Optimal solution to get rid of ~1500W heat on a normal SSI-EEB case

hey everyone. me and my friend are building workstations for years now but in recent years we noticed every new product is more power hungry compare to last gen. another problem is with more feature added to new gen its gonna be limited by the size of the atx standards and there less space for other stuff.
we have 3 different build right now that need 1500W+ power after everything is added. a while ago i discovered the good folk on this forum gathered a very comprehensive list if cases for using SSI-EEB boards and it helped us a lot. we decided to use CoolerMaster Haf 700 and Fractal Torrent for these builds. for the CPU Cooler after testing some of them we settled on some top of the line Noctua and ServerCool one and they work fine for getting 400W+ heat out of the socket. (althou we have some problems with xeons becuz you cant fit two14mm coolers side by side but mixing 14 and 12 seems to be ok)

the only problem remaining is the overall heat dissipation. we always try to maintain positive air pressure inside the case and use high airflow fans for both intake and exhaust but i feel its not optimal. for example the Haf700 has a huge intake from 20mm front fan that almost doing nothing when the cpu cooler orientation is vertical for these builds.

these are list of mb+cpu+case anyone who is interested to know which combination we using for these builds: (and if you have any question how we get to these part i can explain becuz we tested and used a lot similar parts)
Dual Xeon 8383c+X12DPi-N6+Fractal Torrent
Dual Xeon 8481c+X13DEI+Haf700
Dual Epyc 9754+MZ73-LM1(or LM0v2)+Haf700

here some pics of the builds. althou i took these before we add ram+storage+graphic cards.



I’m building a similar system (currently awaiting most of the parts to ship/arrive).

I settled on an MZ73-lm1 motherboard and will be using dual Epyc 9654 cpus w/a full 1TB of RAM.

I was curious if you had tried/considered the Silverstone RM51 for your case w/that board? I’m also wondering if, in your feasibility research, you came across anything rackable that could handle dual 360 AIOs like the Silverstone XE360-SP5? In my mind the only thing that springs to mind capable of handling that is the Corsair 1000D. Sadly it’s not rackable.

It doesn’t look like I can wedge dual XE360-SP5 units into the RM51 so I may have to send it back and just go with 2 XE04-SP5 air coolers. My biggest concerns is sufficient airflow to keep the VRMs and the BCM57416 in check.

Thanks for any thoughts/pitfall avoidance advice would be grand.

Seems the RM52 is supposed to be able to handle dual 360mm rads.

There are too many intakes with not a lot of outtakes. If you want better airflow getting more outtakes will be beneficial. Heat rises, but with this amount of airflow it’s effect is very small.

It looks like the cpu fans are pointed up, but there is no where for the hot air to go except to the back. I would turn them around to point down.

Keeping positive airflow is still beneficial to reduce dust so you can take out the fan in the back of the case and guide the intake like this. 2 baffles should be pretty easy to 3d print.

image

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I think nutral made some good points I would echo. Getting air to flow directly from the inlet through the CPU cooler and then out a direct exhaust can make a huge difference. If you can’t run the air coolers to point front to back, then need some way to pull air out the top of the case or don’t use the Torrent case which is optimised for front to back flow. Second, if you look in commercial workstations (e.g. Lenovo) with dual CPUs then they often have baffles or air tunnels to guide the air specifically past the CPU coolers, so if you have access to a 3D printer then that might be an option.

Following the importantance of the air flow paths, this is my current workstation build. Lian-Li O11 Air Mini with 2 x 140mm fans in front and a single 120mm exhaust, with a Noctua NH u12a air cooler and recently upgraded to an i9-14900K from an i7-13700K.

If you look around at a lot of builds in this case, and other cases, they often fill the case with fans, all pointing in different directions. This case can have multiple fans in the base, top and back in addition to what I fitted. When I thought this through, sure it might give loads of positive pressure, but it seemed that all this was going to do was fill the case with turbulent air, and hence keep a lot of air and heat inside the case.

I tried a few fan configs, but this simple push pull fan arrangement was by far the most effective, and quietest. Like 5-10ÂşC difference. So maybe less fans, and straight air flow paths?

I also asked in another post How can I make my workstation more power efficient? - #6 by mikejmcfarlane about maximising for efficiency whilst maintaining performance. Got some good advice about a few things there. I’d experimented with under volting before, and had significant energy savings whilst maintaining performance and stability. As a result of that advice I also experimented with CPU power levels, and got some really great results.

With light under volting (-0.1V), and dropping power levels (PL1 and PL2) by only 5% (from the BIOS reported default value), and with a fixed limit rather than auto setting, I took about 30W-40W out the CPU, which means the hot running i9 with that “tiny” noctua air cooler runs under sustained load at about 72ºC! System is stable, and there is no thermal throttling or performance impact for short or sustained loads that I could see under benchmarking. And as there is good overall air flow through the case, then VRM, memory and SSD temps are all also good under sustained load, maybe 40-50ºC. So maybe some tuning of the CPU voltage and power levels in the BIOS will get you where you need to be with temps?

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I did only build like 5 or 6 PCs yet.
The latest is here under 7970 workstation build "
This was the first time I bought a case that has an open top. And this made me realize what is obvious but remarkable when you feel it. Heat rises from bottom to top.
The heat that is exhausted on the top of the case is just insane. I would say it is much easier to just drag it out at the top VS to “guide” it through the chassis to the rear as so many of us used to do.
I added 3 x 140 Bequiet silent wings pwm on the front and a kit of their tripple light wings on the top. Plus the exhaust one.
The threadripper cooler is the noctua vertical one 14u.
I really doubt a rear exhaust system could be any better. But that’s up to measurements.

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On the heat rising concept, for sure and many cases can be airflow tuned that way, but I’ve been very intrigued to try some of the Thermaltake CTE cases that are designed with this concept in mind. Like the CTE C700 Air Mid Tower Chassis

Sure, heat rises, but this concept is overvalued by most people. Whenever you have any airflow, the air will just go along with that flow, or get stopped. If you have an fanless case or fanless cooling, then it becomes important to emphasize, once you have fans it really does almost nothing.

That case is an improvement because it gives better air flow paths. It also makes things worse because they are showing a whopping 8 fans as intake and only 2 fans as outtake.

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we usually go for barebone if we need rackable case but i didnt find any standard 5-6u babrebone for dual epyc 9XX4 . i guess there is a limitation with combination of eeb mainboard + 2 massive cpu + so many dimms and cooler orientation, that prevents them designing such a case.
i didnt even consider aio becuz most of them are limited to 300W max tdp and there a big problem with having no dedicated pump header. another problem is how bmc interact with fan hubs and min rpm. at least on this GB mainboard its not even gonna work with most pwm signal and go to failover mode contently.
vrms are not a big deal imo. i will upload some thermal imaging later under 100% load. some other part of board gonna need some airflow,for example as you said the BCM57416 is placed such a way its getting no air flow and its above 100c all the time.
using RM51 and aio would be even more experimental than our build. i’m not saying it cant be done but you probably need to find a way to maintain positive pressure inside the case (maybe modify the case door to install some fans)

thank you for the post :slight_smile: althou that pic belongs to dual 8383c and it not gonna have a big gpu in the way of airflow. i already tested the downward airflow on the 9754 and its it seems worse compare to the normal.
i’m working on printing some baffles and see if they make any difference. i’m thinking about separating the cpu side and gpu side as well.

thanks a lot man. really useful tips there. the idea of getting more air to the case is about making sure dumping 1000w from cpu wont cuz any problem elsewhere. cpu fans are capable enough to keep the cpu moderately cool but i think at this point baffles are mandatory.

and about undervolting :smiley: MZ73-LM1 bios setting needs another topic of its own. its beyond comprehensive.

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Uh, why not WC and move the heat externally directly to a mora or similar? You can even pipe to a different room if you want.

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