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[Project] i7Rampage

5K views 31 replies 9 participants last post by  destroydude 
#1 ·
CoolerMaster Scout

Operation Kill

Situation: I have a tiny case to start with and I need to put some pretty big "compensation" balls in it.

Mission: to break 30,000 in 3DMark06 while obtaining the ultimate Crysis killer.

Execution: Research

Concept of Operations: This is the type of task that requires lots of time reading forms. You need the skills of a plumber, electrician, and engineer. It can be costly so great care is required.

Phase one: Parts and assembly

Phase two: Test and clock the results.

Phase four: Watercool

Phase five: Bios updates, soft tweaks

Phase six: Clean up

Service and Support: The awesome people at overclock.net
 
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#2 ·
I started with:

Case: Cooler Master Scout
Mobo: Asus Rampage II Gene
CPU: i7 920 with the D0 stepping (runs a little cooler than the C0 stepping)
GPU: XFX 4870 X2

I put them together and got this:

LL
 
#5 ·
I ended up replacing every pretty colorful fan with noisy scythe 120mm fans.

I sought performance over beauty in the beginning. My ram was also getting a little hot as I was pretty amateur in the beginning... I just jacked everything up as high as it would go and ran my ram at 2000.

At this point I was using the CM V8 Cooler (which I'll sell for $45) and overclocking to 4 GHz getting a cpu temp peaking 70-73C. I had my cpu voltage at about 1.35. My DRAM voltage was at 1.65. My north bridge was reaching temps in the 80C range. Scary.

I ran prime95 to stress test the CPU and PC Probe to monitor the temps.
 
#6 ·
Water Cooling... the fun and joy.



So I went online and picked out my parts: heatkiller 3.0 (pretty popular here) and swiftech NB block. I chose that NB because I had the Rampage II Gene and a full cover mobo block was hard to come by.



I was soo excited when I finally got these parts that I hooked them up, added some uv dye to my loop... turned on some uv lights and disaster... leaks everywhere! That's why these pics look like that... i just cut them off in a hurry to hair dry my board.

LESSON: use only distilled water... don't screw with snake oils... aka coolants and additives.
LL
LL
 
#8 ·
Since then I have learned a few things about watercooling. It's all about the RAD.

The best loop is to go from RES -> pump -> RAD -> cpu -> res

At this point I was frustrated that my dual bay danger den res (which I'll sell for $20) wouldn't fit in my scout. The scout had rib guides for the drives that I would have had to cut off..

So I went out and got an Antec 1200. I put everything in the antec and didn't like how huge it was. so I got out a 1" hole bit and decided to make this scout work.

It's too bad I didnt know what a T-Line was because that would have save me a few scratches in my scout.
 
#11 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by r11 View Post
Since then I have learned a few things about watercooling. It's all about the RAD.

The best loop is to go from RES -> pump -> RAD -> cpu -> res

At this point I was frustrated that my dual bay danger den res (which I'll sell for $20) wouldn't fit in my scout. The scout had rib guides for the drives that I would have had to cut off..

So I went out and got an Antec 1200. I put everything in the antec and didn't like how huge it was. so I got out a 1" hole bit and decided to make this scout work.

It's too bad I didnt know what a T-Line was because that would have save me a few scratches in my scout.
yeah that is disappointing, for my Cosmos S I had a bit easier all I had to do is hit the metal tab flush then put my ek spin res in
 
#12 ·
You'll notice how sloppy the rad mount was. Let me start off by telling you a hole bit or whatever you want to call it should have a dremmel in it... a bit in the center to guide it ... or else... I don't have a picture but It didn't make a pretty hole
I am sure I am the only one dumb enough to do that.

Anyways... as you can see it was coming along. Just a little flashy for my liking. I made better use of the antec drive bay fans and I discovered compression fittings. The top fitting on the reservoir.

Mounting the rad was originally a puzzle. Hrrmm I thought.


Like this?



But I would loose my cool scout handle.

So I went with that.. I realized I needed room for all my cables so I simply doubled the fans coming off the back.


Bad Idea... This is the noisiest thing you can do. I was so committed to the set-up that I just lived with the noise but it was loud. I couldn't even hear my 4870x2 air cooler at 100%. Trust me it was loud.


 
#14 ·
Juggalo: Those cosmos cases are pretty slick.. I agree.

You'll also notice from the above picture that I discovered cable sleeves and heat shrink. What a mess


So I decided to rip it apart again. I pulled out all the junk.. removed a lot of the fancy lights and junk I had put in...



I got some black tygon tubing and paid 20$ for 20 feet. I'm in Canada so my choices of stores are few.

I got some fittings and the plumbing madness began:



 
#15 ·
sorry for the past tense-present tense confusion


I got a new top for my MCP 655. I decided that a small res would be better for me than a T line as it can be more manageable and quicker to bleed.

I crossfired another 4870x2 in the mix (newegg had a special here in Canada). This was troublesome and the case is small. I dont know many people putting these monsters in this case. I had issues with my powersupply. It took a lot of trouble shooting then I went out and borrowed a 1000w corsair. It didnt work either.

Until I went and figured out the rail system. The manual said do not hook up each hardwired pci-e wires to seperate cables.. so I didn't.. but I put both modular cables for the second card into #2.. it didn't work until i used the one #1 and the other #2. Now I can OC to my hearts delight.

I tried to flash top bios to my 4870x2's but it didnt look so pretty on 3DMark06.. the screen went all noisy and artifact like crazy. hrmm..

I then tried the xfx bios across both cards but the saphire didn't like it. Same problem. hrm...

I found out that there is some signature data in the bioses that marry's with the cards so it is best to use the signatures they came with.

I found ATI RBE Tool and it was awesome. I was able to simply remove the CCC overdrive upper limit on the bioses I already had. I tried to get the voltage up on the cards to 1.35 but it stuck at 1.25... maybe someone has a link that could help me


Flashing the bios is easy: Here is a link to tell you how.

After flashing the bios I then went and turned down my CPU to 3.6 Ghz and like 1.32 V (safe)

I then turned up the clock and the ram on each of the 4 gpu's in sync... all the same level.. i went up and down methodically and am not sure if I ended up with the best ..

I hope someone can help me. anyways all four gpus are stable at Clock 812 Ram 970. Is this good? should I turn down the ram to get some extra clock.. is it possible?
 
#18 ·
So I broke 30000 finally and am pretty happy about it


http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=11545900

I decided to put together a build log so someone in my shoes may benefit from what mistakes I have made:

1. Drill carefully
2. Leak tests!
3. Ram latencies matter more than how high you can get the freq
4. ATI 4870X2 Bioses may have signatures in them so use ATI RBE and never "atiflash -f -p" again.

Now I would like to see if anyone can give me some tips on PCIE and IOH overclocking...
 
#19 ·
I upped the voltage on my video cards with Techpowerup.Com's RBE Tool.

In the clock settings I had to change the voltage registers. I changed 0x18 to 1.3625 and it worked.

Once I reflashed my gpus, all four of them, with atiflash -p 0 a0.bin etc.. I rand 3DMark06 again. GPU-Z showed me the VDDC's were finally at 1.3. Right On!!

NOTE: the current went up to 40+ Amps

So this allowed me to push my GPU Clocks up to 832 MHz and Memory Clocks up to 1000 MHz. I ran a few benchmarks and everything is stable. Sometimes I can get the XFX card to push a little farther than the Saphire (up to 837) somewhat stable but after some reboots it crashes.

My highest temp in this set up is the MEMIO on my watercooled card (the air cooled actually has a lower MEMIO) and that was up to about 90C.

My watercooled card general GPU temps were much better than the aircooled however at around 45C with the air cooled pushing 60.

I will re-seat everything today or tomorrow. Do you guys want screen shots?
 
#22 ·
I'm in Canada and got them from directcanada.com

They have overnight shipping for 9.99 and their prices are pretty damn nice.

Keep in mind that elbows may hurt performance... but I didn't notice anything.
 
#26 ·
Here are the specs of water cooling fittings

G 1/4" Fittings:
1/4 Diameter
13,16 Diameter outside
11,89 Diameter Nut
11,80 Diameter Core Hole
19 Threads per inch
 
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