Fractal Torrent for Threatripper Pro, can it work?

New here, but been lurking for a while.

Im spec’ing out a threatripper pro machine for dev/ml work. haven’t divided between 32 and 64 cores yet. will have a single 3080TI in it.

Im shopping around for a case, and came across the Fractal torrent. but then realized that the CPU cooler will be blowing hot air directly at the PSU and will also not have a lot of air circulation in that direction. because the CPU/GPU will have long periods of 90%+ workloads, it didn’t make sense to think of an AIO that will blow how air into the case as well i guess…

So my ask is… has anyone built a threadripper pro on a WRX80 platform in this case, and if so what are your thoughts on temp. management?

I am happy to consider other cases, as cooling is key, and I also want to stay in the mid-tower space. for MBO i have yet to decide between the asrock and the asus and I know that the asus doesn’t fit so many cases, especially in the mid range.

Many thanks in advance!

It won’t if you use the artic sp3 cooler

Thanks GigaBusterEXE, I was looking at it but it felt like it may be

  1. too loud (i usually put noctua fans on EVERYTHING) and
  2. feels cheap… my brain doesn’t feel comfortable with a 60$ cooler on a 6000$ CPU :slight_smile:

its made specifically for more expensive epyc cpus, I don’t recall it being particularly loud
@wendell has used a couple he might remember better than me

40db fans for a box that sits right next to me all day long… for my use case it will only work if i hack 120mm noctua fans on both sides, i wonder if anyone made that hack… hmmm

was also looking at this guy since i can replace the fan, but may be underwhelming for the job at hand with a single 92mm fan

https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/coolers/XE04-SP3/

The Arctic fan profile on the Freezer 4U SP3 is not terribly different from Noctua NF-A12x25s in practice; I’d at least give it a try before worrying. At very low speeds you can hear the bearings in open air, but that noise vanished entirely inside a chassis at desk distance for me. At moderate to higher speeds an NF-A12x25 will whistle more on the exhaust side, due to the fin stack right up against the intake. A Phanteks T30 behaves the same way, only a bit louder.

In terms of flavor, overall the Arctic sound has more defined notes, Noctua is more broadband.

And yes, people have attached Noctuas with zip-ties.

The heatsink itself doesn’t feel cheap; the thing’s a 2.8 lbs copper brick. You wouldn’t want to ship a system with it installed unless you had a custom anchor to the chassis. About the only thing I can complain about is that the heat pipes tops are non-uniform.

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at that point your chip will be thermally throttled, there is no way a 92mm cooler will handle a 32/64 core chip

if you are willing to use a case where it rotates a mobo 90 degrees or lays flat like a test bed then a ice giant will perform the best

WOW, i wonder if those zipties will melt over time due to heat, and how they fit between the fins
i really like that approach though

Zip ties will fit horizontal-flat between the fins just fine. The fins are also technically mobile; each plate is separate and has a spacer lip, and they seem to just be friction-mounted on the heat pipes. I didn’t try to disassemble it or anything, but it’s noticeable when you handle the fins.

I haven’t tried it myself (I kept the Arctic fan on mine), but as far as I can tell the mounting method is 4 zip-ties attached to each other in a square, standing vertically. Then the excess is clipped at each head, which is too big to slip back through the fan mount hole.

Nylon zip ties are supposed to be good up to 85°C or so, and I’d expect the fin edges to get nowhere near that. Quickly checking with an EPYC configured for 180W, which I can keep at operating temp using only 1 fan at 800 RPM (front fan removed), the fin sides are peaking at ~45C in a 24C ambient environment. Most of the heat load is being wicked away by the airflow before the fins can saturate.

Not the same as your 280W Threadripper Pro, but I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem as long as you have some airflow in a decent ambient environment. The Torrent should certainly be handling the chassis air exchange just fine.

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Also if you haven’t seen it yet, this is one of Wendell’s builds in the Torrent:

Did you end up getting a Torrent with WRX80 motherboard? I’ve been wondering if somehow the ASUS one would fit. I think it would end up covering the rubber grommets used for cable pass-thru to the back but wondering if it’s still workable or problematic.

Also, it looks like the other boards by Gigabyte and SuperMicro may be smaller and might have a better shot at fitting.

One other thing: due to the different orientation of the CPU socket, it rules out the use of something like the IceGiant, unfortunately.

I already use the Torrent for a 12900K build, and it’s great, overall. Not loud, and pretty much one of the better ones at air cooling. So I was considering using it for a WRX80 build eventually but would like more info from those who have actually built one, to know the pros and cons.

Sorry to hijack a bit. Where did you connect the fan controller? I use the CPU fan header and in Proxmox it’s is a bit finicky sound wise (it really ramps up all fans under load and then quickly quiets down, very noticeable if I download stuff in Steam in a VM for example)

im still undecided. in the last few days have been considering just doing an EPYC build… evaluating my choices.

How did you end up deciding? Planning to do a TR Pro build in a Torrent, with the new V2 of the Asus board and I am curious to hear especially about cooler choices.

Built a TR Pro in a Fractal Torrent Compact case with the Asrock Rack WRX80 and Artic SP3 Cooler. Both of these components are setup for front-to-back airflow to take advantage of the big 180mm Torrent fans. It turned out great!

Also built in the full-size Torrent with the Gigabyte & Supermicro WRX80 boards. The Gigabyte also fit in the Compact but Supermicro needed the larger case. On those builds I used the SM 4RU cooler which has the right orientation for front-to-back flow but is a lot smaller compared to the Artic. I liked the Compact size better because the front fan capacity was the same as full size and wasn’t using the extra drive capacity on the back side. Seen lots of complaints about wire management in the smaller compact case but didn’t have any issues with a little time spent on the cable management. They are both really nice cases.

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