full speed 1500RPM (silent compared to the TR): 4450MHz all core 85°C CCD1 / 76°C CCD2
- Custom loop (Heatkiller IV Pro, EK PE360 rad, VPP755 v3, 3X Thermalright TL-C12) 1200RPM (silent!!!): 4500MHz all core 80°C CCD1 / 70°C CCD2

The Arctic Cooling actually has a good cost/performance ratio but the Thermalright still beats it as it's half the cost. I was able to put the custom loop together for around $300. Not cheap and temperatures are not that much better but the capability to cool both GPU and CPU with better temperatures and way lower noise was very compelling for me. So if budget permits that would be my choice.

But if budget is tight there are very good air coolers for $50 and the True Spirit Power is an example, hard to beat!

 

[dlerious]

But if budget is tight there are very good air coolers for $50 and the True Spirit Power is an example, hard to beat!

I have one of them - downside is the 171mm height. Just grabbed a Macho Rev C for $58 (158mm).

 

[John1780]

... I’m of the general opinion that even AIO coolers are of dubious value over a good air cooler in most situations.

I have a 10850k that begs to differ.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Like I said, if I'm building a system for a mainstreamer family member, it will be a rock-solid computer that's like a Toyota Corolla -- compared to my personal systems, which I try and push to "Escalade" levels with a sensible budget. I might build a system for my brother with a Hyper 212 and a mid-range processor. And -- I did that: his last system was an Ivy Bridge and he's still running it, problem free.

Air coolers have a price range with the upper limit below $100. I want the best, so I'll spend $30 or $40 more. Now . . . I'm looking at one poster's mention of a Macho Revision C, and I found a review for it at TweakTown. Somehow, I can only guess that Rev. C is somehow different from my Grand Macho RT . I say this, because the Tweaktown review rates OC thermal performance several notches below the Noctua NH-D15 (or "S" model), but my advance work leading to my RT purchase shows at least a few review performances a couple degrees C better than the Noctua. It wouldn't be the "stock" fan, because the lab tests employ the parts that come with the cooler.

That being said, along comes John1780, touting his i9-10850K with its 95W TDP (which he might likely push well into the 100s of watts -- can't say -- don't know). A lot of the "best" AiO water systems only perform a few C degrees better than coolers like the Noctua or Grand Macho (at least -- the RT version).

So "begging to differ" depends on your view of "dubious value" of maybe 5C? or would it be 10C better? 10 degrees C improvement would make a better argument than 5.

IF I really wanted the advantages of a water loop, I'd want to do it with a thermo-electric chiller formula. But for me, that's too much complexity, too much maintenance -- too much trouble. But -- wouldn't it be nice, though?!

And again -- I may be repeating myself. If you're going to shell out the $80 for the Grand Macho RT, do yourself a favor and buy ThermalRight's rubber-accordion exhaust duct. The only problem you'd have with that is the steps for installing it. You're best served by installing the cooler on the motherboard out of the case and fitting the duct to it before you slide it in to line up with the rectangular ATX I/O plate at the rear. Very easy that way. By itself as an afterthought, a pain in the ass.

 

[John1780]

So "begging to differ" depends on your view of "dubious value" of maybe 5C? or would it be 10C better? 10 degrees C improvement would make a better argument than 5.

Fair enough....it's prob 5C or so. However, that additional 5C just pushes me into the low 90C range, which has me nervously eyeing core temp.

I only point it out because I said the same thing and figured a Noctua D15 could handle this cpu...and it's in a 7 fan Lian Li Mesh with those temps for God's sake!

Granted it's only benchmarks and particularly intensive games that generate those temps (multi and single core, respectively), but it's kinda like having a Ferrari with a low rev limiter (bear with my overzealous comparison ). Had I known this outcome, I would have put a solid 360 AIO in it and spent the extra. May still, but since I just put it together I'd rather enjoy it a bit before opening it back up.

To the larger point of this thread, yes a custom loop is overkill. That said, this generation of Intel and AMD cpus get toasty, and the upper echelon particularly so. Thus, an AIO may need to be at least be in the running based on your use application.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Fair enough....it's prob 5C or so. However, that additional 5C just pushes me into the low 90C range, which has me nervously eyeing core temp.

I only point it out because I said the same thing and figured a Noctua D15 could handle this cpu...and it's in a 7 fan Lian Li Mesh with those temps for God's sake!

Granted it's only benchmarks and particularly intensive games that generate those temps (multi and single core, respectively), but it's kinda like having a Ferrari with a low rev limiter (bear with my overzealous comparison ). Had I known this outcome, I would have put a solid 360 AIO in it and spent the extra. May still, but since I just put it together I'd rather enjoy it a bit before opening it back up.

To the larger point of this thread, yes a custom loop is overkill. That said, this generation of Intel and AMD cpus get toasty, and the upper echelon particularly so. Thus, an AIO may need to be at least be in the running based on your use application.

I heard that Intel was installing their IHS-processor caps with an Indium solder again. The guy at Silicon Lottery told me he still de-lids them for people, or that the Conductonaut Grizzly paste still improves the heat-dissipation performance by 5C.

I assume you've over-clocked the 10850K? Did you use the AVX Negative Offset feature in the BIOS to downclock for AVX software? I'd been running my Skylake at clocks that didn't need it. And I can see the point of that feature. I'm putting the old 6700K on another spare motherboard, so if I tweak it again, it should be better than before.

I can see how you could build an evaporative cooler setup or use a thermo-electric chiller to get the temperatures within 10C of room ambient. But it's too much "Rube Goldberg" for an old man like me to manage.

Just an afterthought. I can flip to the other side of the argument to favor an AiO as opposed to either heatpipes or a custom-loop, and for this reason: If you eliminate the nickel-plated copper IHS of the processor itself, it would make a BIG difference.

To do that, you'd need to de-lid the processor or have Silly-Lots do it. You'd then put some liquid tape on the PCB around the processor die and install a (nearly-weightless) waterblock with the Grizzly Conductonaut. Of course, you'd pay close attention to how you torque down the screws for the water-block. You might even consider using some sort of compressible shim around the processor die -- I was thinking foam-core art-board, but I think someone who did a lot of de-lidding experiments used cardboard.

Folks like VirtualLarry have been telling me I could be running currrent-gen octo/deca-core processors like yours. But the games -- simulators -- I like to play aren't the latest and greatest, and four cores seems to be plenty. And -- it's true -- even with my four-year-old gen-7's, over-clocking almost seems needless. It's just become a habit for me. People tell me I have an addictive personality . . .

PS Just adding another thought about prospects for cooling a bare die. I think you could probably mount a smaller heatpipe cooler on a bare die -- with care. I'd look into the idea of shimming it, just as ThermalRight bundles a plastic load plate for the Grand Macho for a conventional installation with the processor cap.

But I wouldn't put a fan of any kind on that cooler. You can put an accordion duct between the cooler exhaust side and the case exhaust fan. If you add a pusher fan, there would be some way to hang it in front of the cooler with some sort of bracket that attaches to the case or to the drive cage in front of the cooler. I've got all sorts of hardware odds and ends that probably include just the type of bracket called for. There wouldn't be any weight on the cooler that way. I'd be interested in how much of an improvement with such a mid-range cooler you would get with Grizzly Conductonaut on a bare die for something like an i9-10***K processor . . .

 

[John1780]

I heard that Intel was installing their IHS-processor caps with an Indium solder again. The guy at Silicon Lottery told me he still de-lids them for people, or that the Conductonaut Grizzly paste still improves the heat-dissipation performance by 5C.

I assume you've over-clocked the 10850K? Did you use the AVX Negative Offset feature in the BIOS to downclock for AVX software? I'd been running my Skylake at clocks that didn't need it. And I can see the point of that feature. I'm putting the old 6700K on another spare motherboard, so if I tweak it again, it should be better than before.

I can see how you could build an evaporative cooler setup or use a thermo-electric chiller to get the temperatures within 10C of room ambient. But it's too much "Rube Goldberg" for an old man like me to manage.

Just an afterthought. I can flip to the other side of the argument to favor an AiO as opposed to either heatpipes or a custom-loop, and for this reason: If you eliminate the nickel-plated copper IHS of the processor itself, it would make a BIG difference.

To do that, you'd need to de-lid the processor or have Silly-Lots do it. You'd then put some liquid tape on the PCB around the processor die and install a (nearly-weightless) waterblock with the Grizzly Conductonaut. Of course, you'd pay close attention to how you torque down the screws for the water-block. You might even consider using some sort of compressible shim around the processor die -- I was thinking foam-core art-board, but I think someone who did a lot of de-lidding experiments used cardboard.

Folks like VirtualLarry have been telling me I could be running currrent-gen octo/deca-core processors like yours. But the games -- simulators -- I like to play aren't the latest and greatest, and four cores seems to be plenty. And -- it's true -- even with my four-year-old gen-7's, over-clocking almost seems needless. It's just become a habit for me. People tell me I have an addictive personality . . .

PS Just adding another thought about prospects for cooling a bare die. I think you could probably mount a smaller heatpipe cooler on a bare die -- with care. I'd look into the idea of shimming it, just as ThermalRight bundles a plastic load plate for the Grand Macho for a conventional installation with the processor cap.

But I wouldn't put a fan of any kind on that cooler. You can put an accordion duct between the cooler exhaust side and the case exhaust fan. If you add a pusher fan, there would be some way to hang it in front of the cooler with some sort of bracket that attaches to the case or to the drive cage in front of the cooler. I've got all sorts of hardware odds and ends that probably include just the type of bracket called for. There wouldn't be any weight on the cooler that way. I'd be interested in how much of an improvement with such a mid-range cooler you would get with Grizzly Conductonaut on a bare die for something like an i9-10***K processor . . .

De-lidding would help, and may go that route, and also considered trying out an AVX offset this weekend. A certain other forum had a discussion on this very thing recently that somehow turned into a 4-page flame war lol. Only minimally OC'd -- all core 5.0 atm.

Granted, I think the ideas above would finally get me to the mid 80* range, where I expect most higher end processors to end up under heavy loads. Point is tho, I'd have to go through the effort vs just slapping a nice 360 AIO on it and calling it a day. And therein is my frustration with the nicer 14 nm Intel dies.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

De-lidding would help, and may go that route, and also considered trying out an AVX offset this weekend. A certain other forum had a discussion on this very thing recently that somehow turned into a 4-page flame war lol. Only minimally OC'd -- all core 5.0 atm.

Granted, I think the ideas above would finally get me to the mid 80* range, where I expect most higher end processors to end up under heavy loads. Point is tho, I'd have to go through the effort vs just slapping a nice 360 AIO on it and calling it a day. And therein is my frustration with the nicer 14 nm Intel dies.

I could almost feel the frustration second-hand, as I was thinking about it.

I think I just discovered another reason for using the AVX Offset over just keeping down the temperatures, but I could only speculate about how it applies to a deca-core CPU like yours.

I think I may be limited with high-density RAM sticks. I can try again to see if I can get the AVX-enabled lower clock to go higher by raising the VCCSA and VCCIO, but it's pushing them too close to the cautionary limits. I had to spend time tweaking my 4-core just to get it where your's runs at stock spec. I think 5.0 may be easy, but I don't think I can get there and still raise the AVX limit to 4.8.

Temperatures are good, though! But I only have four cores to heat things up . . . .

AN UPDATE [about VCCIO and VCCSA] Republic-of-Gamers Asus-wisdom seems to suggest that 1.30V for the SA and 1.25V for the IMC/VCCIO is "acceptable", so I can run at 4.8 with an AVX offset of 0. What this bodes for 4.9 and 5.0, I'm not sure, but if I need to make the AVX-offset equal 1, no problem with that at all. All my temperatures are below 70C for running an AVX stress-test.

I'm just trying to imagine what I'd do with a gen-10 octo or deca core processor if I had it. And I'm wondering about folks who've had success with delidding and then "UN-lidded" cooling. That's really hanging your ass over the edge of an envelope! What's the price of a Gen-10 K processor? $400? $500? What do you do if you gamble the first time and lose? I can't say . . .

 

[John1780]

I could almost feel the frustration second-hand, as I was thinking about it.

I think I just discovered another reason for using the AVX Offset over just keeping down the temperatures, but I could only speculate about how it applies to a deca-core CPU like yours.

I think I may be limited with high-density RAM sticks. I can try again to see if I can get the AVX-enabled lower clock to go higher by raising the VCCSA and VCCIO, but it's pushing them too close to the cautionary limits. I had to spend time tweaking my 4-core just to get it where your's runs at stock spec. I think 5.0 may be easy, but I don't think I can get there and still raise the AVX limit to 4.8.

Temperatures are good, though! But I only have four cores to heat things up . . . .

AN UPDATE [about VCCIO and VCCSA] Republic-of-Gamers Asus-wisdom seems to suggest that 1.30V for the SA and 1.25V for the IMC/VCCIO is "acceptable", so I can run at 4.8 with an AVX offset of 0. What this bodes for 4.9 and 5.0, I'm not sure, but if I need to make the AVX-offset equal 1, no problem with that at all. All my temperatures are below 70C for running an AVX stress-test.

I'm just trying to imagine what I'd do with a gen-10 octo or deca core processor if I had it. And I'm wondering about folks who've had success with delidding and then "UN-lidded" cooling. That's really hanging your ass over the edge of an envelope! What's the price of a Gen-10 K processor? $400? $500? What do you do if you gamble the first time and lose? I can't say . . .

Got mine for $390--msrp at the time was $500. I have to run IO and SA at 1.25V, otherwise I get random freezing. Really, wish I would have just gotten a 10700K given the lower temps and $100 cheaper. And yeah, its more cores than I need, even with the graphic design I do on the side.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Got mine for $390--msrp at the time was $500. I have to run IO and SA at 1.25V, otherwise I get random freezing. Really, wish I would have just gotten a 10700K given the lower temps and $100 cheaper. And yeah, its more cores than I need, even with the graphic design I do on the side.

Well, I will encourage you to avoid feeling bad about your decision, and I will avoid the same misgivings about mine. Time flies! I bought my Skylake (now replaced with Kaby) in fall, 2016, but it had been available since December 2015. The Kaby was released around January 2017, and it's now 2021. This was a repair project for blown-out motherboard USB controller. So I stuck with what I had. If I were going to get a 10-gen processor and mobo, I told VirtualLarry that my approach is to take six months to choose the parts and plan the build.

Anyway, I can't get the overclock stable for the RAM I have above 4.7 without twisting up the IO and SA voltages into the 1.3+V range. It seems that all these processors going back to my Sky and Kaby generation are best left in the 1.25 to 1.3 range, and the lower the better. So I think I'm going to take what I can get for the AVX Offset, set the maximum clock to around 4.9, and call it a day.

On the plus side for you, you don't need to OC anything. You'd of course want to keep that thing as cool as possible, and I can see how it would run at a toasty level with those many cores. given the default turbo range for that thing, you could even consider setting up an "overclock profile" in BIOS that downclocks the processor when you want it to run cooler! You've still got all those cores, and on a warm day, you could probably run it at 4.5 Ghz for a lot of things! I'm going to file that away in my mind just for contemplating something with current technology in the next year or two.