Asus Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI + 3995WX Cooler Suggestions

Hello everyone,

I’m looking to build a Asus Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI + 3995WX build. Most of the CPU coolers in the market are engineered to be attached in the typical vertical orientation where the CPU fan is blowing air towards the rear exhaust fan. In this motherboard the CPU orientation is horizontal. My understanding is that most of the CPU coolers in the market won’t be performing very well in this kind of orientation.

Do you guys have any ideas what could be a powerful & quiet cooling solution that works with this horizonal CPU socket orientation? I’m looking for air cooling solutions only.

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It’ll probably be fine as long as you have enough airflow in the case (roughly in the direction of the cooler) and the cooler’s fans have enough clearance so that they can “comfortably” pull the air into the heatsink.

I have been asking the same question, as part of evaluating a possible TR Pro or Epyc workstation build. The only cooler I’ve found that seems to be specced for this scenario (with front to back airflow) is Supermicro’s SNK-P0064AP4. However it has a scary 3800rpm/92cm fan and a 38dBA rating, so I’m not sure how quiet it would be. See also this thread at StH, with some mixed impressions.

The problem was discussed a bit also in this thread, though mostly w.r.t. slightly cooler Epyc cpus. Most of that discussion seemed to settle on accepting the down-to-up airflow (though again, the discussion there revolved around somewhat less powerhungry processors). We also discussed changing the airflow direction of Noctua’s NH-U9-SP3, but it did not seem viable in the end.

If I do a build on one of these sockets, I’m considering trying the supermicro cooler while waiting for Noctua/beQuiet/et al. to come up with something. But I haven’t tried it, and I don’t know whether it would be a better solution than a larger cooler in the “wrong” direction, as @CybeastRaystriker suggests.

Thanks for the suggestion. I found some people that had built their WRX80 setups with the “wrong” CPU cooler orientation and were not happy about it. They said they are looking for better solutions. It would probably work but putting this much money on a build one starts to naturally be more demanding on every aspect of the build. I’m planning to run this 24/7 with at least 33% load on those cores at any given time so cooling should be pretty good while not making too much noise.

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Thanks, very good points and interesting threads!

That Supermicro cooler would be too noisy.

Other option would be to find some special computer case with alternative motherboard orientation where the airflow would be sensible even with the current big mainstream coolers.

I’d actually like the top of the case to be air/liquid tight to protect the hardware from random liquid spills when the computer at the floor. The direction of the airflow has to be designed with this limitation in mind. From down to up airflow would not work here.

This thread makes me think we need a water vs air thread.

I think water would work fine here but I’m reluctant to try on such expensive hardware. I don’t have prior experience with water cooling.

Assuming you by “current big mainstream coolers” mean those with perpendicular-to-socket airflow: Sounds like an inverted tower case (with CPU at bottom and PCIe at top) would be an option then, provided it has a clear enough path for exhausting the CPU airstream through the bottom. It would have to work against convection though, and PSU positioning may complicate it.

Hi there,

I am using an H11SSL-I SuperMicro Board with an AMD 7R32 which has a TDP of 280W. So in Terms of the Heatsink, I was pretty limited. Also, as this is a Server Board, Orientation was an Issue, because everything is optimized for Airflow in a Server.

I’ve got myself a BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro TR4, which flawlessly works also on an SP3 Socket, as those are basically the same mechanics. I mounted the Heatsink in the (on my Mainboard) default Orientation, meaning that the Air is blowing from Bottom to Top, to the Ventilation Holes in the Topside of my Case. Put the Stock Dust Filter from my Bequiet Case over it, to save it from getting it completly dirty when sitting shut off.

I figured that the “Cooling” Concept I have here is pretty simple. I have 3 120mm Front-Fans feeding Air into the Case, the Graphics Card is pushing it relativley good out on its own. The ramining Air goes passivly over the SSD and is finally sucked in from my massive Tower Heatsink and pushed the naturaly way outside, straight up.

Dont throw stones at me if i made a mistake, its the first time I have to cool 280W with Air in a Case on a Silent Note for me too. :smiley:

Anyways, it works like a Charm, even if i Prime95 that Thing to the absolute max and let the GPU also max out, the Temps are still in the upper 50°C range.

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Maybe consider turning the rear fan around to act as intake.

Just some fresh air into the CPU cooler instead of relying on preheated air from the GPU.

What you have right now looks good and should be fine.

Good to hear you get that good cooling performance despite the vertical orientation. Btw, is the CPU’s name 7R32 or 7F32? I ask because I don’t know any R version.

I’m thinking that the rightmost top fan in your picture might not do so much good, rather pulling out a lot of the fresh air from the topmost of the 3 intake fans, before it could do much cooling.

Hi! What about IceGiant ProSiphon Elite?

Case limitations would be the issue there.

It would probably end up shadowing a few PCIe slots, and it has orientation constraints because of its fluid-convection-based internal heat transfer thing (or similar, I can’t say I’ve understood its mechanism). I believe @wendell mentioned this in a video a while ago, that the ProSiphon Elite could not sit in a tower and at the same time blow backwards. Some part of its internal mechanism relies on gravity.

would work in a rack case with horizontal orientation at any rotation but vertical oreintation only works in TR non pro socket rotation

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I picked up one of the 3955’s just to try the 8-way interleaved memory, and see what I can do with it, or really, what it can do!

I was a bit perplexed at the cooling solutions, settled on the Dark Rock Pro TR4, BK023, then watched one of the videos where @wendell mentioned the Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL case, seems like it will have enough ventilation considering most of my systems are in ancient Antecs with the latest hardware… So I picked one of those up also!

I went with the ASUS platform, aesthetics is a thing! Well, that, and stability?

I’ve never seen any thermal videos of airflow analysis, once all the puzzle parts arrive, I might just try one of them diddies and post it, it’s been a while since my days in the labs…

These consumer parts are getting very well near the point where I left off way back in the day, sad to say we had this, and I’ve been very patient!

“Hey, lets rip the radiator out of a vehicle, and minaturize it, and slap it on an IC to cool it down!”

May “Server” protect us all!

J

I’m watercooling my 3975WX - will post thermals + build log once all the parts come in as a comparison. Even though OP only specified air cooling, I think a comparison should be made for those on the fence to fully empty their wallet.

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For those of us with some geek OCD, I would assume that it is best to have a big case for some comfortable duct routing space & some 3D printed fan ducts. I haven’t done any measurements, so take it with grain of salt.

For a 120mm fan, we need a duct with cross-sectional area of around 17.53 sq. inches & for a 140mm fan, its around 23.86 sq. inches!, for air to flow care free.
It is obvious that modern cases can vent out air on the top, so managing that part of the heat sink is barely a problem.
The bottom part is what we are probably thinking about.

If the GPU can be pushed to slots that are farther away or if long PCIe extenders can be used, we can probably use big fan ducts.

When it comes to big fan ducts & conversion adapters, the only one I know of is a seller in Ebay named Elegant Market who 3d prints them.

Here are a couple of those.

By combining different adapters like this in creative ways, it might be possible to intake air from the front or the left side of the case.

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Does this motherboard not have any way to control CPU fan speed based on temperature? :confused:

From the ASUS WRX80E web page

ASMB9-iKVM remote management: BMC chip to provide intelligence for its IPMI architecture for out-of-band management to enhance hardware-level control for improved IT efficiency

What this means is that the BMC chip manages the fans. To create your own temperature-dependent profiles for each fan, you need to connect to the BMC chip using the ethernet sockets on the ASUS board. Once connected, you will find settings for controlling each fan header on the motherboard.

I did this by connecting my old Win10 pc directly to the ASUS WRX80E using a Cat 6 Ethernet cable.

Good luck!

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