Continuing where we left off in part 2, we changed some things around on the network to hopefully protect the NIC in the new build, we picked out a video card powerful enough to match up with the AMD Threadripper 9980X with its 64 cores, and we got two fast PCIe 5.0 drives in high capacities, one for the OS drive and the other to install games on and to use as a scratch drive. But that’s still not everything needed to get this monster of a build up and running. We still need to figure out the cooling and power, and we did have an unexpected component come in that will be a nice addition as well. So let’s continue where we left off and see what will be cooling that Threadripper 9980X.
Project Name: Project Momentum - Part 3
Written by: Wes Compton
Build Sponsors/Supporters: Fractal Design, AMD, Asus, G Skill, Be Quiet, Silverstone, Nvidia, Lexar, Trendnet, and Patriot
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Links to the rest of the project: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4
Water cooling
I was originally going to go with the water cooler that AMD sent with the Threadripper 9980X. We already knew how well it worked, and it was from Silverstone, which I have had good experiences with. So much so that I had that kit installed and done. But I did still look into what other options there are out there for Threadripper. Other than just using a different bracket on a basic AIO water cooling kit, which wouldn’t get very good contact on the large surface area of a Threadripper CPU. I even seriously considered going with air cooling, there are a few really good options in air cooling. But this is a monster of a CPU, and I want to keep noise down as much as possible. Silverstone is one of only a few companies that have coolers available for Threadripper, and on top of that they actually have a few options. So I reached out and they sent over a nice little upgrade from the original XE360-TR5 to their new XE420 high-performance cooler. With a similar full-contact water block but an even larger radiator and better fans, it fit the bill. Our box, on the other hand, took a beating at some point and I will show you later but the cooler did as well. The box is all white with a white and black strap around it with the XE420 branding and picture on it. Inside, everything is in foam and in its place, and given the box's condition without that foam, I can’t imagine how badly it all would have been damaged.
Like with the original cooler, you do need a TR5-specific bracket for the cooler. This one doesn’t have the Silverstone branding like our other cooler but that fits with our mostly blacked-out build really well. You get a big bag of screws as well as a three-way splitter wire for wiring up the three 140mm fans.
Speaking of the fans, the XE420 has new fans built out of liquid crystal polymer. They are a little thicker than your standard fan at 34 mm. They run between 800 and 2500 RPM, and according to Silverstone, they can run up to 38.8 dBA. The impressive part though is their airflow, which maxes out at 123.8 CFM with 7.66 mm of max air pressure at full speed. They are rated at 100,000 hours, which should be a lot less than what I plan on running the system. They have a black LCP finish, and on the corners, they did give them silver rubber bumpers to help with vibration and noise. Silverstone also touts a closed-loop speed feedback control design which compares the fan's actual RPM and target RPM to help adjust for resistance with things like dust filters or even just the radiator.
The radiator is aluminum, like most AIO coolers, and it comes in at 140mm x 456 mm x 28 mm. That just means it holds the three 140 mm fans and is a little thicker than some AIO radiators. It does however, have the pump built into it, which is interesting. The pup is a three-phase, six-pole pump. You can see in the pictures of the radiator that the fan tabs were bent in. I ended up bending those back out, but did ding up the fins slightly and had to do some extended testing before putting the cooler in with all of those expensive components.
Last up is the water block itself, and because the pump is integrated into the radiator, this is surprisingly simple compared to most coolers these days. For starters, there aren’t any displays or screens built in, and no lighting as well. Which is perfect for this build, which has almost no lighting and is all blacked out. The hoses are 460 mm long rubber hoses with sleeving over the outside. They run to the water block, which is 68 mm x 26 mm x 82 mm and fully covers the full Threadripper CPU. The water clock has a copper base for better thermal transfer and a nickel-plated finish over all of that. The two connections do rotate side to side to help with your hose placement, but that’s about it. Nothing flashy, just what is needed to get the job done. It does come with thermal paste on it, but with all of the banging around, ours did touch the plastic cover in a few spots, but not enough to worry about.
