So I know this beast is hot. Like. Really hot. I’ve spent the better part of a year and a half building my first PC, since it seemed that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. A short list of steps I’ve taken to try to tame the heat:
* Custom water loop using soft tubing and 2 360 radiators, both dedicated to the CPU. I thought it would be overkill, but apparently not. I’m using the EK-Classic Distro Plate PC-O11D with a DDC 4.2 PWM pump and the EK-Quantum Magnitude CPU water block.
* I have switched out the original coldplate of the water block with a flat one as I had delidded the 12900KS and replaced it with a completely flat copper IHS and used Liquid Metal on the die, all as extra measures to keep things as cool as I could. I also double checked that I used the correct jetplate on the water block because of the coldplate change.
* I am using the 12th gen Thermal Grizzly contact frame to aid against any warping under long term higher temps and to keep even pressure over the cpu. I double checked that my mounting of the CPU frame and water block are as even as possible (or at least I’ve tried, the thermal paste pattern seems to suggest otherwise)
* I’m using 10 fans in a full size tower case for good airflow. And between all of these measures, I’m seeing a 14-18C delta between my hottest core versus the cores next to it.
Build specs:
MSI MEG Z690 ACE
i9-12900KS with Rockit Cool’s copper IHS
ROG Strix OC LC 3090ti with a dedicated 240 AIO
Corsair Vengeance 64gb (2×32) DDR5-5600 RAM
2 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSDs
Western Digital Black 10TB 3.5” HDD
Corsair AX1500i 1500W 80+ Titanium
Phanteks Enthoo 719
If it’s relevant, my motherboard needed to be RMA’ed THREE TIMES before it would boot predictably. I’ve tried everything from undervolting to setting lower clock speeds to trying to set a static voltage so it wouldn’t be drawing so much power whenever it wanted. This thing is fucking cursed. Nothing I edited in the BIOS would have the desired effect. I set a power limit, still thermal throttles. I undervolt, still thermal throttles. I disabled a bunch of “turbo enhance 3,000,000” in the OC, still thermal throttles.
1 core hits 100C instantaneously no matter what, even if all the others are sitting at lower 70s or mid 80s. The next closest temp has been low 90s and that’s not even the cores next to it. I’m not sure what is happening. The temps swing from mid 20C during idle to randomly jumping to mid 40- high 50C under no load. I’ve remounted the water block multiple times. Whatever it is, there’s shitty heat transfer still and I don’t know where to try to tweak things next.
As a test, I am running an i3-12100 currently and seeing if the temp issues persist. So far I’m still seeing between 30C to 41C on average, which feels very wrong considering the amount of cooling I’m providing and the power draw being so much lower. Clocks are only hitting 4.1. Boosts to 4.3Ghz on occasion. So is it the 12900KS, or my cooling loop that’s the problem??
Reddit, where did I go wrong with the goddamn custom water loop and why isn’t it doing shit for 12900KS temps?? Did my delidding procedure fail? If it did, why is the 12100 not even sitting in the 20C range as expected with water cooling?
1 Comment
1. custom water loops are shit. Basically an enthusiast Trap.
2. Did you disable Intel multiplatform enhancement?
3. Check whether you actually have the pump running correctly, no airbubbles in the system, and whether the contact frame lies correctly.
Tbh dont know much else to do. That temp should not be xD