Threadripper heat & TRX50-Sage IPMI Expansion card questions

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Hey folks,

I built myself a lovely workstation PC with a Threadripper 7970X on an Asus TRX50-Sage WIFI board. I am running NixOS 24.11 with kernel 6.12 (yay, k10temp works now for this cpu when it didn’t for me in 6.6, so I can see CPU temps, kinda! woo!).

For some background, here’s the gist of the other relevant system components:

  • MERC 7900 XTX GPU
  • Noctua NH-D9
  • Silverstone RM52 in tower mode
  • 2x SN850X 2TB disks in a mirror for the OS
  • 4x 120GB Optane P1600X disks in a zfs stripe for games & such (in an Asus PCI-E 4.0 Hyper NVME adapter)
  • 4x Noctua NF-F12 fans

I have only a couple of complaints:

  1. It is pretty noisy,
  2. I would really like to have IPMI.

For the first complaint, I have tried a few things. I have adjusted the fan curves in the BIOS and that has seemed to do absolutely nothing to actually change how the fans ramp - they’re just as loud and annoying as ever, just as fast as ever. These fans are supposed to only be 42db but the sound level in my office is closer to 55. Now, this computer is not the only computer making noise in my office so the noise floor is pretty high, but it’s definitely the largest contributor by a long shot. I’m really also not sure which fans exactly are causing the problem. Is it the case fans or the CPU fans? I don’t know. [Edit: it’s the case fans] Now that I have upgraded to 6.12 and k10temp works, I do notice that Tctl & usually at least one CCD are pretty high temperature - usually around 85C even when I’m not really doing anything taxing like building software or gaming. Maybe I just have too many tabs…no, that can’t be it.

For complaint #2, I know that there supposedly is an Asus IPMI card that works for this machine. However, I don’t know exactly which model it is though I am pretty sure it’s this one which as far as I can tell doesn’t even have a product page on Asus’s website, only this support page. The compatibility list for this product does say the TRX50-Sage WIFI so I think that’s it. The problem here is that there doesn’t seem to be any MSRP for this nor is there a real retail outlet for it - I see it listed on Amazon for like $444 which seems like highway robbery. I did find one this one for $164 which seems somewhat more reasonable, but from a vendor I’m not familiar with.

So, now that I have ranted a bit, on to the questions:

  • Should I switch to an AIO or something for my CPU? Or use different fans? Or something else?

  • Have you used the IPMI expansion card for the TRX50-Sage WIFI? Is $164 a reasonable price for it? Do you have a good source for these cards? Is it worth doing at all?

Thanks for your help folks! I always enjoy the insights I get from people in this forum even when I’m asking dumb questions. :slight_smile:

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i use a Corsair iCUE H170i ELITE LCD XT Liquid CPU Cooler 420mm(3 x140mmfans) with 6 x 140mm case fans in a Fractal Define XL. My 7965wx idles at 42C and Maxs out 85C fully loaded (ambient 22C) with all fans set to 1000rpm so pretty quiet. I see your chassis can accommodate a 360mm radiator which should stop the CPU throttling with a bit more rpm, generally you mount the fans on the inside of the radiator so this also dampens the noise. Air cooling and Threadripper is not a good option imo unless you are deaf :slight_smile: The IPMI is onboard with the WRX90 Sage so I cannot help you with that.

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I ordered a SilverStone XE360-TR5 which I read was pretty good, going to swap out the air cooler for that and see if it helps. I assume it will fix my noise problems. :smiley: We’ll see later this week…

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Yep the Silver Stone XE360 AIO cooler is best in class. I use it with my 7970X. You may need to adjust your fan curve anyway, but it’s going to be more efficient in handling the heat from the CPU than the Noctua cooler.

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The AIO came early and I got it yesterday, spent the afternoon reworking stuff and installing the AIO and then trying it out in some scenarios that were annoying before. Works great, ~20C cooler than it was before. Massive improvement. Thanks for the suggestion @Wask!

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