Mr. Fox

Hydronaut has never been very good when I have tried to use it. I am not sure why Thermal Grizzly still sells it. I am surprised they do not ship the Kryonaut or Kryonaut Extreme with the waterblock.

Kryonaut is a decent paste for desktops. It's not ideal for laptops. I have never tried Kryonaut Extreme, but here is what the manufacturer says about it (copy/paste from Amazon product info).

"Thermal Grizzly's Kryonaut Extreme is an improved version of their Kryonaut paste, with the highest thermal conductivity achieved through the use of smaller particles, a thinner minimum layer height, and improved low-temperature application."

Excellent review. It was an enjoyable read and a good representation of the product. I had an EK Velocity2 block and it was very good, and looked great, so your review resonated with my experience.

On 11/08/2023 at 08:23, schuck6566 said:

Great read,well written review. My ONLY question is in regards to the OCCT testing, it seems strange that the custom loop and air cooled score the same while I believe the AIO score a touch lower? (or maybe higher,not sure how the ratings are figured in OCCT) I would have figured the air cooled to be the odd man out if there was going to be 1.  Edit: Also curious what EK considers "normal wear and tear" my previous AIO had 1 year or 3600 hours. (they figured a work day) It lasted me less then a year because I rarely turn my comp off.

3.5.3. Cases when EKWB AIO product Warranty does not Apply

The EKWB AIO product Warranty does not apply if the AIO product has been installed and/or used in a mfanner that does not comply with user instructions, or has been fitted on unsuitable materials.

1. Normal wear and tear
2. If the EKWB AIO product has been modified or repaired by personnel other than EKWB’s
3. If the defect or damage has been caused by accident, lightning, or other electrical discharge, fresh or salt water immersion or spray (outside EKWB AIO product specifications); or exposure to environmental conditions for which the EKWB AIO product is not intended
4. where the EKWB AIO product is damaged as a result of abuse, accident, or other causes beyond our reasonable control

Thanks for the compliment, brother. I am not sure about your questions on the warranty issues. EKWB would need to answer. Normal wear and tear covers a wide gamut of things. One aspect is time and hours of use, but there are other aspects of wear and tear might not be time or use frequency dependent.

The benchmark scoring is a reflection of clock speed and the BIOS settings were the same with all three cooler tests, and the results were within a normal margin of error. If there were a hard thermal throttle that dropped clock speeds then there would be a lower score for the system that throttled due to overheating.

It bothered me that the custom loop didn't fare better, but it kind of makes sense. Where the AIO would have not done as well is under long term stress. I was not attempting to prove the custom loop better in the review. Had I run the stress test for longer we would have likely seen the water in the AIO get hotter and the temperatures increase, but the 5 minute stress test is already "more than normal" use scenario and my goal was to replicate the fringe of what a typical user would see in normal use. 

After the review was completed it continued to bother me that the custom loop didn't have more distance between it and the AIO. It occurred to me that I had not cleaned the waterblock in a while, so I took it apart and found the fins in the jet plate had some crud in them. After cleaning it the custom loop was a couple of degrees cooler in the same test. 

If the ambient temperate is the same, flow rate is sufficient and the contact adequate, allowing the AIO to efficiently remove heat from the CPU and whisk it away to the radiator at a rate equal to the custom loop the thermals will be the same until the water in the AIO gets hotter. The real benefits of the custom loop are greater coolant capacity (takes longer to get hot) and greater ability to keep the water closer to the ambient temperature for a longer period of time. Also, the ability to add more components in the loop, like GPU and RAM.

On 11/08/2023 at 14:14, RageSet said:

Great review bro.

Thanks, brother. 

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

It seem very unpredictable and unreliable. Very wild extremes in scoring between runs. In less than a dozen runs on the same system I am seeing a spread of more than 10,000 3DMarks. Some people are posting illogically high benchmark scores without GPU overclocking and I think there are a lot of bugged submissions. 

 

Example: all over the board, erratic results (same computer)

Another sloppy mess from the clowns at UL.  It is designed for laptops and weaker computing devices, so maybe the thought process is that it is just a toy, not a tool, and accuracy doesn't matter. 
 

The same erratic scoring is visible looking at details in submissions from the 3DMark Hall of Fame.

It does pull some hefty watts with the ray tracing in spite of the erratic results. There is no CPU scoring and change to CPU clocks and voltage doesn't seem to affect much.

It seem very unpredictable and unreliable. Very wild extremes in scoring between runs. In less than a dozen runs on the same system I am seeing a spread of more than 10,000 3DMarks. Some people are posting illogically high benchmark scores without GPU overclocking and I think there are a lot of bugged submissions. 

Example: all over the board, erratic results (same computer)

Thanks for posting this. I was not even aware it existed, and I just posted some of my best Time Spy results in the past week or so. I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere until now. 

FYI, it doesn't like RTSS. If I have RTSS/OSD running the benchmark fails at launch with the meaningless  message "an error has occurred" (typical of 3DMark errors that tell you nothing of value). If anyone else has the same issue, shut down RTSS and it should complete.

12 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

Last I checked this is a hardware site... We should focus efforts on content related to building/modifying/overclocking so we can really live by our "Pushing it to the limit" motto

I agree with everything you said but the part quoted is something that can easily get lost in the shuffle.

Time to bump this thread. Too long with no action.

https://hwbot.org/submission/5329954_ | https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/98374064

Same run above GPU score only: https://hwbot.org/submission/5329955_
 

https://hwbot.org/submission/5329959_ | https://www.3dmark.com/spy/40812238

Overdue for a wake-up and update to the leaderboard.

13900KS - multi: 18714.8 / single: 1025.3

Nvidia Maintains Dominance as Sales of Graphics Cards Hit All-Time Low in 2022 | Tom's Hardware

WWW.TOMSHARDWARE.COM

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Sales of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090s impress amid decline of total available market.

Gamers do not need flagship GPUs to game, and most games can run fine on GPUs that are 2 or 3 generations old. And, there are lots of gamers, some are just kids, that cannot afford to spend more than $1,000 on a GPU. I think that is probably what the Steam survey reflects. I believe it is an accurate reflection of Steam users, but probably not an accurate reflection of GPU sales overall. I spend more time benching my 4090 than I do gaming on it. I spend more time gaming on my weaker GPUs than I do benching them. 

The question that the Steam market survey doesn't answer is how many people seldom play games that own 4090. From what I can tell it doesn't appear they've had any trouble selling them in spite of their idiotic pricing.

A 4090 isn't needed for a quality gaming experience though. People who care more about gaming than anything else shouldn't feel compelled to spend that much money on a graphics card, especially if they are gaming at 1080p. There's no point in it  when a 3060 TI, 3070, or 6900 XT will deliver a satisfactory experience. Unless you're cranking up the game settings to nax on a 4K screen you just don't need it. Might want it, but needing is a different story.

I love my 4090, but the price of it sucked and reflected poor value. For 3090 and 3090 Ti owners, 4090 is the only option that offers a respectable performance upgrade in current generation. Anything less (4080 or 7900 XTX) isn't really an upgrade, but more like a frivolous waste of money for something that offers little or nothing.

I ran a 2000W vBIOS on my shunt modded 2080 Ti FTW3 HOF killer, ran 1000W vBIOS on my 3090 K|NGP|N and currently run a 10000W vBIOS on my 4090 Suprim. I plan to volt and shunt mod the 4090. I shunt modded my 3060 Ti and my last turdbook. Since nobody actually produces enthusiast graphics cards, you need to do this for yourself. And, expect to have interference because of control freak roadblocks along the way. It is harder than ever to own what you buy because the people selling the stuff want to own you. PC enthusiasts are a dying breed and the console jockeys are content to put up with whatever hand they are dealt. But, for $500 you can't expect anything special.  For $2000 you should, and it for damned sure better be.

I think there is a good chance my next GPU may be the top end ARC offering. Unless AMD pulls an unexpected magic rabbit from their top hat, they've got nothing that genuinely interests me. I am not expecting that they will, and it seems like they don't intend to try. If they want to turn the tide they should get rid of pencil-necked executive losers like Lisa Su and Frank Azor and replace them with people that are enthusiasts and understand enthusiasts.

11 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

I can kinda understand that, but maybe should still be helpful guides or whatever, not random LTT videos. That really seems to be antithesis of member video submissions.

Those are generally not even helpful as much as entertaining. 

5 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

OK, my personal opinions about EK aside, that was a good read and fantastic performance. Once again top notch formatting on the review too. I will need to learn your ways...

Thanks for the kind words brother. Have a nice Friday and a good weekend.

Thank you, sir! Have a nice evening.

Quote

The latest entry in EK's treasure trove of winning products is the EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 DARK. They have introduced a host of enhancements over previous generations of their AIO offerings, including a new design of the CPU block and PWM pump. The new EK-Nucleus is available in both 240mm and 360mm variations, in white and black RGB, and the Dark (non-RGB) version that we are reviewing today.

Read the full review HERE

I didn't know we had a place for that. I might post some of my videos as long as there's a proper category for them.

1 hour ago, ENTERPRISE said:

I personally don't mind additional software accompanying hardware such as iCue and similar to enhance the feature set, and I feel most are of the same opinion. The real crux of the issue is that much of the time the accompanying software is not lightweight so far as system resources.  

Indeed. That is the crux of the issue... far too much consumption of system resources. Also kind of useless to have replication of function. If they made it to where the end user could install only the part(s) of the software package that they plan to use, that would be ideal.

1 hour ago, Sir Beregond said:

Great question. I don't really play FPS games, but that's a good idea to test.

 

I don't actually know how to test input latency, let me look into that and perhaps I can update the review.

That would be good. I do not generally have enough spare time for gaming, but when I do it is almost exclusively FPS titles. It is rare that I buy or play any other type of game.

Nice review, brother. Well done. Very thorough and professional.

It's unfortunate that you need iCUE installed and running to use features. Corsair should have kept it a simple RGB control software application. The inclusion of so many  features and gimmick like the bloated hardware monitoring really sucks. Sadly, the thought process behind the bloatfest isn't unique to Corsair. It seems to be a common form of dementia in the industry, with Armory Crate being the worst example of trash software known to man. At least iCUE is still a win32 app and not a UWP/Micro$lop Store piece of crap like Armory Crate. (At least that was true last time I checked,)

I can't imagine spending this much money on a mouse. I never have before and it is unlikely that I ever will. Nobody makes one durable enough to consider it and I find those in the < $50 price range the most intelligent for me. I usually get 1 to 2 years from a mouse before it needs to be taken apart and have new button switches soldered in and I just don't have the time or desire to deal with such nonsense. It's not hard, but it's just not worth the hassle.

32 minutes ago, waffl3ninja said:

I know i'm late to the party, i'm almost hesitant to post it but. best way to make new friends is to jump in the pool wearing a banana hammock right?  

/img/logo.png

Waffl3Ninja`s 3DMark - Speed Way score: 4572 marks with a Radeon RX 6900 XT

HWBOT.ORG

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The Radeon RX 6900 XT @ 2730/2170MHzscores getScoreFormatted in the 3DMark - Speed Way benchmark. Waffl3Ninjaranks #143...

 

Welcome. Glad you joined the party. Better late than never.

We will take and the new friends we can get. The more the merrier. 

1 hour ago, Barefooter said:

Another great review @Mr. Fox

 

That thing is a screamer for sure.

 

Even by cutting the GPU slot down to X8 that shouldn't bottle neck the GPU would it?

Thank you. I am pleased that you enjoyed the review, or found it useful.

In normal use, and probably most gaming scenarios, the reduction in GPU performance would not be impactful. It was definitely measurable though, and would have a negative influence on benchmark scores. I care most about that since it is my main hobby, so running them at Gen5 speed at the sacrifice of GPU benchmark scores is something I am avoiding. 

1 hour ago, Sir Beregond said:

Oh man, rip.

 

I acquired a Z790 Dark a couple weeks back, but I'm doing quite the mismatch as well with a 13100 . I was saving the big bucks for the 14900k.

The guy still hasn't responded for like 12 hours, so if I don't hear from him within the next hour or two I may decide to save $150 and get a 13700K from Best Buy to tide me over until 14900K drops. Congrats on the Dark mobo. The best for sure. My Z690 Dark is much better product than my Z790 Apex. ASUS stuff is just chintzy overpriced junk.

13 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

Sounds like an absolutely amazing SSD from Crucial on this one.  Way to go Crucial, and amazing job @Mr. Fox covering the product!

8 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

Yep, been my go to since my 128GB M4. Crucial SSD's are always my default choice for other people I occasionally upgrade storage for or whatever as well.

 

Agree, top notch review as always with excellent formatting for pictures, tables, etc.

Thanks, bros.

Now I am on the hunt for a decent 13900K/KF/KS. My 13900K in the Z690 Dark stopped working for unknown reasons. System runs normally with my Celeron test CPU, but the 13900K just endlessly cycles through POST codes when I power on the system. No idea why. I am assuming a power surge or ESD spike or something  similar zapped it. 

Waiting for @Agent-A01 at oc.net to reply if his is still available. Using a Celeron sucks real bad.

Thank you both. Excellent product. Crucial always produces good product. It's awesome to see them bringing something cutting edge and appealing to performance PC enthusiasts to market.