IceMan AMD Threadripper Water Block Breakdown

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FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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IceMan AMD Threadripper Water Block Breakdown

AMD's Threadripper CPU is finding its way into many computer hardware enthusiasts' HEDT systems, and if you are looking to overclock it to the edge-of-the-envelope 4GHz, you are very possibly going to look to custom loop cooling. We just got in the IceMan Threadripper block and we tear it down to see how it is designed.
 
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Not sure if the water jetting makes entirely that much difference, but not having fins covering the entire cpu die under the heatspreader seems to affect cooling capacity.

The surface area is almost large enough on these things, it almost feels like these blocks could really benefit from having two inlets to split water across each core. And by benefit, I mean like a 1-3c cooling difference, lol.
 
Having the fins running longitudinally along the length of each die would cause the ccx located at the end closest to the edge of the cpu cold plate edge to run hotter as they would be cooled by water that already picked up heat from the neighboring ccx closest to the inlet end. Having the fins running perpendicular to the dies would let each ccx to be cooled by water unheated by its neighbors.

This of course is pretty tough to verify since it seems that the Ryzen CPUs only gives us per die (package) temperatures rather than per-core temp like Intel. I would suspect the cpu would report cooler composite temps anyway though.
 
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you'll be taking that back apart to get the lighting back in there :D GL hate it when I do that.... Look forward to see the results
 
Well, the first outing looks to be totally FUBAR.

Thread pitch on the hold down screws is not correct. Striped off. Silver screw is from IceMan TR4 block. Black screw is from XSPC and still threads in and holds very solid.

Tread Pitch IceMan TR4 Water Block.jpg


This is the mount it got. Went to 83C+ almost immediately and hard-locked the OS.

Mate IceMan TR4 Water Block.jpg
 
Hmm that doesn't look good at all !! Hope it doesn't mess up the board threads. That be a real pain
 
Maybe it is just me but it seems somebody didn't form that Iceman screw all that great. There is surface pitting all over it. Not a good sign indeed.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Kyle,

You're assumption about the cooling flow traversing the long length of the die versus the short length is quite correct due to Newton's law of cooling. It is a generally less efficient approach*. NOW if the heat transfer is thermal conductively limited, it will make little to no difference. (Think about walking along hot coals with your bare feet. You don't get burned because the thermal conductivity of coals is low)
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That is what I learned in my physics classes. :) When I discussed the same issue with Koolance about its TR4 block they were in total agreeance, but I do know if the design change or testing will be made in the future. Also, if you check our EK TR4 water block review you will see where us turning the block 90 degrees made a huge difference in performance. So I feel pretty good about thermal conductivity of the die, the solder, and the IHS being pretty damn good. Of course TIM comes into it as well and prepping the TIM and its application is extremely important. I am actually using a heat gun now to "pre-heat" the IHS as it makes the application of the Prolimatech PK1 much easier.
 
mvmiller12 said:
That sounds excessive.........AND AWESOME! I would love to see that in-video sometime.

Also (unrelated): How did YOU end up being Member #3 of the [H}ardForum, or am I totally misunderstanding what that "member: 3" meant when I quoted your post?
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Well if Kyle is #3, and he joined in 1997, Al Gore must be #1. But then, who is #2? :confused:
 
mvmiller12 said:
That sounds excessive.........AND AWESOME! I would love to see that in-video sometime.

Also (unrelated): How did YOU end up being Member #3 of the [H}ardForum, or am I totally misunderstanding what that "member: 3" meant when I quoted your post?
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It is a heavy duty hairdryer for all intents and purposes, not exactly exciting.

Account 1 was the guy that did our software install back in '97, and I am not even sure if account 2 was anyone honestly...
 
Damn. Kyle, have you spoken to the maker about the poor-ass mating? I haven't seen any blocks that bad in a long time.
 
RogueTadhg said:
Damn. Kyle, have you spoken to the maker about the poor-ass mating? I haven't seen any blocks that bad in a long time.
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The block looks great, just looking at it. The screws he is using are simply the wrong thread pitch. That said those are so soft that I could not really tell they were crossthreading when screwing those in. Thankfully the mounting points on the motherboard were not damaged at all. I can still lock in the proper threaded post nice and tight.
 
So I did get a response, here it is in full. I sent the same pictures that are shown above.

IceMan: Hi, what's the problem?

z1.jpg z2.jpg

Kyle: The thread pitch is incorrect on the screws.
Count the thread on your screw compared to the correct one pictured below...
Your screws crossthread in the mounting holes.

IceMan: I know,we will send again.
 
OK, so we got the correctly threaded hold-downs in and I got to testing. Immediately hitting 85C die temps and hard-locking the system.

With our proven TIM application:

Mate spread with two dots.jpg

Going with a single thin layer application, things got even worse.

Mate IceMan TR4 Water Block-Single Layer Spread.jpg

So what is the issue? Ah, the surface of the cold plate is concave. That is not good for TR.

IMG_20180220_192336.jpg
 
wow, that is pretty bad for a block designed for threadripper. How did that even make it through in house testing?
 
mnewxcv said:
wow, that is pretty bad for a block designed for threadripper. How did that even make it through in house testing?
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Not exactly sure, but after sending out mounting posts with the wrong thread pitch, I guess anything is possible. This one is not going on the buy list, that is for sure.
 
Dang. In your initial breakdown the coldplate was flat. Is this the same coldplate?
 
Nebulous said:
Dang. In your initial breakdown the coldplate was flat. Is this the same coldplate?
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Good eye! What is shown in the video is "correct," but I was a bit too quick in my evaluation. the curve of the coldplate run long-ways down the mating surface, but NOT across the short side. Think about the shape of the cold plate being a section of a tube. This is why my straight edge did not pick it up as I laid it diagonally on the surface. Live and learn.
 
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