New The PC Build Thread

[The Voice]

Had a hard think about it, and with price increases having no end in sight, my AM5 upgrade is going to have to wait indefinitely. Was really feeling the bottleneck with my (now straight) 5070 Ti and 5600X, so figured I'd get the best out of AM4 while I could, and picked up the re-released 5800X3D 10th Anniversary edition.

Everything flew along, but couldn't figure out why temps were so high. Went through multiple tuning setups, PBO limits, custom curves, etc. Turns out it was just a "feature" of X3D chips because of where the cache is placed (directly on top of the chip, which creates a thermal blanket). But, most temps I was getting while running CineBench or other benchmarks (or even just gaming or idle) were just way too high compared to what other people were getting. 95C in CineBench is not good, especially considering the 5800X3D throttles at 90C, unlike normal Ryzen chips that can go up to 95C.

Anyway, it was around this time that my 5 year old AIO started sounding like an old mechanical HDD. Just chilling in WoW, and the temps went from 66C the first day to almost 90C when I decided I needed to do something a couple of days later. Turns out if was EOL, so did more research online for a replacement. The AIO I want for my AM5 upgrade, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III, simply won't fit because my RAM is too tall for the chonkier radiator. I'm going for lower profile RAM with the upgrade, moving away from RBG, so it won't matter then. Not keen on getting a different AIO just so it fits with the current build, either.

So, the other option was good old fashioned air. They sure have come a long way since I last used one, and there are just so many options. But, after all my research, it turns out that one of the absolute best on the market right now is also one of the cheapest. Enter this bad boi, the ThermalRight Phantom Spirit 120 SE:



This thing is YUGE, sure, but with my current curve, and cooler case temps (I reused the two Be Quiet! fans I had on the AIO, now configured as intake and exhaust at the top of my case), my CineBench temps are now 15-20C lower than before, which means my CPU can boost for higher and longer. Throttling definitely was an issue before, because with the new cooler my score went up by 400pts. Even idling is < 40C, where it was regularly pushing almost 60C. And the most amazing part of this cooler, apart from how cool and quiet it is, is that it only cost me £28...

 

[deesef]

Had a hard think about it, and with price increases having no end in sight, my AM5 upgrade is going to have to wait indefinitely. Was really feeling the bottleneck with my (now straight) 5070 Ti and 5600X, so figured I'd get the best out of AM4 while I could, and picked up the re-released 5800X3D 10th Anniversary edition.

Everything flew along, but couldn't figure out why temps were so high. Went through multiple tuning setups, PBO limits, custom curves, etc. Turns out it was just a "feature" of X3D chips because of where the cache is placed (directly on top of the chip, which creates a thermal blanket). But, most temps I was getting while running CineBench or other benchmarks (or even just gaming or idle) were just way too high compared to what other people were getting. 95C in CineBench is not good, especially considering the 5800X3D throttles at 90C, unlike normal Ryzen chips that can go up to 95C.

Anyway, it was around this time that my 5 year old AIO started sounding like an old mechanical HDD. Just chilling in WoW, and the temps went from 66C the first day to almost 90C when I decided I needed to do something a couple of days later. Turns out if was EOL, so did more research online for a replacement. The AIO I want for my AM5 upgrade, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III, simply won't fit because my RAM is too tall for the chonkier radiator. I'm going for lower profile RAM with the upgrade, moving away from RBG, so it won't matter then. Not keen on getting a different AIO just so it fits with the current build, either.

So, the other option was good old fashioned air. They sure have come a long way since I last used one, and there are just so many options. But, after all my research, it turns out that one of the absolute best on the market right now is also one of the cheapest. Enter this bad boi, the ThermalRight Phantom Spirit 120 SE:

View attachment 1937246

This thing is YUGE, sure, but with my current curve, and cooler case temps (I reused the two Be Quiet! fans I had on the AIO, now configured as intake and exhaust at the top of my case), my CineBench temps are now 15-20C lower than before, which means my CPU can boost for higher and longer. Throttling definitely was an issue before, because with the new cooler my score went up by 400pts. Even idling is < 40C, where it was regularly pushing almost 60C. And the most amazing part of this cooler, apart from how cool and quiet it is, is that it only cost me £28...

And it will probably last 10 times longer than the water-cooled jobbie...
Less chance of water-damage too

 

[Neoprod]

Had a hard think about it, and with price increases having no end in sight, my AM5 upgrade is going to have to wait indefinitely. Was really feeling the bottleneck with my (now straight) 5070 Ti and 5600X, so figured I'd get the best out of AM4 while I could, and picked up the re-released 5800X3D 10th Anniversary edition.

Everything flew along, but couldn't figure out why temps were so high. Went through multiple tuning setups, PBO limits, custom curves, etc. Turns out it was just a "feature" of X3D chips because of where the cache is placed (directly on top of the chip, which creates a thermal blanket). But, most temps I was getting while running CineBench or other benchmarks (or even just gaming or idle) were just way too high compared to what other people were getting. 95C in CineBench is not good, especially considering the 5800X3D throttles at 90C, unlike normal Ryzen chips that can go up to 95C.

Anyway, it was around this time that my 5 year old AIO started sounding like an old mechanical HDD. Just chilling in WoW, and the temps went from 66C the first day to almost 90C when I decided I needed to do something a couple of days later. Turns out if was EOL, so did more research online for a replacement. The AIO I want for my AM5 upgrade, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III, simply won't fit because my RAM is too tall for the chonkier radiator. I'm going for lower profile RAM with the upgrade, moving away from RBG, so it won't matter then. Not keen on getting a different AIO just so it fits with the current build, either.

So, the other option was good old fashioned air. They sure have come a long way since I last used one, and there are just so many options. But, after all my research, it turns out that one of the absolute best on the market right now is also one of the cheapest. Enter this bad boi, the ThermalRight Phantom Spirit 120 SE:

View attachment 1937246

This thing is YUGE, sure, but with my current curve, and cooler case temps (I reused the two Be Quiet! fans I had on the AIO, now configured as intake and exhaust at the top of my case), my CineBench temps are now 15-20C lower than before, which means my CPU can boost for higher and longer. Throttling definitely was an issue before, because with the new cooler my score went up by 400pts. Even idling is < 40C, where it was regularly pushing almost 60C. And the most amazing part of this cooler, apart from how cool and quiet it is, is that it only cost me £28...

I'm old-fashioned maybe but a chonky air cooler looks better in most cases (especially m-atx like the Deepcool CH170 when it fills up most of the space).

Also can't beat the reliability of a big hunk of metal...I say that with a Corsair H1-something or other in my case for a good few years now.

 

[The Voice]

I'm old-fashioned maybe but a chonky air cooler looks better in most cases (especially m-atx like the Deepcool CH170 when it fills up most of the space).

Also can't beat the reliability of a big hunk of metal...I say that with a Corsair H1-something or other in my case for a good few years now.

Can't really see it in my case anyway because it has a smoked glass panel, and it's black. And it now blocks off half my RBG RAM. But, would rather have a cooler system than a pretty one, I guess.

 

[Pulserider]

Had a hard think about it, and with price increases having no end in sight, my AM5 upgrade is going to have to wait indefinitely. Was really feeling the bottleneck with my (now straight) 5070 Ti and 5600X, so figured I'd get the best out of AM4 while I could, and picked up the re-released 5800X3D 10th Anniversary edition.

Everything flew along, but couldn't figure out why temps were so high. Went through multiple tuning setups, PBO limits, custom curves, etc. Turns out it was just a "feature" of X3D chips because of where the cache is placed (directly on top of the chip, which creates a thermal blanket). But, most temps I was getting while running CineBench or other benchmarks (or even just gaming or idle) were just way too high compared to what other people were getting. 95C in CineBench is not good, especially considering the 5800X3D throttles at 90C, unlike normal Ryzen chips that can go up to 95C.

Anyway, it was around this time that my 5 year old AIO started sounding like an old mechanical HDD. Just chilling in WoW, and the temps went from 66C the first day to almost 90C when I decided I needed to do something a couple of days later. Turns out if was EOL, so did more research online for a replacement. The AIO I want for my AM5 upgrade, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III, simply won't fit because my RAM is too tall for the chonkier radiator. I'm going for lower profile RAM with the upgrade, moving away from RBG, so it won't matter then. Not keen on getting a different AIO just so it fits with the current build, either.

So, the other option was good old fashioned air. They sure have come a long way since I last used one, and there are just so many options. But, after all my research, it turns out that one of the absolute best on the market right now is also one of the cheapest. Enter this bad boi, the ThermalRight Phantom Spirit 120 SE:

View attachment 1937246

This thing is YUGE, sure, but with my current curve, and cooler case temps (I reused the two Be Quiet! fans I had on the AIO, now configured as intake and exhaust at the top of my case), my CineBench temps are now 15-20C lower than before, which means my CPU can boost for higher and longer. Throttling definitely was an issue before, because with the new cooler my score went up by 400pts. Even idling is < 40C, where it was regularly pushing almost 60C. And the most amazing part of this cooler, apart from how cool and quiet it is, is that it only cost me £28...

I've got a similar set up. Only have the AMD 5700x3D CPU. I've purchased this heatsink which is similar to the one you've listed https://www.thermalright.com/product/peerless-assassin-120-black/

My only issue was after two months there was some grease leaking out of both fans. I've contacted Thermalright support and show them the photos etc. and was refunded a percentage of the price I've paid for it. I then just went and purchased 2 of https://www.wootware.co.za/arctic-a...RkhHY9zRe_Mh-fOz8OnNvfjv2WAV9Iml04TvHnvozhPZR

 

[The Voice]

I've got a similar set up. Only have the AMD 5700x3D CPU. I've purchased this heatsink which is similar to the one you've listed https://www.thermalright.com/product/peerless-assassin-120-black/

My only issue was after two months there was some grease leaking out of both fans. I've contacted Thermalright support and show them the photos etc. and was refunded a percentage of the price I've paid for it. I then just went and purchased 2 of https://www.wootware.co.za/arctic-a...RkhHY9zRe_Mh-fOz8OnNvfjv2WAV9Iml04TvHnvozhPZR

Ah nice. Yeah, the PA is actually the predecessor for PS, but because the PA (if you can still find it) is around the same price as the PS, I went for the latter. Will keep an eye on the fans - thanks for the heads up. Planning on replacing them with Be Quiet! fans, because that's what I have in the rest of my system.

 

[RaptorSA]

Look what I did with my long weekend
Not going to lie, this was a lot of struggling for something I though might take a day or so. (I had no idea that finding a piece of copper plate was harder than locating the "city of gold", El Dorado).

What you're looking at is was a typical Dell Optiplex 7020 Micro Plus (1 Liter) PC....
These things:



There's one difference though, with the "plus" version, someone at Dell must have swallowed some tainted mushrooms and decided to bake a full desktop 65 watt Intel i7-14700 CPU inside these little things (instead of the usual max 32 watts chips they use on the T-series processors). This thing can boost-draw up to 190 Watts (anyone who knows anything about 1L micro PC's would know how utterly insane that is)... even the power brick is a 180Watt beast, and remember, this thing doesn't have a dedicated 3rd party GPU so that extra ~90Watts is just sitting here in case the CPU can somehow use it.

To add insult to injury:
Dell also completely f**ed up with the firmware causing a problem where no matter what you do, the stock CPU fan won't ramp up (or ramp at all) above +-30% and the only "fix" was to either disable fan control in the BIOS causing it to spin at 100% constantly (while still thermal throttling), or, what most people do is to disable turbo boost, dropping the performance below what my other Dell 7010 Micro i5-13500T can do.

So basically, there's a mountain of performance (and problems) sitting right there, all of which can be fixed and taken advantage of in one swoop if only you could somehow strap a giant desktop tower cooler... oh wait, what's that?!

Meet my Dell OptiRex 7020





I air fried (no kidding) an original heat sink for it so the entire thing came apart, heatpipes and all. I then flattened/lapped the heatpipes properly.. then managed to find a 0.6mm copper plate to create a new interface plate to mount directly on top of the heatpipes. I was going to solder the copper plate on top but I learned the hard way how insanely difficult it is to do soldering with heat pipes without them swelling and/or rupturing, so decided to just use thermal paste (glad I did, the thermal overhead is so big that the risk of soldering the plate would have been a waste)





No one but me will probably ever truly appreciate the fact that the tower cooler isn't mounted with some hacky cable tie solution etc. It's a proper mount using the original hardware right on the heatsink plate, strong enough to carry the entire system around by the tower cooler alone.

 

[RaptorSA]

Look what I did with my long weekend
Not going to lie, this was a lot of struggling for something I though might take a day or so. (I had no idea that finding a piece of copper plate was harder than locating the "city of gold", El Dorado).

What you're looking at is was a typical Dell Optiplex 7020 Micro Plus (1 Liter) PC....
These things:

View attachment 1940558 View attachment 1940542

There's one difference though, with the "plus" version, someone at Dell must have swallowed some tainted mushrooms and decided to bake a full desktop 65 watt Intel i7-14700 CPU inside these little things (instead of the usual max 32 watts chips they use on the T-series processors). This thing can boost-draw up to 190 Watts (anyone who knows anything about 1L micro PC's would know how utterly insane that is)... even the power brick is a 180Watt beast, and remember, this thing doesn't have a dedicated 3rd party GPU so that extra ~90Watts is just sitting here in case the CPU can somehow use it.

To add insult to injury:
Dell also completely f**ed up with the firmware causing a problem where no matter what you do, the stock CPU fan won't ramp up (or ramp at all) above +-30% and the only "fix" was to either disable fan control in the BIOS causing it to spin at 100% constantly (while still thermal throttling), or, what most people do is to disable turbo boost, dropping the performance below what my other Dell 7010 Micro i5-13500T can do.

So basically, there's a mountain of performance (and problems) sitting right there, all of which can be fixed and taken advantage of in one swoop if only you could somehow strap a giant desktop tower cooler... oh wait, what's that?!

Meet my Dell OptiRex 7020

View attachment 1940450 View attachment 1940488

View attachment 1940571

I air fried (no kidding) an original heat sink for it so the entire thing came apart, heatpipes and all. I then flattened/lapped the heatpipes properly.. then managed to find a 0.6mm copper plate to create a new interface plate to mount directly on top of the heatpipes. I was going to solder the copper plate on top but I learned the hard way how insanely difficult it is to do soldering with heat pipes without them swelling and/or rupturing, so decided to just use thermal paste (glad I did, the thermal overhead is so big that the risk of soldering the plate would have been a waste)

View attachment 1940436View attachment 1940437

View attachment 1940438View attachment 1940441

No one but me will probably ever truly appreciate the fact that the tower cooler isn't mounted with some hacky cable tie solution etc. It's a proper mount using the original hardware right on the heatsink plate, strong enough to carry the entire system around by the tower cooler alone.

View attachment 1940449

Would have been a waste to run this beast with just 16GB DDR5 in single channel mode and it's basically the last hurdle before I can replace my current 32GB mini work PC with the OptiRex. RAM is important since I'm always hovering around this usage even on slow days...



Managed to find and order another 16GB DDR5 5600 chip for R2K... which is a steal when you look at current market & 2nd hand pricing.



So now I could drop in another 16GB compatible DDR5 5600 Sk Hynix chip I had in my Lenovo Laptop then I'll drop the new Crucial chip in the laptop once it arrives.

Before memory upgrade:


After memory upgrade:


If I ignore the little bits and pieces I bought for the CPU heatsink mod, the entire system with memory upgrade cost me R10,500.

 

[PhireSide]

Nice hackjob @RaptorSA, I love to see things like this that is more than just slapping some pieces together. Are you planning on 3d printing an enclosure for it?

 

[RaptorSA]

Nice hackjob @RaptorSA, I love to see things like this that is more than just slapping some pieces together. Are you planning on 3d printing an enclosure for it?

So right now the entire PC has actually been dropped into a 3D printed "shroud" so I could get an idea of sizing, where holes would be needed etc.

It's not the prettiest of things, but just being able to lift up the top lid if I wanted to give the machine a quick clean with an air blower is a tempting proposal... I'm starting to think though there's really no reason to use a 3D print case or shroud to "save" the original top cover, might as well dremel out a slot on the existing case... and then paint that cooler tower a nice jet-black. It's actually insane how much easier this thing is going to make that once-a-year maintenance. Should take me like 1 minute and I wouldn't even need to unplug anything or even shut down the machine.

Aesthetics doesn't really matter to me that much though, this thing will be plopped down behind my 3 X monitor setup and I'll rarely see it.



The final problem to solve is the fact that the current 120mm fan is of course using the same PWM 4x cable fan connector as the original tiny blower fan that was on the tiny stock heatsink shroud, so the problem is the system sees the current RPM and thinks it spinning too slow so it's hammering that giant 120mm fan thinking there's "not enough" cooling/RPM, it's almost hilarious to see a system CPU hovering 2-3 degrees celcius above ambient temperature... haha!... so it went from having way too little cooling to too much of it (it's unnecessarily noisy).

That said, I did some tests and quite frankly, unless I'm running something CPU intensive for a long time I can actually get away for probably 95% of my compute work just running it as a passive cooler with no fan.

I might have to buy and try out one of these things or find some kind of adjustable PWM controller knob thing:

DeepCool Low-Speed PWM Fan Adapter

Low-Speed PWM Fan Adapter

www.geewiz.co.za

 

[PhireSide]

The final problem to solve is the fact that the current 120mm fan is of course using the same PWM 4x cable fan connector as the original tiny blower fan that was on the tiny stock heatsink shroud, so the problem is the system sees the current RPM and thinks it spinning too slow so it's hammering that giant 120mm fan thinking there's "not enough" cooling/RPM, it's almost hilarious to see a system CPU hovering 2-3 degrees celcius above ambient temperature... haha!... so it went from having way too little cooling to too much of it (it's unnecessarily noisy).

That said, I did some tests and quite frankly, unless I'm running something CPU intensive for a long time I can actually get away for probably 95% of my compute work just running it as a passive cooler with no fan.

I might have to buy and try out one of these things or find some kind of adjustable PWM controller knob thing:

DeepCool Low-Speed PWM Fan Adapter

Low-Speed PWM Fan Adapter

www.geewiz.co.za

Maybe you could splice the fan cable and reroute the 12v to a 5v rail, if one is available? I'm sure all the fan header wants to see is a tach signal from the fan itself, and I am sure even a steady 5v supply to the fan would be more than ample to run at a constant velocity/rpm?

 

[B-1]

So right now the entire PC has actually been dropped into a 3D printed "shroud" so I could get an idea of sizing, where holes would be needed etc.

It's not the prettiest of things, but just being able to lift up the top lid if I wanted to give the machine a quick clean with an air blower is a tempting proposal... I'm starting to think though there's really no reason to use a 3D print case or shroud to "save" the original top cover, might as well dremel out a slot on the existing case... and then paint that cooler tower a nice jet-black. It's actually insane how much easier this thing is going to make that once-a-year maintenance. Should take me like 1 minute and I wouldn't even need to unplug anything or even shut down the machine.

Aesthetics doesn't really matter to me that much though, this thing will be plopped down behind my 3 X monitor setup and I'll rarely see it.

View attachment 1940808

The final problem to solve is the fact that the current 120mm fan is of course using the same PWM 4x cable fan connector as the original tiny blower fan that was on the tiny stock heatsink shroud, so the problem is the system sees the current RPM and thinks it spinning too slow so it's hammering that giant 120mm fan thinking there's "not enough" cooling/RPM, it's almost hilarious to see a system CPU hovering 2-3 degrees celcius above ambient temperature... haha!... so it went from having way too little cooling to too much of it (it's unnecessarily noisy).

That said, I did some tests and quite frankly, unless I'm running something CPU intensive for a long time I can actually get away for probably 95% of my compute work just running it as a passive cooler with no fan.

I might have to buy and try out one of these things or find some kind of adjustable PWM controller knob thing:

DeepCool Low-Speed PWM Fan Adapter

Low-Speed PWM Fan Adapter

www.geewiz.co.za

A 1/2 watt 80ohm resistor inline with the power should drop it a decent amount.

 

[Rayne]

 

[RaptorSA]

This is why it's sometimes so damn useful to be a little bit of a hoarder...
5 days spent trying to find a proper solution on my Dell OptiRex build that would solve the insane fan noise issue, but also keep Dell's firmware happy so it doesn't s**t its panties and cry over fan issues each time you boot....

Enter the heatsink junk d00s...
25 years of -mostly- old school thermal related PC stuff kept in the back of closet wherever I go.



Turns out the solution to my problem was a random stock intel fan right under my nose all this time, godknows what family it's even from. Thing runs whisper quiet off the PWM header, Dell's BIOS is happy, and somehow it's not allowing to get any of the p-cores to reach even 80 degrees in stress tests.



I don't even know how it's working so damn well to be honest. It shouldn't be this efficient. My working hypothesis is that instead of using a bunch of static pressure like the other 120mm fans that push air through the fins, it's almost as if it's creating some kind of venturi effect around a large portion of the tower that's amplifying the cooling effect by pulling in a ton of air and allowing it to rise and take away heat (so this probably wouldn't work well in a case, but on this open air design it accomplishes wonders)

Just need to make it look nicer, but yeah, I'm happy as a pig in s**t right now.

 

[deesef]

This is why it's sometimes so damn useful to be a little bit of a hoarder...
5 days spent trying to find a proper solution on my Dell OptiRex build that would solve the insane fan noise issue, but also keep Dell's firmware happy so it doesn't s**t its panties and cry over fan issues each time you boot....

Enter the heatsink junk d00s...
25 years of -mostly- old school thermal related PC stuff kept in the back of closet wherever I go.

View attachment 1942255

Turns out the solution to my problem was a random stock intel fan right under my nose all this time, godknows what family it's even from. Thing runs whisper quiet off the PWM header, Dell's BIOS is happy, and somehow it's not allowing to get any of the p-cores to reach even 80 degrees in stress tests.

View attachment 1942257

I don't even know how it's working so damn well to be honest. It shouldn't be this efficient. My working hypothesis is that instead of using a bunch of static pressure like the other 120mm fans that push air through the fins, it's almost as if it's creating some kind of venturi effect around a large portion of the tower that's amplifying the cooling effect by pulling in a ton of air and allowing it to rise and take away heat (so this probably wouldn't work well in a case, but on this open air design it accomplishes wonders)

Just need to make it look nicer, but yeah, I'm happy as a pig in s**t right now.

FINGERS

 

[Fulcrum29]

For those with Sapphire and Gigabyte RX 7000 GPUs, it is reported that there is a vBIOS update due to a security issue that isn't being made public. Sapphire said in a statement that is not being issued on social media that the update is being done in cooperation with AMD. AMD discovered the issue, or so it is said. AFAIK, only Sapphire and Gigabyte pushed out the update.

Do it or don't do it; the 'risk' isn't publicly disclosed, which is odd.

I haven't seen the update on Gigabyte's product driver pages, so I would assume that it is being pushed via some control panel. I am not sure about them because I am going by Reddit talk.

Sapphire has published the updates here:

Drivers and Firmware

Download the latest drivers for your SAPPHIRE Radeon consumer graphics card product and operating system. Also note that most AMD drivers are universal and backwards compatible however they are operating system specific. Always make sure you choose the appropriate operating system for your...

www.sapphiretech.com

 

[Fulcrum29]

It seems that Kingpin will now be working with ASUS,

well, and Corsair. I don't even want to know what an ASUS ROG x KINGPIN GPU will be priced at today.

He isn't saying much and will be discussing this on his new benchmarking channel. I am curious whether this will be a coop between Kingpin, ASUS and Corsair? Very limited, but will likely sell out in seconds.

 

[RaptorSA]

FINGERS

Too wimpy to do any real damage to my gatgabba pickers.

Look what I did with my long weekend
Not going to lie, this was a lot of struggling for something I though might take a day or so. (I had no idea that finding a piece of copper plate was harder than locating the "city of gold", El Dorado).

What you're looking at is was a typical Dell Optiplex 7020 Micro Plus (1 Liter) PC....
These things:

View attachment 1940558 View attachment 1940542

There's one difference though, with the "plus" version, someone at Dell must have swallowed some tainted mushrooms and decided to bake a full desktop 65 watt Intel i7-14700 CPU inside these little things (instead of the usual max 32 watts chips they use on the T-series processors). This thing can boost-draw up to 190 Watts (anyone who knows anything about 1L micro PC's would know how utterly insane that is)... even the power brick is a 180Watt beast, and remember, this thing doesn't have a dedicated 3rd party GPU so that extra ~90Watts is just sitting here in case the CPU can somehow use it.

To add insult to injury:
Dell also completely f**ed up with the firmware causing a problem where no matter what you do, the stock CPU fan won't ramp up (or ramp at all) above +-30% and the only "fix" was to either disable fan control in the BIOS causing it to spin at 100% constantly (while still thermal throttling), or, what most people do is to disable turbo boost, dropping the performance below what my other Dell 7010 Micro i5-13500T can do.

So basically, there's a mountain of performance (and problems) sitting right there, all of which can be fixed and taken advantage of in one swoop if only you could somehow strap a giant desktop tower cooler... oh wait, what's that?!

Meet my Dell OptiRex 7020

View attachment 1940450 View attachment 1940488

View attachment 1940571

I air fried (no kidding) an original heat sink for it so the entire thing came apart, heatpipes and all. I then flattened/lapped the heatpipes properly.. then managed to find a 0.6mm copper plate to create a new interface plate to mount directly on top of the heatpipes. I was going to solder the copper plate on top but I learned the hard way how insanely difficult it is to do soldering with heat pipes without them swelling and/or rupturing, so decided to just use thermal paste (glad I did, the thermal overhead is so big that the risk of soldering the plate would have been a waste)

View attachment 1940436View attachment 1940437

View attachment 1940438View attachment 1940441

No one but me will probably ever truly appreciate the fact that the tower cooler isn't mounted with some hacky cable tie solution etc. It's a proper mount using the original hardware right on the heatsink plate, strong enough to carry the entire system around by the tower cooler alone.

View attachment 1940449

Finally done, will update with some better lit glamour pics when the sun's up tomorrow.










Final benchmark testing (GPT assessment):

- That 63.6 W average package power is particularly revealing. For a 10-minute run, it's almost sitting directly on Dell's 65 W PL1.
- Start of workload: CPU is allowed to boost aggressively toward the 175 W PL2 limit. You actually recorded 179.4 W, which is close enough given sampling/measurement behavior.
- Sustained workload: Dell pulls it back toward approximately 65 W.
- HWiNFO says:

Core Thermal Throttling: No
Package/Ring Thermal Throttling: No

while simultaneously reporting:

Core Power Limit Exceeded: Yes
Package/Ring Power Limit Exceeded: Yes

Your cooling system has completely removed the thermal bottleneck
The CPU reached only 73 °C maximum while briefly pulling around 179 W.



EDIT:
Now way.... just realized I had one of these lying around.
These things are about as scarce as it gets.
Quad displayport output, guess who's checking out the monitor section on wootware's site right now....