Recommendations for 'new' systems

[Chris0War]

Howdy chaps,

Just had a bit of a ROFL moment.

I saved me some money and bought some new PC equipment. I'm now the proud owner of an enthusiast grade intel CPU ultra system.

My cpu is cooled by a 360 AIO. In the first few days i already noticed the fans spinning up quite often, especially during file transfers, installations of games and apps. Fiddled around for a bit with custom fan profiles and managed to find a sweet spot.

Got some games running after, Dragon Age Veilguard, Doom Eternal, Total War Warhammer 3. All games that should benefit from that superdope AI accelerator all those commercial guys talk about. Of course Distant Worlds 2 was also something i had my eyes on. I mean, supercomplex calculations should fit that bill precisely, right?

Well i'm sure this game does benefit but, i have to add. With a system load set at 60% my cpu is at around 50% load and man those fans get loud. I am planning to look somewhat more in to the matter. Questions such as 'how hot does the cpu actually get ? ' etc may lead to some more adjustments. Of course i also will be looking into reducing the system load from the menu.

First question, is there some limit i should account for when adjusting system load. I can imagine the game working far from optimal if i set the limit to 10 for example.

Also, do you think that more optimization might be on its way?
There is of course a lot of talk about intel's latest cpu range and its performance in gaming or maybe we can expect something from Codeforce's side?

I might be wrong of course with such expectations. In one sense i progressed 5 whole generations since my 10900k system, with lightining fast memory and M2 drives so of course more heat is expected, but i do hope there are answers to be found here.

It would be such a shame if 'heat' would prevent me from enjoying DW2 again

Your's sincerely

Chris

[Chris0War]

With Hardware info running together with Distant Worlds 2 i think i tracked the problem. The CPU is running at 100% TDP, at 50% CPU load. This increases the temperature to 60 degrees C on the package and to around 52 degrees C for the core.

The MSI MAG360I spins audible to keep the temperatures at those low 60s. I've been searching around for some solutions and managed to get some options for an Ultra 285K, MSI MEG Z890 ACE motherboard combination with Copilot.

1. Undervolting CPU
2. Limiting TDP CPU
3. Disabling precision boost
4. Change cooler recognition to manual and set a regular air cooler instead of water cooled
5. Enable power save features

Somehow option 3 seems very interesting for reasons far behind my logical mind, I guess limiting TDP seems to be most interesting since that maybe is the least impactful way for other activities on my system. I think i will try to to get some more feedback on the intel ultra forum but, if anyone who reads this is in possession of some insight they like to share, you are more than welcome

best regards,

Chris

[razaron]

You should be able to set fan curves in the BIOS.
https://download-2.msi.com/archive/mnu_ ... 682%3A8825

Your temps are more than fine, actual TJMax is 105C (should only approach this running artificial loads like Prime95 etc.).
You obviously don't want to hit anywhere close to that while gaming but it's good to know, as that's when Intels serious thermal throttling kicks in on the whole CPU. You want max speeds on a few cores while gaming, so you don't want to go above 80C to stay safe.

I'd suggest looking at what your fan speed % is while gaming when it starts to get uncomfortable for you then tweaking appropriately. "Appropriate" depends on your current fan curve and personal preferences. If it's an exponential ramp from e.g. 20%-100% at 50C-65C, try something more linear. If it's at 30% when it gets uncomfortable, then I'm not sure what advice to give...
Worst case, you want it to hit 100% by 80C at the latest.

To check speeds, you can use MSI Center if you've already installed it or something like this: https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases
Can also use them to tweak fan curves but BIOS is more reliable. Still useful for testing.

[Chris0War]

Hi Razaron,

Thanks for your reply. My main concern is actually the loudness of the fans spinning and not so much the heat signature that bothers me. In retrospect i might have been better off with a 280mm AIO since larger fans spin on a lower speed (usually)

For now i've opted with decreasing my p-core boost speed with 0.4 Mhz. 0.2 got my TDP down to 100Watts, previous at max TDP=125W, and another 0.2 got me down to 80,85Watts,at 5Ghz This is in situations where 3 or more P cores are used. Below i still have my 5.7 boost, can you believe that silly thing in the beginning dared to boost to 6.4!!! really ... engineering is letting us down by not providing simple AIO coolers with a freezer element implemented! Under a 1000 euros!!

Now the testing truly begins since i took the start of Distant Worlds 2, paused, as my main target.

[Ax]

Power use apparently does rise exponentially with clock frequency

Just be aware of the degradation issue with the 13/14 gen Intel chips, they don't like overclocking too much.

[Chris0War]

Hi Ax,

Yes, i ran a couple of games with one of the lower overclocking profile settings from the bios and that went mega insane!!! In Forspoken for example or Veilguard the little sweetheart went all overboard with wattages rising towards and over 300Watts....

Distant Worlds 2 is an odd one btw. I started with decreasing clock speed, afterwards i tried reducing CPU load from the game menu but that little sweetheart just kept boosting higher and higher.
Atm i'm thinking that 'Thermal Velocity Boost' is the main culprit. This allows the CPU to boost to max TDP regardless other settings. I will test again coming wkend.

Also i'm ditching the 'MSI MAG Liquidcore 360I' in favor for a Europe favorite the 'Artic Liquid Freezer 420 III' with RGB.

Another case is also coming, atm i'm contemplating the 'Be Quiet' range, to be more specific the 'Lightbase 900 FX' case.

Here i have room for the 420 rad on top, the 360 rad from the 3090ti on the side, 3 140 mm fans on the bottom + 1 140mm on the back.
I'm awaiting the reply from Be Quiet to see if this is indeed feasible!

To finish the build i'm also researching sleeved cables and cable combs

[Chris0War]

After further reviewing DW2 for a dozen hours or so, i found that next to a 5Ghz 'overclock' on the P-cores and disabling Thermal Velocity Boost ™ it also seems to be a sound advice to spin the CPU cooling fans on a fixed rpm.

With the load set to 30% in the gamemenu and observing casually figures while gaming i noticed that the average Package TDP at 65W is enough to create a steady increase in temperatures, in my case. Over 60 degrees C the CPU AIO cooler turns into a fairly loud object. If temperatures are around 55 degrees the fans spin in a more enjoyable manner. This can be achieved by preemptively choosing a higher RPM than the fans spin at when controlled, again, in my case.

For now, this seems to be the solution to the Help my DW2 game IS makin my fans spin alloud problem
I'm curious to see if the new ordered pc case and fan supplies will change anything.

The DW2 game i'm currently in, just an easy one, seems to be behaving all right for now. In 2850 and without any hiccups in a slow massive star system

[Chris0War]

Hi all,

Yesterday i had the pleasure of 'rebuilding' my machine. Goodbye to the old ways

Old Situation chaos.jpg (420.26 KiB) Viewed 239 times

and hello new

Test 1.jpg (382.11 KiB) Viewed 239 times

The machine operates completely different atm, and i'm literally not sure where to look for the changes i'm seeing. Goodbye to the revving fans and hello to the new cool situation. In Distant Worlds 2 i'm not even measuring the same numbers as before. Somehow it now acts as a very reasonable PC

DW2.jpg (284.3 KiB) Viewed 239 times

I will take my time to see where the numbers will lead me to. I do like to add that i changed one fan setting in the motherboard, changing from stock to PWM. Who knows maybe that function overruled my fan settings i programmed in the MSI windows software occasionally, it does not explain where the power spikes i noticed are gone too but i might find out in the coming weeks when i explore my current game of DW 2 into the depths of the years 3000

[ChrisGb]

This is a little odd to be honest.
My case fans never even spin up to perceivable levels not even in late game.
My GPU fans do not spin at all as I set the curve to >55C but there seems a 5C threshold before it kicks in, so they not come up till 60C.

Before anything there is this one single rule to be followed: Set up the system in a way so you can have all fans on a fan hub to control all aspects (lighting and custom curves) thru there in real time.



And omfg, whats with that cable salad in the case ??? You need to adress this ASAP. Thats an order !!!
This why I not really keen on this kind of case you have there. It kinda always looks messy and there is little you can do.
I always build in Mico ATX cases as I have the PC right next to me on my desk and it looks tidy and neat.

[Chris0War]

This is a little odd to be honest.
My case fans never even spin up to perceivable levels not even in late game.

When i upgraded my previous this setup to this unhinged version of an CPU one of the first things i played around it was Distant Worlds 2. Because of the constant cpu boosting to max TDP the fans sprang into red alert to keep the CPU below 70 degrees C. I had to install all sorts of measures to keep the sound at an comfortable level. Funny thing is, somehow it seems to withhold its self now, even when i disable all the measurements. The only measurement left in place is the DW 2 menu option 'CPU load = 30%'

And omfg, whats with that cable salad in the case ??? You need to adress this ASAP. Thats an order !!!
This why I not really keen on this kind of case you have there. It kinda always looks messy and there is little you can do.
I always build in Mico ATX cases as I have the PC right next to me on my desk and it looks tidy and neat.

I like to think it is functional

[Chris0War]

*short addition

PC seems to be capable to absorb twice as much heat as in the previous situation.

After some intensive gaming and a Heaven Unique benchmark for about 10 mins the GPU, at around 430W, I managed to increase the GPU temperature to about 66 degrees C, most gaming seems to score under 60 degrees C, in gaming scenarios i do have the gpu powerlocked at about 60%

I did play DW2 for a couple of hours more last night. Increased system load in the game menu from 30% to 40%, this in turn increased the power draw to around 100W while keeping the temperature steady at about 55 degrees C. Any noticeable DW2 ingame differences you might ask with 30 or 40% system and i would answer with a vow that i most certainly noticed some more fluency in the portrayal of the thousands and thousands of freighters roaming the universe...

I solemny swear ....

[Chris0War]

*Final approach

So i changed a couple of things around.

- Intake fans are now at the side front. This balances the airflow towards both radiators, top and bottom. In the previous setup intake was only from the bottom. Especially the CPU rad benefits from the increased cooling flow.

After another 'hot' session of DW2 last night, i could notice the difference. While temperatures remain more or less the same the system as a whole needs less,way less, rpm's to keep the temperatures at where they at...

(also increased memory from 2x24GB to 4x24GB)

I was planning on redoing the whole cable management thing too but, my back intervened (pulled a muscle this week)