[SCRATCH BUILD] Compact Splash - 14.5L / MITX / Watercooled 3770K + GTX570 - Page 18

I was able to boot 5.0ghz @ 1.365v but it crashed almost immediately under load. So I dialed it back incrementally until I was able to get stable at reasonable temps. I was getting stable at 48x w/1.3 volts but temps were too high for me (89 99 94 89). I might be able to notch vcore down a bit at 48, but I think I'll need to attempt a delid to push for 50 w/o worries.

haha, thanks man! it is happily kicking cooking BBQs ass atm.

Actually I'm sponsored by MyWifeThinksImCrazy.com and Bagels. Just kidding... this is all funded by my kid's college fund.

I'd love to enter... maybe once I get the wiring finished and snag some decent shots. Thanks for the idear....

Thanks and agree about the sleeving. For the most part its easy to tuck away now that its shortened, and the colors look really cool the way they're routed thru the case (especially from the PSU to the vid card).

Ran a couple load tests while folding today to try different fan configurations. I got some long work units so I was able to run all the tests on the same WUs (for an apples to apples comparo). Both the GPU and CPU were folding @ 100% load, and both are also OC'd. The CPU as I mentioned is at 4.7GHz, the GPU's at 850 core clock.... this is the first time I've OC'd a GPU and when I pushed core clock higher it started to crash the folding client, even at the maximum volts Afterburner will allow (1.1).

Ambient temp: 78F / 26C

Temps are maximum logged in RealTemp, with a 50 minute duration for each test.

All intake (push)
CPU 85 89 87 80
GPU 50

Front intake (push), top exhaust (pull)
CPU 86 90 88 81
GPU 53

All exhaust (pull)
CPU 89 93 91 84
GPU 55

I reset to all intake again at the end and noticed temps were 3-4 degrees lower than the first test, I think as a result of lower ambients (although it seemed about the same inside ). Regardless, all intake is definitely the winner.

Temps overall seem a little high, but I think the work units I had were especially grueling. Right now I'm folding different WUs and seeing CPU temps around 80 and the GPU at 48. I also think that once all the cables are sleeved & tucked away better airflow will help get temps down another degree or two.



SLE

Glad you like! Yeah if you check some of the early design updates I quickly came to the conclusion that there are some things small size is at odds with. Optical drive, ATX psu and 3.5" HDDs are all very space inefficient, and ultimately not needed so out they went.

There are more and more examples of quality small / high-power builds out there but you're right that most require quite a bit of modding to watercool (and even air cool properly, for that matter).

Question for you, as I've had a couple ppl ask why I didn't use an ATX PSU. What benefit is there to having it? I'm running relatively high OCs on both the CPU & GPU, on the most advanced MITX mobo platform (1155 / z77). And I'm doing all of it on one of two 450W SFX PSUs available. So why would anyone need an ATX PSU for a MITX system? I'm not knocking the idea, as I know there are tens (if not hundreds) more options available for the larger form factor. But, as with the newer ITX boards that do a good job of packaging a lot of power in a small form factor, we seem like we're there with the PSUs as well, so why take up more space with a larger PSU?

Ah, great perspective as usual. I haven't been into computers that long so I take the cheap/powerful tech available today for granted. I had no idea that PSUs used to under-perform their ratings (I'm sure its more technical than I'm making it sound ).