Here is a silly idea: Is there a way to drop from PCIe4 to 3.0 in the UEFI? Not just GPU but overall. I honestly have no idea if that makes any difference on the CPU side … but hey, right?
Oh, one other thing: What about RAM? Capacity, speed, CL? How about dropping speeds there? Shouldn’t make a difference in performance for that type of workload, right?
Yes I can make manual adjustments to the PCIe in the BIOS but cannot make any such adjustments for probably another 24 hours; batch is running.
I am running 32 GB of 3200CL16 RAM. it’s Corsair Vengence (CMK32GX4M2B3200C16). I picked it because it is QVL and when i was buying parts 3600 RAM was ridiculously expensive in my part of the world.
Honestly, IDK if dropping the RAM to 2666 would make any difference in that sort of work load. The only real difference would be the voltage to the memcontroller, yeah - 1.20v vs 1.35v; or am I not understanding something here?
The memory speed and IF speed are linked. Drop one and the other one follows. The difference in heat can be drastic because the memory controller and the infinity fabric are running cooler. If you can, try dropping to 2666 and log performance and temps.
My never-ending to do list has some new items for tomorrow. 
I have a pile of things to encode that I was going to do later today, while the GPU is batching, but I can wait until I (re)set to 2666 RAM timings to log any differences.
Thanks for the assist
Hey man, anything to make you jump through more hoops, right? 
Jokes aside I’m curious how this turns out myself.
Good luck.
EK usually makes ok stuff all round, with a few oopsies over they years, but they are rarely my favorite over the decade plus I’ve been doing it. That and their quality control has been slipping again in the past 1.5 year.
If I were to build a new loop from scratch today, personally I’d go:
Heatkiller IV CPU block. Not that chart topper in any particular aspect, but the relative comparison of price/thermal/flow is the most advantageous option as I see it. Optimus has better thermal but those worst flow I’ve seen in a long time, since like, Swiftech was still relevant. EK has the “Quantum Magnitude” that actually performs really well, but is stupid expensive, and the other from them are not so good. Heatkiller IV has 2nd in class in all aspects, instead of 1st in one or two classes but last in class in some other class.
Heatkiller IV GPU block. I’ve not seen any numbers for Optimus yet, but even then at over $200 that means it would be competing with the Aqua Computer Kryographics Next and that one isn’t worth the few % difference over the Heatkiller. Flow numbers are next to nonexistent for GPU blocks, I have to go to obscure German sites just to get comparison charts for thermal nowadays.
You said only EK makes a block that fits, are you sure? Non reference PCB? That sucks, they don’t do as well in that area.
Hardwarelabs SR-2 radiators. These are the best along with HWL GTX for really slow RPM fans. They also have the Alphacool style extra ports for extra routing flexibility, which, I have used as a way of making a really sleek and hidden drain and fill, even without using any extra fittings at all. I personally bloody hate t lines.
Monsoon Modular Reservoir System. It’s just so customizable and SICK looking. Speaking of a slick AF drain or fill, this has some pretty cool ways of doing that as well.
EK Dual PWM D5 pump. This comes in a nice custom dual top with lots of rubber vibration isolation. Simple choice, overkill maybe… probably. I used to run dual video card back when you know, GPU companies still gave a shit about that. Single suffices for most things.
Barrow compression and XSPC angled rotary fittings. This is where I would cheap out. God these suckers can be expensive AF. Over the years I’ve used so many types of fittings, I’ve never seen it to matter. The only thing that even can go wrong with them is the finish and the rotary kind can leak, but I’ve never had that happen with any of mine. Any brand rotary can leak if QC is off or if you put pressure on them parallel to the rotation plane. Thus, you want them to be under zero tension if you can mange it. If I felt baller and was going for pure looks, Monsoon Chainguns are still the hotness if you ask me. (They do visually synergy with the Monsoon radiator really well). EK has a nice feature where the inner surface of the fitting are milled like a hex screw so you can tighten therm with an allen key instead of using a coin (not that, it really makes any difference) like you do with the kind with slots cut in them, but they are overpriced unless you can get old stock of the previous models.
Non personally switching out the Monsoon reservoir for a simpler cheaper one, and whoever is selling the cheapest single D5 at the time is really the only changes I would make. Possibly res/pump combo thing.
I had some other things to say here Liquid cooling for EPYC - need advice.
Here is a very brief summary of my testing this morning. As you can see I totally forgot to log the speed of compression from Handbrake. The output times were all roughly the same, within a few minutes on a 3 hour+ encode. I didn’t do the full encode just used the very large file as a dummy load to generate heat.
2133 mem
10 min - max 78C 4.1Ghz
2400 mem
10 min - max 79.5C 4.05Ghz
2666 mem
10 min - max 81.5 4.04Ghz
I have full csv’s for each run. I hate spreadsheets, but if required I can make them available.
AFAIK. I have an EVGA 2080 ti FTW 3 Ultra Gaming. I think i found one other block, but it’s out of stock; Bykski. Maybe there’s Barrow? I live in Canada, so it’s importation no matter who i decide on, and as I spread my order out over multiple vendors the costs go up exponentially as I have to pay customs/duties/taxes on each shipment instead of the one. Plus the ridiculous costs to ship here in the first place.
Thank you. That O11 Dynamic looks super clean.
My only questions still are the outstanding ones about T fittings and drains, it’s probably the layout that I need to fix in my head, but I am still in the mental debate stage; wrapping my head around this is better than buying and swearing later, yeah?
Just so we’re all on the same page this is the loop I ‘designed’ in the EK configurator. It doesn’t include any extra fittings etc it’s just the basic ingredients. Am I missing anything?
I would usually advise people building their first loop to keep it as simple as possible until you feel comfortable with designing a more complicated one, but dual pumps are nice to have. 2 pumps running at 50% are much quieter than 1 pump running at a higher load. Plus, you have some redundancy in case of a pump failure. It also means that your pumps are less likely to fail b/c they can be operated at lower rpm’s together thus reducing wear on the pumps.
I use 2 of the smaller DDC pumps running in series to increase the head. I have them set at about 50% so the rpm is constant and let the radiator fans on pwm adjust if the system gets to hot. Half a dozen fans spinning up a few hundred rpm is much quieter and less annoying than a pump spinning up to 3500-4000 rpm. If you have enough radiator capacity then your fans won’t spin up either. The loop I have now was originally designed to handle an overclocked i7 and 3 overclocked GPU’s. Like most people, I’ve abandoned multi-gpu so it runs whisper quiet. My FreeNAS box is louder.
Regardless, make sure you get a pump or pumps that are variable speed. PWM controlled or manual, as long as you can adjust it so it is running at a speed that is effective for your loop without running at full tilt all the time. PWM is more convenient since it’s easier to control in software.
Overall staying below 80°C seems about right for an air cooled system. Bummer that the memory speed doesn’t do more to the temps. I guess those are back to back to back, so the delta might be even closer.
I only have the one tee with a ball valve and I should have included another up high for bleeding because it will airlock. Not a huge deal since you can just lean the case around.
I’m not a huge fan of EK for a few reasons having stuck within their ecosystem. If I was building something new tomorrow I would look at other companies but thats my own personal beef.
On the topic of your configuration. Looks good, but I have a few thoughts. Where are you mounting the pump? EK has a bracket that will allow you to mount in 120mm fan locations or directly to a fan. I would avoid the splitters, or at the very minimum only use the 2 fan splitter because I’ve heard of the 3 fan splitters causing people to kill their fan headers. Depending on the fan that could end up popping fuses. I think you’re a little light on the radiator. I have the thicker rads in a 240 and 360 and still hit 75c with the loop saturated. Granted my fan speeds are a little slow but I’m not trying to go for a wind tunnel here either. I would probably skip the atx plug as most decent PSUs come with them and its not that hard to jumper but 
Thats my $0.02. You should pay attention to what @Pawmaniac says. Dude knows his shit. I’m just a single build ahead of you here.
Alright, I am back with some very specific questions and many thanks for everyone.
Questions:
In my case manual, for the top radiator, it states a clearance of 65mm. Maybe I am on the pedantic side, but does this stat mean rad, or rad+fan? generally speaking. I could open my case and eyeball with a measuring tape.
Which leads me to the next question, I sort of alluded to this in an earlier comment about wanting to keep the orders as simplified as possible, all things considered - if I changed the rads to Hardwarelabs SR-2 (provided that I can fit one in the top) and kept the majority of the loop the same would I be more OK? The SR-2 capacity(?) is nearly double that of the EK rads, and with the multi port design I could totally take advantage of the ‘hidden’ drain port that my case has.
Fans? Vardars are pretty decent at higher RPMs, are they still good slower? Any better fan recommendations?
Anything else I am forgetting?
[/questions]
I haven’t fully decided on how to mount the pump/res. I will probably go for the fan mount type system.
As far as fans go, I have a fan hub in the case. It can control up to 3DC + 4 PWM fans, is powered by SATA and will handle up to a 4A power draw. It’s not the most elegant solution but it does work as a bit of a kludge provided fans are detected properly via splitters. Worse comes to worse, I can run the majority of the fans off of the hub, and the remainder off of individual headers.
65mm should include fans which are usually 25mm thick so no more than 40mm thick rads…which isn’t great. Maybe look to thicken the other up if possible.
Mixing parts shouldn’t be an issue as everything is BSP thread standard.
Fans are a mixed bag but for your setup static pressure over cfm is king. If you want no nonsense then noctua is great.
I would still recommend a dedicated fan controller but I went full rainbow vomit so it was necessary for me anyway. Seems like you’ll be fine if you spread them out.
This has given me more to think about than I originally expected, and I have had to change the way I was originally planning this. Instead of doing 140 rads, if I want to thicken them up i’ll need to go for 120 so I can fit 2 360s instead of a 280 and a 420.
The Hardware Labs rads are thick in a couple different dimensions and in order to make sure they fit I consulted my case manual. The planned 420 rad was 5mm too wide to use, good thing this is all being done now and not after I order anything, lol.
The EK rads had a heat capacity of ~900 watts.
Hardware Labs 360GTS heat capacity is 1200 Watts - Top
Hardware Labs SR2 360 MP heat capaity is 1500 W - Front.
That certainly seems like a lot more capacity to allow for head room.
Them youtubers sure make this look easy
I can tell you from my own experience that a 2080ti and 3900x are enough that I wish I had gone for more rad than just a 360 and 240 approximately 60mm thick.
You should be able to put a 120x360x40mm rad in the top of the P600S. That should be plenty if you are also planning on putting another rad in the front. You should be able to use the SR2 in the front and one of Hardwarelabs thinner models in the top. Phantek’s website on the P600S also shows that 140x420mm should fit in the front. I don’t know if I would go that big on that case in the front though. It might be a little tight. A 120x360 would leave a bit more room for the fittings.
I’ve been happy with the fans I’m using. I have 3 140mm fans in the top on an Alphacool NexXxoos 140x420x40mm rad and 6 in push/pull in the front on an Alphacool NexXxoos Monsta 120x360x80mm rad. They are all Akasa’s. Apache Blacks in top and Piranhas in the front. The static pressure rating is around 3mm H2O on the Piranhas and little below that for the Apaches.
In that case, you should really look at DazMode!
You should be able to get everything from there, a native Canadian seller. They have a pretty good selection of brands too.
You can also look at the US based https://www.performance-pcs.com or https://www.frozencpu.com they both have excellent selection.
[Ahh, funny, the conversation rolled around to what I was saying while I was distracted, I stared typing this 4 hour ago lol.]
In any case, replace on of those SE rads with a thicker one. In general the 30mm thick rads aren’t very good(HWL GTS an exception), but might be unavoidable in that case.
Your case can afford to fit thicker ones, it’s just about how they fit together.
https://www.phanteks.com/assets/manuals/PH-EC600PSTG.pdf
(Nice case choice by the way, I have the original Phanteks Enthoo Primo)
That manual says you have 95mm clearance in the front. Considering if you buy from DazMode, they don’t carry HWL. EK has no such 60mm thick 140mm fan size radiators. Their 45mm thick CE is pretty good though, about the same performance to the Alphacool 45/60 thick 140mm class which are all close to each other, very close at low RPM, all a bit behind the HWL options at least in the 280mm models. They are all a decent bit better than the 30mm.
The top has a “safe” clearance of 65mm, so a 40mm rad would fit, like the EK PE. XT45 or CE is just that 5mm thicker too much. However the manual also says that if you go 120mm fan size, the thickness might not matter unless your ram is high profile, “50mm” from the motherboard tray I would assume). Which would mean you could possibly go 240 60mm thick but here but…
I crunched some numbers, the best radiator you can probably fit in that case is a 420 45mm thick for the front (a 60mm thick 420 like a HWL would work too but would be really tight) and a 280 30mm. Close to what you have but getting at least one that is thicker than 30mm is nice. The difference from 30 to 45 is decently larger than 45 to 60, on average.
In as much as the top and the front might be different, here is someone who managed to get a 280 GTS in the top
the GTS is quoted as being the same width as the SR-2/GTX.
Like I mentioned on that other post I linked, I’m a fan of ‘sickle bladed’ fans. My favorites are still the Gentle Typhoon, but as far as 140mm goes, I think Vardar doesn’t have a lot of competition for low noise/high rad performance. NB-eloops probably.
Considering the layout of the case, as long as the fitting are in the “basement” area under the PSU shroud and not contending with hard drives, there should be a lot of room for fittings. The challenge here is figuring out how to get tubing back out of the basement. A really slick way to do this with modern cases is to do a run behind the motherboard tray and have it feed into the top rad, probably with fittings on the left. Then into the CPU block -> VGA block -> reservoir probably and then directly down through that second hole in the shroud. Phanteks actually has a place for a pump bracket in that exact spot in the basement.
Like this, almost.
Now having the fitting in the ceiling, thats a problem.
This is the same guy with the 280 GTS on top. You can see they are both 30mm rads, if the one in front was a thick 420 there would be no room.
Wow, this has been like a crash course. 
Here’s what I have pieced together at DazMode with some follow up comments and questions.
Comments first:
I know that list only has one rad, they are sold out of the 30mm 280s. I would go with an Alphacool NexXxoS ST30.
My other thought on rad config would be an Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 360mm on the top and a NexXxoS XT45 X-Flow Performance Multi-Port Radiator 360mm for the front. Reason being that a crossflow rad at the front would/could make the run easier. I think that would give me roughly the same capacity.
The Quick connects are for the drain line, I should have enough room to run it to the drain port at the bottom front. I know it’s not the Phanteks ball valve fitting. I’ll need to actually measure the port tomorrow.
I have HDDs under the PSU shroud so I need to be aware of them in planning the loop or at least not ignore them while thinking of runs and how much space fittings/pumps etc can occupy.
I’ve added fans for push/pull, but not fully committed to it. Not sure if I would even have the space for push/pull with a 60mm rad in the front. I am aware I have Noctua fans, I could mix/match with Gentle Typhoons for push/pull(?), or just use noctuas in single fan config.
Questions:
Will something like the EK-Loop Uni Pump Reservoir Bracket be sufficient as a pump/res mount?
Do I really need a tubing cutter, or is a good pair of scissors enough? What about a de burrer (is that even the right word)?
Did I match the tubing and fitting sizes? Are they decent for a first build?
Did I mix metals and accidentally create a galvanic time bomb?
Should I ask anything else?
It all looks good to me man.
