3970x and 4 x RTX 2070 build - what CPU cooler will fit into a AsRock Creator TRX40?

[poeticstudio]

Hi,

first of all, the articles about PC building and benchmarks are fantastic, it helps a lot! I've build my 3 previous CPU rendering PCs. So at one hand I know a little bit what I'm doing, on the other hand I know how easy it is to run into complications.

I use both GPU (iRay, Redshift) and CPU renderers (Cinema 4D) for my work. And I also do a lot of video editing. It's the first time I'll be building a multi GPU PC.

These are the components fitting into my budget:
- motherboard: AsRock Creator TRX40
- CPU: AMD 3790X
- RAM: 64GB (4x8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V Black Series) link
- GPU: 4x ASUS TURBO-RTX2070S-8G-EVO
- SSD: 3x 1TB WD Black NVME link
- PSU: Super Flower Leadex (EVGA 1600W is not available over here) link
- case: Fractal Design Define XL R2

As the thread title suggest, I do not know what CPU cooler to pick. In my current build I have Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cooling a AMD 1950X. But I'm worried it will physically interfere with the RAM sticks, and cover the 1st PCI slot, or interfere with the graphics card.

I have these questions:

1) What PC cooler is good enough to cool the 3970X (I will not be overclocking), and has s smaller form factor than the Noctua?

2) Is there enough cables with the PSU to power everything?

3) Will the ssd with the heatsink fit under the motherboard's heatsink?

Thank you. Any advice about possible bottlenecks, slowing down the system are welcomed.

 

[Alex Glawion]

Hey poeticstudio!

Looks like a solid build! I haven't heard of the Super Flower Leadex 1600 W PSU yet, but it does seem to have Titan efficiency and has enough connectors for powering the 4x 2070 supers. In my experience, 2070 Supers CAN be powered with a single PSU cable each (that has a splitter at the gpu-end), but the PSU should be fairly high quality for this. That said, the PSU specs do seem to have 9 PCIE-connectors, so using 2x for each gpu would be possible too. That should leave you with 1 PSU pcie connector for the sata drives in case you want to add some), and a single sata power cable seems to be able to power 4 Drives on that PSU.

The Ripjaws have a height of about 42mm and some bulkier CPU coolers would require a cpu-fan upshift. That said though, as you are only using 4 modules, these 4 will be further away from the cooler so they might not require any cpu fan upshift at all. The Fractal Design XL R2 is quite wide so a potential fan-upshift that would make your cpu cooler taller should still fit into the case without any problems.

If you want to be entirely sure you can go with a AIO, though the Fractal Design XL R2 only supports up to 280mm AIOs, so you might not get the most out of that type of cooling.

I'd suggest getting a Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4 which has a ram clearance of 46mm and is among the best air coolers for TR3 CPUs.

As for the nvme drives, you will have to detach the 3 heatsinks from the motherboard and they should fit fine.

Looks good to me otherwise!

 

[poeticstudio]

Hey Alex,
thank you for your fast and thorough reply, I appreciate it! That's great news.

The Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4 is a great cooler, but will it's size not cover up the 1st PCI-E slot for the 1st graphics card on the AsRock Creator motherboard?

Thank you.

 

[Alex Glawion]

[edit] Actually if you take a look at the compatibility page here on the bequiet site, it does not show any compatibility. That's weird.

Might be the high VRM cooler at the top that is obstructing bigger cpu coolers.

CPU Cooler Check

be quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies, cases and cooling solutions for your desktop PC.

www.bequiet.com

 

[Alex Glawion]

In that case, I'd suggest going with the Noctua NH U 14S TR4-SP3. It is compatible with the Asrock Creator TRX40 as you can see from this compatibility check on their website: https://noctua.at/en/mainboard/ASRock_TRX40_Creator

 

[poeticstudio]

Thank you for double checking, I appreciate it.

 

[poeticstudio]

So I started to build the PC, the CPU cooler is fine, Noctua actually allows you to offset the position of the cooler by design so that the 1st PCIe slot on your motherboard is accessible. So thank you for your advice.

But I have one problem:
- the number of PSU cables / slots

I ended up with a Corsair AX1600i PSU and it has 10x 8pin openings. I use 2 for CPU cables (to power a AMD 3990X), and then there are 8 GPU cables, which would be fine as each GPU (Asus Creator 2070 Super) needs 2 (8+6 pins).

But the motherboard (AsRock Creator TRX40) needs another 12V 6pin in case you use 4 graphics cards. First of all - which cable do I use here? Do I use a PCIe cable for this motherboard 6 pin? But then I have only 7 left for the 4 gpus.

And neither the PSU has an extra slot, nor do I have another cable.

Please advise. Do I need the 2 CPU 8 pins on the motherboard? If one is enough, I would have a 8pin slot on the PSU, I would just need to get abother PCIe cable. Or do I need to fill that 12V 6pin on the motherboard?

Thank you.

EDIT: there is plenty of 6pin slots on the PSU for peripherial and SATA, but I have no idea if I can use that (still, I'd need to get a 6pin to 6pin cable).

 

[poeticstudio]

Ok, I realized you mentioned in your first reply, that 1 PCIe power cable should be enough to run a gpu. So that's great news, I'll do that.

The only question that remains is: Do I use a PCIe power cable to power the 12V 6pin on the motherboard? The slot the manual says should be powered when running 4 gpus.

Thank you.

 

[Alex Glawion]

You should be able to power your gpus with a single power cable each. If this works reliably often depends on the quality of the PSU, but the Corsair AX1600i is very high quality so that shouldnt be a problem. Also check this thread here for more info: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/powering-a-gpu-with-1-or-2-cables-from-the-psu.3297622/

So use 2 x 2 cables for 2 gpus. And 2 x 1 cable for 2 gpus. That should leave you with enough pcie cables for the two motherboard power connectors. On a 3990X CPU I'd definitely attach both.

Does this help?

 

[Alex Glawion]

So I took a quick look at two of my rendernodes I have set up and both are powered by the 1600i. Your Motherboard will get the two 8pin 12V "CPU"-labeled cables, and the GPUs can have either 2 cables each, or 2gpus with 2 cables, and 2 gpus with one pigtail cable each (the pigtails are the cables with the 8pin + 6pin on the end).

Do note that in general, having all GPUs use 2 cables might be easier for the PSU to handle. That said, my Rendernodes have run for a few years with pigtail cables without any issues, just wanted to note that.

The thing is, GPU Rendering is CUDA utilization and will not draw as much power as other workloads like gaming. So even when you are gpu rendering with 4 GPUs, you will most likely not have a higher than ~850W total system power draw.

With upcoming GPUs that might draw more power, if you decide to upgrade to RTX 3090Tis for example (we don't know yet what they will draw) but you might want to use 2 power cables per gpu then.

 

[poeticstudio]

Hey Alex, thank you for your reply, yes this does help and is very assuring.

The only thing that remains unanswered, is the 6pin on the motherboard, see attached picture. Over at overclocking forum, they confirmed to use the PCIe cable from the PSU to power this 6 pin on the motherboard, so I'm posting it here for reference.

 

[Alex Glawion]

Oh sorry about that! You can just plug one of the 8pin (6+2) pcie power cables in there. You should have one or two left over when you use the two pigtail cables on 2 gpus.

 

[poeticstudio]

Yes, everything is clear now, thank you. I'm soo looking forward to turn the power button on