So after we got done with the new system which we did a full build video on, some things did not work out so well. It was not the fault of the case we used, but rather it being stuffed under my desk with about zero ventilation. So I headed down to Microcenter and bought a Thermaltake GT 20 since it had huge fans in front that could draft a lot of ambient air into the chassis. We went back and did some gaming testing, and it worked out very well. Having a FLIR camera is a huge benefit trying to figure things out as well. Those things are still not cheap, but they are not over a grand any more either.



After we got the new case, and rerouted the airflow, which I was skeptical of working in the first place, everything worked out well and we got very MSI Sea Hawk RTX 2060 overclocks that were stable. The case had some flaws, but nothing that could not be worked around.

After that we started doing some full load 2950X Threadripper tests.



We were seeing CPU package power restrained to about 165 watts using the Enermax LiqTech II 240mm cooler, which is to be expected from our previous testing. So this week we switched in a LiqTech II 360mm to see if it would make any different in our Threadripper clocks.

Testing with Premiere Pro encoding, it did not net me better clocks/wattages on the 2950X, however it did drop the temps a few degrees. So no real net gain on performance in the real world. The previous mounting did have a great TIM mating footprint…again. So it seems the mount system on the LiqTech II is very solid. It all mounted up very nice though and surely supplies a bit more airflow through the case.



The other issue I had with the MSI MEG X399 Creation was with the AERO EXPANDER card. I did not like the sound profile it made while I had it on the test bench, so I stripped off the heatsink and fan thinking it would not be a big deal. Well, after I saw temps hitting 100C on the NVMe drives on it, I thought differently, and put the HSF back on. The AERO card also “required” a 6-pin PCIe cable, which seemed a bit much.

I did take the time this time around to see if the fan on the card would function without the 6-pin PCIe cable connected. YES! Works just fine. It seems the 6-pin in on there for no other reason than to make this look like a video card….which is exactly what MSI said their goal was with its aesthetic design. Obviously an electrical X16 PCIe slot can deliver enough wattage to run 4 NVMe and a small fan. With the case under my desk and the sides on, I do not hear the fan like I did during testing, so all seems very good there so far. No distractions. There is no access to a fan profile, but you can turn the fan off and on with a switch on the card if you want. With the heatsink in place, and the fan on, my SSD transfer temps dropped 30C! I did not take the labels off the SSDs as I did not want to mess up any warranty on those. I will give those a while then remove those as the labels cannot be helping heat transfer to the heatsink itself.



This Thermaltake GT20 case is very heavy once filled with hardware. There is less than an inch from the top of the case and the bottom of my desk, so I have to slide it under the desk. The feet on this case are very sticky, so it got four furniture slides installed as well. Best mod yet!



Even with the “500 watt” 360mm Enermax Liqtech II, we still have CPU package powers limited even while using Precision Boost 2, which is no real surprise to us. We did however want to see how it worked in a real-world configuration. The 2950X is limited to 180 watts under PB2 and we are pushing ~165W, so we are close. As all of our cooling testing has shown us for months now, if you want to push into the 250W Precision Boost Overdrive territory, we still need to move to a full custom loop…which we will do assuredly. However, the Thermalright Silver Arrow TR4 did get us up to 231W…if you wanted to listen to it for long stretches of time while encoding videos.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – MSI – Threadripper [H]ardBox Updates