With the market for extreme PC cooling growing at a rapid rate over the past few years, we are seeing a much greater number of PC components and accessories geared to this end of the spectrum.  This goes back to the Foxconn “Quantum Force” line, which was kicked off with a killer mainboard, the BLACKOPS with features that had never been seen before.  Fast forward a few years, and now all the top manufacturers are mimicking elements from that board, and pushing forward with other innovations geared towards extreme cooling enthusiasts.

However, one area that has not seen any special attention is in the TIM (Thermal Interface Material) market, at least until now (the last time there was anything resembling this kind of enthusiast buzz over some cooling goo was when Arctic Silver hit the market). eVGA recently unleashed on the world their new TIM dubbed “Frostbite,” and for good reason.  eVGA claims this new compound is not only better for the extreme cooling crowd, but also superior for everyday users as well.  Not only that, but k|ngp|n himself is signing off on all these claims and endorsing the product for extreme cooling use.

The longtime standard-bearer for extreme cooling has been Arctic Silver’s Céramique, which k|ngp|n and many others have used it for years.  However, over the past year of so, many users have been testing alternatives.  Elmor (a top overclocker from Sweden) swears by OCZ Freeze, and there have been a number of positive reports with several other compounds as well.  Considering all the recent speculation, we needed to take a closer look at this new contender.

Next: eVGA Frostbite, a closer look…

If extreme overclocking had a name, it’d be k|ngp|n. Vince Lucido (a/k/a “k|ngp|n”) is arguably the man who got such things started in the United States. Back when most people were still gawking at the extreme ventures of a few folks pushing overclocking to new heights with water cooling, this guy started to bring the truly extreme methods of employing liquid nitrogen (LN2) to achieve even more outrageous performance. While Vince was not the first person to use LN2 too cool a computer system, he was one of the very first to experiment with cooling not only the CPU, but also GPUs and motherboards with the cryogenic liquid. Breaking world records and taking overclocking and benchmarking to the extreme is his passion, and he has done it over and over again.

Here is a brief video introduction to k|ngp|n.

When k|ngp|n got started, one of the major hurdles was how to properly cool his components with LN2. Since devices did not exist with which he could accomplish thos, he started designing and building prototype LN2 containers (“pots”) which he could mount to the computer hardware in order to apply the LN2 to effectively cool the components. He started out doing this for his own adventures, but very quickly became overwhelmed by requests from other enthusiasts seeking to buy copies of the containers he was building. Seeing a golden opportunity, in 2006, k|ngp|n founded his business kingpincooling.com (aka “KPC”) and is now mass-producing his pots for enthusiasts all over the world. And R&D has not stopped, so he has continuously reevaluated and improved his designs to perfect his containers according to user demands and the changes in computer hardware. That brings us to the subject of our review today, the new line of KPC’s LN2 containers.

The new KPC LN2 containers

Note: The CPU and GPU container internals have been blocked out at k|ngp|n’s request. The containers shown in our pictures are pre-production components, and look slightly different than the production models; please see the images on the next page for details.

Next: A closer look…

As a benchmarker, the biggest milestone you will come across is your first plunge below -100C. Liquid Nitrogen is -196C by nature, and to utilize this exotic cooling material, you need a fantastic evaporator, or more commonly known as a pot. Much like dry ice, cooling the processor down this cold will decrease impedance that opposes electron flow. This allows for a more efficient circuit, promoting greater stability and overclocking headroom.

After 2 years of research, waiting, gathering hardware, blogging, and toying with dry ice, I have now crossed the line into the “big league” of extreme cooling. Liquid Nitrogen. I was originally inspired after I had the privilege of visiting an extreme overclocking event in Austin, Texas at the AMD Lonestar Campus Headquarters exactly 2 years ago to the day. I got to watch some of the best of the best overclockers such as Kingpin, Chew* and Gomeler work their magic with LN2. I wrote an article about it here.

This event also spawned a video: Xtreme Conditions ( I am in the black v-neck standing next to Chew*)

Without further ado, here comes my first Liquid Nitrogen run: inspired by overclockers, performed by overclockers.

I come equipped bearing:
-one 30L Union Carbide Laboratory Grade Dewar
-one LN2cooling.com Evaporator, one Phenom II X6 1090T BE
-one set of Mushkin Ridgeback 4GB PC3-12800
-one Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5
-one PC Power & Cooling 750 Watt “Silencer”
- two Scythe 120mm Variable CFM Fans
-one Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB
-one container of dielectric grease
-one container of “no-leak” plumbing putty
-lots of neoprene bits
-and a roll of paper towel.

Board preparation and insulation was extremely similar to my DICE run preparation, which is why I have taken no pictures of this particular step this time around. However, I will post pictures from my previous prep. The only difference is I added a small amount of neoprene bits in areas where I ran out of putty.

Grease applied around the socket. The last line of defense against moisture and condensation.

Putty around the socket.

Before I post the results I just want to send out a big thanks to my benching partner Addies, as he helped find the great deal to purchase this dewar, as well as helping pitch for liquid nitrogen, helping me film, and helping me reach some great overclocking results. And I would also like to thank Aaron Schradin of LN2cooling.com for lending me this great evaporator.LN2cooling.com Evaporator

Union Carbide LD-30 30L Laboratory Grade Dewar

I was very proud of how my 890FXA-UD5 held up, as it’s already been through 3 DICE runs (Dry Ice Inception, Second Frost, and Deep Freeze). I had no condensation issues, as I used dielectric grease then layered on plumbers putty and neoprene. The LN2cooling.com pot did extremely well.

Addies and I managed to produce some decent results. Nothing special by any means, but for a first run we’re proud of the results.

Click Here For Video –

|Liquid Heaven| – |1090T X6 & 555 X2 Under Liquid

Nitrogen| – |6.6GHz+|

Anyways, enough text, time for some result screenshots. We tested Sandra as part of a competition.

6.625GHz Valid – 14th Place 1090T

Validation

10.578s SuperPi 1M – 8th Place 1090T

11m 19. 282s SuperPi 32M – 6th Place 1090T

Sandra Memory Latency – 46.2ns

Sandra Memory Bandwidth – 22.68GB/s

Thats it for results folks. My next run will include higher valids, Pifast, wPrime, and I will also bench my X4 555 BE which fully unlocks and is a better clocker than my X4 955 and X6 1090T.

A couple years ago, I put together a simple water cooling system that I dubbed FFF&FM.

• Form
• Follows
• Function
• and
• Fully
• Modular

And the name really tells you everything you need to know. It was not a pretty system, nor did it need to be….but it did work very well for cooling my HW while pretesting for more serious benching session with liquid nitrogen. Here is a link to the original forum post where I detailed the build.

FFF&FM Rev1.0 parts

The original system used two Swiftech triple 120 radiators sandwiching three 120×38mm San Ace fans. It used a single DDC style pump, and performance was excellent, especially in the winter when I could hang it out the window for some extra cool benching sessions.

FFF&FM Rev1.0

While the original system has served me well, I recently decided that I needed to correct a couple flaws with the design, and also push the performance to the limit….so with that in mind, I bring you the next generation….

Revision 2

The idea with revision 2 is to keep the original design goals, but enhance performance, and correct two flaws in the original design. What were those flaws?

1. First off, there was no reliable indication of flow, this is pretty important especially when disabling the safety mechanisms built into modern HW like we do with benching. When you tell the CPU not to throttle if it’s overheating, then if something goes wrong with the cooling system you’re liable to kill some HW. This almost occurred this past winter when I had a pump fail on the original FFF&FM and my CPU temps skyrocketed. Luckily I was running a Bloomfield CPU which has proved to be extremely durable.
2. The second flaw in the original design was the lack of pump redundancy, as I just described pump failure was a major concern in the new revision. So with the new design I knew I wanted to support two or more pumps in case one fails.
3. The last issue with the first desing was the use of thin walled tubing. I used 3/8″ ID and 1/2″ OD tubing which means the wall thickness was only 1/16″ thick. With the new system, I’ve upgraded the tubing to 3/8″ ID and 5/8″ OD which means the wall thickness is now twice the original, or 1/8″ thick. This new Primochill tubing is MUCH more kink resistant, and this is super important for a system thats continuously being reconfigured and played with.

All of the other design goals remain, and the most important ones are performance, and the “modular” design made possible with the Koolance quick disconnects. These have made this water cooling system as useful as it is.

The build

So, I wanted to take you through a quick step-by-step build log, showing how I put the system together. The biggest part of the new system is the new Watercool radiator, which is a monstrosity designed to use 18 140mm cooling fans, nine on each side. This is the “light” version, which only allows for mounting fans on one side.

Watercool MO-RA3 front

In the picture above, the radiator is resting on the box for a Swiftech MCR-320-QP quad 120 radiator….that should give you some scale, this thing is huge! There are actually 6 fill ports, two on the front, two on the rear, and two on the top which provides tons of flexibility for your desired configuration.

Watercool MO-RA3 rear

Based on this testing I wanted to put some shrouds on the fans, and I also wanted to use some good 120mm fans, due to the lack of decent 140mm fan options. So, I decided to use a 30mm thick piece of wood as a shroud for the entire bank of fans.

pum & res position

I started by getting the board cut to the correct size at the hardware store. Then I drilled holes to mount the radiator, and positioned the pumps and reservoir to ensure the board would accommodate the desired layout. The reservoir selected for this project is the Tecnofront Challenger X1 from Italy. It has an integrated flow meter, which will be a nice visual indicator for me. The two DDC based pumps (10W OEM versions) are linked with the EK Dual DDC Turbo Top.

fan hole placement

Next, I drew out the spacing for all the fans. My goal was to have each fan placed directly over the intended location for the standard 140mm fan, to get as even a distribution of air as possible.

cutting fan holes 1

Then I slowly began cutting the fan holes, going 1/2 way through on the first side, and then finishing the cut from the opposite side.

cutting fan holes 2

After cutting all the holes, I then routed the rear side (the side facing the radiator) to help airflow spread out from the fan to cover the gaps in-between the fans.

test fit

Then, I bolted the board up to the radiator for the first time to ensure a proper fit and alignment.

res & pump placement

With the radiator mounted, I was able to trace the edges of the reservoir and pump wires to plan for proper placement of each.

res & pump cuts

Next, I made some rough cuts for the reservoir and the pump wires, and I also routed the corners of the fans intake side.

weatherstrip

I took my Dremel sanding wheel to the corners and then some good ol’fashioned elbow grease and got them nice and smooth. Now the holes are proper square with rounded corners to match the fan’s frame. Then I placed weather strip around the edges to ensure a good seal on the radiator.

final fitting

Next, I mounted the radiator for the final time; the first tube was also connected with a compression fitting to the front side of the rad.

tube routing 1

You can see here the reservoir and pumps placed in their final locations. Both are secured to the top of the radiator with double sided sticky tape.

tube routing 2

You can see the basic tube routing here, the water comes in through the lower white tube on the left (into the front radiator port, not seen), exits the radiator into the black tube on the right and goes into the reservoir, the out of the reservoir into the pumps, and out of the pumps in the upper white tube and out to the system.

tube routing 3

Another angle.

tube routing 4

And another.

fans mounted

The next step was to mount my fans, nine San Ace 120×38mm 110+CFM gems. Been really happy with these fans over the last few years and they should be perfect for this project as well. You can also see the reservoir mounted at the top.

base 1

With everything mounted up, I also wanted to create a stable base for the system. I used the leftover wood from the original board.

base 2

I used some additional scrap to make some strengthening plates to put on each side.

base 3

Another shot from the front.

fan seals

No matter how hard you try, if you don’t have the proper tools to complete your cuts perfectly, you’re never going to have perfect alignment. That’s where silicon sealant comes in.

wired and running

The last step was to wire the fans and pumps together and fill and blead the system. I have to say this Tecnofront reservoir made that job easier than with any other reservoir I’ve ever used…99% of the air bubbles were bled within a couple minutes….very impressive!

system complete

After getting everything hooked up and running, I played with a few benchmarks. But first I wanted to give you a quick sound check, and made the video below. Also notice the flow meter showing you a good indication of flow.

Results

Well, this is not a review, but I still wanted to leave you with some results. I have not spent much time with the system yet. But I did have a chance to test out a new 990X and improve my previous best 5970 Vantage score.

3D Vantage with 5970

The CPU cores reached a max temp of 72C and the GPU cores hit 47C and 43C….not bad considering the 20C ambient temp in my room at the time.

I’ll have tons more testing with this system, and I still have a few more minor improvemtnes to make (fan grills and weather protection)…but the meat and potatoes are all here, I hope you liked it and it inspires some of you.

I know some of you saw my recent dry ice runs on my Phenom II rig. In a few threads I discussed that for my next run I will have a different pot to play around with — and I assure you that promise was kept.

The video is up! Click here:

|Deep Freeze| – |LN2Cooling.com Evaporator| – |Phenom II X6 1090T @ 5.625GHz|

I got in touch with a friend and he agreed to let me take one of his cooling pots for a spin. Aaron Schradin of LN2Cooling.com has lent me an excellent pot to play around with and review for all of you guys. This pot is usually meant for the purpose of running under LN2 and LHe4. This is seen in the many AMD world record breaking overclocking attempts, which can all be seen over at amdblackops.com. However I will be playing around with the dry ice performance of this pot, which has mostly been overlooked until now.

The new little toy in town is in fact not little at all. This pot is huge. Much larger than the previous aluminum cooling pot I have been benchmarking with. There is also a lot of mass to work with which in turn equals to better cooling. Combine that mass with high quality copper and lots of surface area and you have yourself an excellent cooling pot.

The Pot

I was interested in the packing, a shipping tube made specifically to ensure this evaporator can be safely shipped anywhere.

Here’s a look at whats was included with my package. The hardware, mounting kit, and of course the copper base and aluminum reservoir.

Here is a closeup of the base. A little tarnished, but nothing a little bit of polish can clean up. Usually tarnished copper can be cleaned with ketchup as well.

This pot comes with a drilled in temperature probe hole for to ensure the pot is cooling to maximum capacity.

Here is the base cleaned up. A perfect mirror. It also shows the mounting hardware close up. These springs tightened up will ensure just the right amount of pressure bearing down on the cpu.

The mounting kit comes with the ability to use this pot with all current sockets on Intel and AMD platforms.

The pot threading. It was important not to tighten the reservoir too much when screwing it on to the base or else it will become extremely difficult to remove.

The pot with both parts screwed together is around 16cm tall. That is also about 6.3 inches.

The diameter of this monster is approximately 8.5cm. Once again that is about 3.3 inches.

And finally a shot of the internals taken from LN2cooling.com

System Setup

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T – Batch 1018EPAW
Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 Rev 2.o
Mushkin Blackline 4GB DDR3 – Stock @ 1600MHz 6-8-6-24
Sapphire Radeon 5870 1GB GDDR5 – Overclocked @ 900MHz/1200MHz
PC Power And Cooling 750W PSU
LN2cooling.com LN2 Evaporator Cooling Pot
20 Pounds Of Dry Ice
Plumbers Putty
Dielectric Grease

The pot is filled with crushed DICE. I used a chopstick to stir the mixture.

Setup during the run.

Slushie anyone?

Frosted over.

I thought this was a pretty cool frost pattern that formed after I removed the cloth from the pot.

At the end of the run. Snow all around.

The Results

Benchmarks:

CPU-Z
SuperPi 1m
SuperPi 32m
wPrime 32m
wPrime 1024m
PiFast
3DMark 06

For the results, I will be comparing the scores on this pot to the scores from my last run on my Duniek Aluminum pot.

CPU-Z  -  Core #1 5.579GHz @ 1.744Vcore – Validation

For this CPU-Z valid I went all out overclocking my chip’s strongest core, core #1. As you can see I disabled all but 2 cores, and ran down a bunch of other settings to get this. Before settling on 5.579GHz, I was able to hit 5.624GHz but was not able to validate without crashing. Maybe I will make this on my next run. My previous run on the aluminum pot only netted me a max validation of 5.547GHz.

CPU-Z  -  All 6 Cores, 5.500GHz @ 1.696Vcore w/ 3000NB and 1000MHz 7-9-6-15 memory

During my last run, I was only able to push 5.4GHz all 6 cores. This goes to display how the increased mass and the copper material of this pot makes for more efficient cooling and coping with the load of all 6 cores pushed to 5.5GHz.

SuperPi 1m  -  12.625 seconds

My old time on the aluminum pot was 12.797. SuperPi 1m is highly inefficient on Gigabyte boards for whatever reason, but I still managed to surpass my old score and net the top 1m DICE score for this processor on hwbot.org.

SuperPi 32m  -  12 minutes 58.219 seconds

Due to the fact that this pot can hold down better temps under load, I was able to increase cpu speed in contrast to my previous run. I broke the 13 minute barrier for 32m on DICE with this processor.

wPrime 32m  -  4.765 seconds

Not much to say here. I’m thinking I could have fine tuned my setup for a higher score, but I settled at this time. For my next run I will get a faster time.

wPrime 1024m  -  151.25 seconds

I was astonished at the pots ability to handle the load of all 6 cores stressed. All extreme benchers know that 1024 takes a bit of work to pass at higher frequencies. I managed to pass at 5.125GHz. The previous pot would not budge at over 5GHz.

PiFast  -  20.50 seconds

Once again, another untuned run. However I surpassed all of my personal bests with this one.

3DMark 06  -  28306 3DMarks

For the first time in a long time, I decided to test out some 3d stuff again. I did this mainly to gauge how the evaporator handles 3d load. This is where I saw my biggest improvement from my old pot. During one of my 955 X4 BE runs, I found myself only able to run 06 at 4.520Ghz using the aluminum pot. I was able to push out and run 5.25GHz stable under the load of 3dmark06.

That is all for the results. However, here are the improvements I made with the new pot summarized into one chart:

Conclusion

This is an excellent pot for all types of extreme cooling. Remember that this pot is not primarily for DICE. It begins to shine once under LN2 and LHe. The 99% pure copper design, combined with the excellent internal surface area and the mass of the base makes for extremely efficient cooling. The install is pretty straightforward as well.

This pot helped me break all my personal best’s that I made on my previous aluminum pot. Half of these runs still have headroom to tune as this pot is very efficient. In the BIOS it read -75C at almost all times, which is only 4C above the actual temp of dry ice itself. This is next to impeccable cooling performance. Any extreme bencher would love this evaporator.

I would like to thank Aaron Schradin over at LN2cooling.com for lending me this pot to play with.

Also, I should have another overclocking video of this run posted up on my youtube channel soon.

My HWBot.org Profile

My Personal Blog

Originally, I planned to test the memory kit subjectively with many benchmarks reflecting more real-world benefits of the high speed memory.  Based on similar tests published around the net in the past, I didn’t expect to see a huge increase in overall, everyday type performance.  So I also planned to test the memory in extreme conditions to give a better idea of where the memory should truly shine, with extreme benchmarking.

Well, as I wrote in the review, my testing was met by so much difficulty getting the DIMMs to run at rated speed on various CPUs.  The Bloomfield testing I knew didn’t have much hope, but after I got the i7 970 operational with marginal success, I was fully expecting the DIMMs to be stable in dual channel mode on the P55 platform with the Lynnfield CPUs.  I knew that Corsair only expected them to operate on Lynnfield, so after having tested two, and seeing that neither was capable…I had to give up on the the “everyday testing”.  (All these CPUs were paid for out of my pocket, and I could not afford anymore.)  The single run with the Xeon CPU was completed earlier and was my only chance to test the DIMMs with a sub-zero IMC.  Having troubles with that also discouraged me from trying again.  In the interest of getting the info to you in a timely manner (and knowing that 99% of my readers do not overclock with LN2), I decided to forgo further testing and get the article to press.

Well, in response to all the feedback, I’d like to clarify that these DIMMs are clearly capable of incredible performance.  But the purpose of yesterday’s article was not to just show off what an extreme overclocker could do with the right conditions….I wanted to give the bulk of my readers the more valuable information about the truth of high end memory.

I had the i7 970 under LN2 tonight while testing a graphics card on LN2.  The 3D testing ended prematurely, and I had a few liters of LN2 leftover, so I threw the GTX3 DIMMs back in the rig and spent about two hours trying to maximize memory speed for SuperPi 32M testing.  I was finally met with success in reaching the DIMMs rated speeds and timings, and in fact I was able to do a bit better.  I hit DDR3-2430 8-11-8-27 88 1T in triple channel mode…pretty impressive stuff.  I think there is still more in them with more time (and LN2) and a better CPU.

*The CPU was not maxed out for this run.

SuperPI 32M with DDR3-2430

When I got down to the last few drops of LN2, and didn’t have enough to attempt another 32M run, so I spent the last few minutes pushing the speeds up with PiFast.  This was not the max, only the second attempt, then the pot got too warm as I ran out of LN2 and I had to call it quits.

PIFast with DDR3-2500

This doesn’t change anything about my conclusion yesterday, I knew these DIMMs were special….that point was never argued!  The problem is that you’ll need a special CPU and possibly even some extreme cooling to get what you paid for.

i7 970 under LN2 & Dominator GTX3 DIMMs

Thanks again for all the great feedback!

First off, I’d like to make sure you know what you’re going to get from this review. This isn’t going to be your run of the mill motherboard review where I ramble about the number of USB and SATA ports and run meaningless tests comparing motherboards and drawing conclusions from the tiny differences between boards. First I’m going to briefly discuss the features and layout of the board keeping in mind my point of view as an overclocker. Next I’ll show some results with the board and discuss how they compare to competing boards with a focus on clock for clock efficiency in the benchmarks used by HWBot.org. Additionally I’ll be discussing the overall experience or using the board including a few subzero sessions.

Gigabyte’s X58A UD9 is many things, it’s Gigabyte’s flagship X58 based board, it supports Quad-SLI and CrossfireX, and has USB 3.0 and SATA 6. Oh, by the way, it’s $700 on Newegg. To be honest, I have trouble imagining a single socket X58 board that could possibly be worth $700 when the next highest priced board is right around $500 and has a similar feature set with the exception of USB 3.0 and SATA 6. Are USB 3.0 and SATA really worth $200? They certainly aren’t to me, and I suspect that many others feel similarly.

Features
As this is Gigabyte’s flagship Intel based board it has just about every feature you could imagine for a motherboard. USB 3.0 as well as SATA 6 and a pair of eSATA ports are included to cover all of your current and future storage needs.

The rear I/O Pannel has everything that is expected on a high-end board. Personally, I appreciated the eSATA/USB ports as they allowed greater flexibility. At this point, having a pair of PS2 ports seems a bit over the top and I would prefer to see that reduced down to one that worked for either keyboard or mouse.

Additionally, the board includes the Nvidia chips “necessary” to enable Quad SLI. In order to make this as easy as possible the board includes a full 7 PCI-Express 16x slots.

While very handy for running multiple GPUs, this is annoying for people who would like to use a PCI post card or sound card. Also included on the board is a two digit POST code display to make diagnosing boot issues easier which is critical when overclocking.

If you are someone who cares about all the minor features of the board I’ll point you over to Gigabyte’s product page for the board as it does a solid job of discussing the boards features in more detail.

Layout
First the obvious, the UD9 is larger than your typical motherboard; it is both taller and wider. The width really isn’t much of an issue, as it will fit comfortably in to any case which accepts E-ATX motherboards. The height is more of an issue as it prevents the board from fitting into cases that have only 7 expansion slots. The UD9 also has two 8-pin EPS12V connectors to ensure that the CPU provided all the power is needs. While I do appreciate this, the placement is less than ideal as it is a bit of hassle to remove the power supply connectors once they have been connected.

Right above the PCI-Express slots and at the bottom of the board, a pair of 4-pin drive connectors are included to guarantee that there is enough power for the board when running multi-GPU setups.

Similar to other high-end boards the UD9 includes both power and reset buttons on board to make using the board on an open test bench somewhat easier. While I can’t really complain about this, it did bug me a bit during testing, the size difference between the power and reset buttons is a bit jarring and does make the reset button a bit hard to hit without looking for it.

Additionally, Gigabyte includes an extra heatsink that screws onto the top of the northbridge heatsink to provide extra northbridge cooling for those that will be sticking to air cooling for the board. Also included is a waterblock that cools the northbridge and allows anyone who already has a water cooling loop to cool the northbridge easily. All of this extra cooling that is included would be great if it weren’t for one thing. Both the waterblock and the extra heatsink attach to a piece of metal that attaches to fins which attach to another metal base which finally contacts the X58 northbridge. Does anyone else see the problem here? There are Fins between the northbridge and the waterblock.

Fins are meant to dissipate heat not transfer it, as a result both the extra air heatsink and the waterblock have little effect on northbridge temperatures. After seeing this I proceeded to do all of my testing with either the waterblock or extra heatsink. Throughout the course of testing the northbridge temperature never exceeded 45 degrees Celsius, which is impressively low especially compared to some of the other high-end X58 based boards. I’m going to sum up the UD9 heatisnk situation with this, if you find that your having problems with your northbridge running too hot, odds are, you’re doing something wrong.

The CPU socket area is fairly typical, we see Gigabyte’s 24 phase power delivery system and well, everything else is fairly typical of X58 boards. The mosfet cooling around the socket is a nice height as is did not interfere with any of the cooling methods we tested including the Prolimatech Megahalems and the single stage phase change cooler which can be tough to mount on some boards.

The one thing I feel is worth mentioning from an overclocking point of view is that the area around the socket is relatively crowded which makes insulating the board for subzero runs a bit of a challenge.

Finally, the one thing that I is missing from the board is a set of voltage measuring points as to be able to measure the actual voltage that components are receiving. This has become standard on overclocking oriented boards and I feel that it is a significant omission. Ironically enough, the lack of measuring points hits especially hard as the voltage set in BIOS and the actual voltage differed significantly most of the time. This left me having ask around (thanks Jody) to find measure points which were fairly inconvenient (behind the CPU socket.)

Test Setup

Motherboard: Gigabyte X58A-UD9
Processor: Intel Core i7 980X Retail
Cooling: Single stage phase change, Kingpin Cooling F1EE + LN2
Memory: Corsair Dominator GT 2000C7
Video Card: Gigabyte GTX 480
Power Supply: Antec TPQ1200
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex and Agility SSDs

A few notes about the UD9 and its BIOS
When I received the board it had the F1 bios, in this state is couldn’t clock memory to save it’s life, multiple kits, multiple CPUs and it still would only run 2000 MHz with 8-9-8-x or looser timings. Thankfully, this issue was fixed in F2 and later BIOSes and is no longer an issue as the UD9 now nearly identical to other high-end boards in terms of memory performance.

Results

(click for full screenshot)

All of the above results were achieved using the single stage phase change cooling unit which runs between -30C and -40C depending on the benchmark. Keeping this in mind, I’m happy with the results as the scores are all right around where they should be for a high-end board. The fact that Gigabyte has manged to keep their efficiency very close to that of boards that do not have NF200s while having two on board is impressive in my mind as most boards with NF200s on board take a slight performance hit in single card tests due to the added latency.

Now on to my favorite bench, low clock testing of SuperPi 32M. If I had to pick an area where the UD9 stood out, this would be it. Throughout testing, I was able to run 32M with my RTL values at least 1-2 settings tighter than on the E760 Classified. As a result, the UD9 enjoys a slight clock for clock advantage over the E760 classified in my testing. This allowed me to achieve a new personal best for lowest frequency needed to reach a sub 7 minute 32M run.

Click for full screenshot

This final result required liquid nitrogen cooling to achieve, and while not the greatest score overall, the clock for clock efficiency demonstrates what is possible with a better CPU.

Overall, the Gigabyte X58A-UD9 proved itself to be a solid, dependable board that never gave us any problems other than the initial memory struggles. A solid feature set, combined with well thought out layout and better efficiency than other boards make for a very respectable flagship board. Regardless, in good conscience I can’t recommend it at the $700 price point it currently occupies. It’s a great board but even in my efficiency oriented mind, the slightly better efficiency isn’t worth anywhere near the $200 extra it costs. If Gigabyte can get the price under control and bring it back into the realm of “reason”, say under $550, the UD9 will prove a very compelling choice for enthusiasts and overclockers alike.

• Compatible with K-, J-, T- and E- thermocouples (others should work but these are the recommended types)
• User programmable offsets
• Internal memory stores 100 sets of temperature readings that can be transferred to PC software
• Data logging software for real time testing (good for working with fan and component placement and viewing their effects in real time)
• Ability to export data sets from software in .xls format to do comparative studies and graphing

The graph capabilities of the 72-7712 software are not phenomenal, it does however serve the purpose. Though dual software readout (T1 & T2) would be preferred; the logging capacity and decent feature set, as well as an Excel export feature make up for the software weaknesses.

Thermocouple 1 reading

Thermocouple 2 reading

Thermocouple 1 - thermocouple 2 reading. Temperature difference. This screen is most effective when trying to move case temperatures closer to ambient room temperature.

Example of exported data to .xls format

Thermal conductivity of the heat sink material is an important factor in air cooling. Copper and aluminum are the most widely used materials in PC HSF (heat sink & fan) construction. The properties of these two materials are critical to proper cooling of the processor.

The Chart below shows the thermal conductivity of materials for comparison. The only three that matter for this testing are aluminum, copper and air (water and the other items may be of interest to those who like to get a little wet).

:More information about thermal conductivity and conductive heat transfer:

Some simple ideas for improving the PC enthusiast experience:

Checking the case for hot spots.

Keeping your entire case as close to ambient is probably the most important thing that can be done to keep the HSF operating at its maximum efficiency. A heat sink can not lower temperatures below case ambient and will usually level out 4-12 degrees centigrade above case ambient no matter how much money is spent on it.

By identifying hot spots, proper fan placement can be made. Though these areas may not seem relevant to CPU cooling; they are. Air circulating throughout the case creates eddies, (a current of air running contrary to the main current; especially: a circular current : whirlpool) which in turn, remain hot and by cross circulation make  air circulating around them heat up.

Working in a similar fashion to the eddy, dead zones (hot area where there is no mechanical air circulation) may seem harmless, it is critical to circulate or eliminate this air to alleviate convection (heat transfer in a gas by the circulation of currents from one region to another). For dead zones a fan may not be an option and directed air may be needed. If directed air is not possible then closing in/sectioning off this area may be the only option.

Knowing where the hot areas of the case are allows for fixes that otherwise would not be possible.

Testing for efficiency.

Methodology: Air can only dissipate a fixed amount of heat due to its low thermal conductivity. Having a material of higher thermal conductivity does not always mean better temperatures, but it does allow a potential for lower temperatures, depending on other contributing factors. Testing the two most common heat sink materials to see these differences helps gain an understanding of what the conductivity numbers really mean.

Copper and Aluminum heat sinks tested for conductivity.

Copper; 56.8 seconds to reach maximum efficiency with a variance of 3.9 degrees centigrade

Aluminum 59.8 seconds to reach maximum efficiency with a variance of 7.9 degrees centigrade

This is the point where temperatures stabilize and heat is dispersed through natural convection. This is not a scientific test as the blocks were not exactly the same and some variables were omitted. What it does show is that copper will transfer heat faster and more evenly.

A double boiler is used to allow for better temperature control

Test equipment and stop watch used (phone) for testing. A Tenma 72-8540 is used as a control.

The copper and aluminum heat sinks used for the test

A two minute test of both materials (copper and aluminum) showed a 3.7 degree centigrade variance, copper being hotter (this is good, it means it will draw that much more heat to be dissipated). It must be taken into consideration that these heat sinks did not have a fan and the variance would have been lower during operation.

The results of this test correlate directly to the previous test results.

Testing your Heat Sink and Fan assembly

Using an Arctic Cooling AF64 PRO

If the HSF is not equalizing temperatures within a reasonable variance or running 10+ degrees above ambient case temperature (check the temperature at the intake area of the HSF to eliminate the possibility of a hot spot causing the problem) then a re-seat of the HSF may be needed and possibly a replacement HSF of higher quality may be in order.

Using information gathered with a good temperature meter will help guide the process of lowering case temperatures and in turn allow for a cooler processor, memory and hard disk drive.

Shots of the 72-7712

All display elements

Temperature readout screen

Variance screen

Setup: Offset adjustment screen

Front view of meter showing controls

Conclusion

Using a dual probe temperature meter with capabilities comparable to the 72-7712 is a definite step up from the volt meter type single probe units that were used in the past. With the data logging capabilities and other features available with this unit it is much easier to maximize case cooling and potentially gain a few hundred MHz from a heat limited overclock.

With acceptable quality, useful software and features the 72-7712 makes an excellent addition to the tool box of the overclocker or small PC mod shop.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/06/01/tenma-72-7712-dual-chanel-temp-probe-what-happens-with-tempratures-inside-a-pc/feed/ 7 http://www.techreaction.net/2009/07/16/overclockaholicscom-3dmark-01-low-clock-challenge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=overclockaholicscom-3dmark-01-low-clock-challenge http://www.techreaction.net/2009/07/16/overclockaholicscom-3dmark-01-low-clock-challenge/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:11:31 +0000 3oh6 http://www.techreaction.net/?p=1434

The idea of a low clock challenge is to provide a playing field for benchmarkers to prove their tweaking skills in a given benchmark. Setting specific limitations constructs the playing field and opens the doors to a lot of people to compete that might not have the newest or best hardware that a wide open competition would require. Overclockaholics.com recently had a low clock 3Dmark 01 challenge which locked CPU clocks to 4.2GHz and limited Nature Frames Per Second to 1200FPS for single card or 1400FPS for dual card entries. These two simple limitations really setup an array of possible winning combinations that require tweaking skills at both the software and hardware level.

Needing a bit of a break from pounding my head against the wall with a memory review, I took a couple days to get back in the 3DMark 01 tweaking seat – which hasn’t been sat in for some time – and tried my hand at the Overclockaholics.com 3DMark 01 Low Clock Challenge. Here is my story of how I came to winning the single card category last weekend.

There are two primary platforms that can be competitive in this type of challenge, using an Intel C2D on the 775 platform or the slightly less potent Intel i7 socket 1366 platform. The reason i7 is actually a worse a platform for 3DMark 01 is the fact that the Nature benchmark scores are terrible on the i7 platform at 4.2GHz compared to C2D. You will soon find out that I had plans to take care of that. Essentially though, I had both platforms setup ready to rock but my goal was to be competitive with the i7 platform using whatever means necessary. I began preliminary testing on the Intel i7/X58 platform with phase cooling on the CPU. The need for sub-zero cooling on the CPU will also be explained shortly.

With the GPU on air, it was apparent that being competitive just wasn’t going to be possible. At a minimum, 90K was going to be required to win this thing, at this point in the weekend, I think the top score posted for single card was around 89.5K already. Even with the CPU under sub-zero conditions allowing for a very nice uncore clock – which helps 01 scores tremendously – the Nature FPS were just too low to compete. That is when the big guns were brought out to help the little GTX260 play with the C2D boys.

A little rubber eraser, 1 KingpinCooling.com Tek9 4.0 Slim, a 50K ohm variable resistor, a couple shop towels, and this setup was ready to rock 01’s world. The variable resistor was the only mod done to the card which was done to bypass OCP. Other than that, this is just a straight up Gigabyte GTX260 216SP video card. Here is a complete list of the hardware used for the rest of the competition.

Over the course of two six hour sessions, this system was beaten, abused, and downright throttled. The GTX260 nicely surprised me willing to run through Nature at -140C. Normally these GPU’s will cold bug well before that without a special BIOS so either these cards had that special BIOS, or this card is just a freak of nature. Either way, the GPU clocks definitely helped the score and took the single card results for the competition to the next level. Here are a couple photos of the two bench sessions.

Most of the benching was done with the GPU at -120C and the CPU at -30C ~ -35C. The digital multi-meter is showing the resistance across the OCP mod which I set to 13.33K Ω. This allowed GPU voltage of 1.25v to be used at clocks in excess of 1000MHz. For the suite of benchmarks, GPU clocks were set to 1026MHz with shaders running at 2052MHz. The GPU memory clocks were most stable at 1215MHz but could creep close to 1300MHz. For Nature however, the GPU clocks were set as they are in the screen shot below, 1080/2160/1215. Here is the screen shot of my best – and winning – single card result.

Obviously this isn’t even the best this setup could pull off at 4.2GHz because Nature is far from maxed out. If I could get GPU clocks high enough to hit the 1200FPS limit in Nature, the overall score would have been at least 92K. Either way it didn’t matter as this was enough to win the competition and take home a very much needed KingpinCooling.com F1 EE CPU pot. I have been benching with a MMouse Rev3 CU pot for so long that the upgrade to one with more mass is guaranteed to help with multi-threaded benchmarks like Vantage and 06 with the i7 processors. To wrap things up, here are a couple photos of the setup during tear down. Plenty of snow was produced during the bench session, nothing like winter in July.

I would like to thank Overclockaholics.com for a great contest, the rest of the competitors for pushing me to go LN2 on the GPU, and KingpinCooling.com for the prize. All I can say is that this card is far from done.

I arrived mid afternoon Friday and luckily I had no hardware casualties from the trip there, I met everyone when I arrived and it was really cool to meet those that I looked up at for so long. Vince was benching a killer rig (pics being kept under my hat ) and said after they were done they would get me set up with a rig to learn LN2. When I was being taught the ins and outs from everyone I was thinking that I had the opportunity to learn using LN2 from some of the best in the business and got a kick out of that. Shamino, K|ngp|n, Gomeler, Gautam, Vapor, 3oh6, Andre Yang, and Philly Boy were on hand with a few others to bench and hang out as well. I was set up to bench LN2 at a desk and was lucky enough to learn benching the Classified under LN2 by none other than Shamino, and that was a real treat to me. I was surprised how many Classified motherboards were on hand and then had to remind myself were I was and then it seemed normal. Over the weekend I saw a lot of records set and had a lot of fun -

I took some pics and think typing at 4:42am isn’t the best for blogging and will let the pics do the rest of the talking for me – notice how nonchalant Vince is as he fills his dewars LOL

The good photos of me were taken by 3oh6 (an awesome photographer)!

-TGE

TheGoat Eater Pouring LN2 - by 3oh6

TheGoat Eater - No Look Pour | by 3oh6

gomeler working the twkr

gautam working

Vince using the torch

Vince filling dewar

Vince

Gautam and Vapor's test rig

LN2 dewar

Partial Group Pic