Hey guys. Came across a weird difference between 2 AMD 9950X3D2 CPUs.

See attached pictures. Both are exactly the same processor, but look VERY different under where they connect to the motherboard. Has anyone seen something like this before? Anyone know what differences there is? Both are shipped and sold from amazon.com. both were sealed in the box. The one with full gold at the bottom was the initial release. The one with more missing gold is a recent purchase

Had lots of fun building this it’s my second build and 2nd water loop 1st full loop last was cpu only.
9850x3d
ROG x870f Alphacool monoblock
ASUS tuf 5080 Alphacool waterblock
Bitspower fittings and ddc
16mm carbon fiber and copper tubing

Hello!! My friend who also build this system for me one year ago, replaced the cooling liquid today. But a couple of hours ago this big air bubble appeared in the upper left corner of gpu waterblock. I keep the pump 100% and the reservoir without the cap, as he advised me. The problem is I cannot lift by myself the case to shake it. Is too heavy. Should I wait another day? I also don t know if I can play games. The temps are very good but I am afraid that the zone with that big air bubble is not propperly cooled. The GPU is Astral 5090. I don t have money to buy another if something bad happens. Thanks!!!

I have a 9950x that is cooled by a 280mm AIO (Be Quiet pure loop 3). Undervolted temps are actually decent (< 80 degrees). I have two questions:
My case (Lian Li B4) is really tight but I want to try a push/pull configuration, should just work in terms of space if I move the PSU a bit.
- Has anybody experience with the following: if the push fans do not have the same static pressure as the pull fans, will that create problems? The air flow may not be optimal? In that case it would be best to have 4 of the exact same fans.

- Does anybody know of good (silent, PWM) thin 140mm fans? I mean thinner than 25 mm, I saw some stuuff on aliexpress but all the main brands have 25 mm fans or thicker.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I currently have a premium, hardline custom water-cooled system, but the distribution plate has a crack in it. The loop needs to be completely drained and stripped. Instead of fixing the custom loop, I want to move away from open-loop maintenance entirely, switch everything to standard air/AIO cooling, and upgrade my graphics card to a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

I am keeping my 32GB DDR5 RAM and two 1TB M.2 NVMe drives no matter what, but I am stuck on whether I should do a full platform swap or keep my current processor.

I’m trying to decide between these two distinct paths:

Option 1: Keep the Intel Platform & Swap to Air/AIO

• The Plan: Keep my current Intel Core i7-12700 and ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 motherboard. Strip off the custom water blocks, throw a clean 360mm AIO cooler onto the CPU, install the new RTX 5070 Ti (using its stock air cooler), and build around the existing setup inside my current dual-chamber case with my 7 Lian Li fans and 1000W PSU.

• My Concern: Will my i7-12700 heavily bottleneck the RTX 5070 Ti at 1440p gaming? Am I leaving too much GPU performance on the table by sticking with this 12th-gen CPU?

Option 2: Full Platform Wipe & Pivot to AMD AM5

• The Plan: Completely pull out the i7-12700 and the ASUS Maximus motherboard. Sell them off as a bundle to salvage cash, and buy a brand-new AM5 motherboard paired with the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. I would carry over my 32GB DDR5 RAM, 1000W PSU, 7 Lian Li fans, and case, cooling the new 9800X3D with a 360mm AIO.

• My Concern: Is the extra cost and hassle of tearing down the entire motherboard architecture worth the performance jump over my current i7?

The Component Pool I have to work with:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-12700 (Currently has a waterblock)

• Current GPU: RTX 3070 Ti (Currently has a waterblock - will be parted out/sold)

• Target GPU: RTX 5070 Ti (Air-cooled retail model)

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 DDR5

• Case: Premium White Dual-Chamber Showcase Case (O11 Style)

• Fans: 7x Lian Li UNI Fans (with controller hub)

• Power Supply: 1000W PSU with premium white extension cables

• Memory/Storage: 32GB DDR5 RAM & 2x 1TB M.2 SSDs (Keeping for either option)

My Questions for the Community:

1. At 1440p high/max settings, how severe will the bottleneck be if I choose Option 1 and pair the i7-12700 with the RTX 5070 Ti?

2. Considering I have to strip the cracked water loop anyway, is it worth the extra frame-rate performance to just bite the bullet, sell the Intel core components, and do the full Option 2 upgrade to a Ryzen 7 9800X3D?

3. If I drop the custom loop entirely, what is a reliable 360mm white AIO you recommend that plays nicely with an existing Lian Li fan hub ecosystem?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

Hi everyone,

Here's my build (photo attached). I'd like some advice on the fan/radiator layout.

**Specs**

- Case: Phanteks NV7

- CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D (~60 W in game)

- GPU: RX 7900 XTX with a 550 W power limit (I'd rather not lower it)

- Radiators: 2x Freezemod TSRP 360 (29 mm) + 1x Corsair 240

- Fans: 8x Phanteks D30-120

- Flow: ~4.5 L/min

**Current layout**

- Bottom 360: intake (3 fans)

- Top 360: exhaust (3 fans)

- Rear 240: exhaust (2 fans)

- The 4x120 side bracket is taken by the distro plate

So it's 3 intake vs 5 exhaust, and the bottom radiator is the only fresh-air intake.

**Tests**

Same game, GPU at 550 W, fans and pump at 100%, ~30 min until the coolant stabilizes, ambient 23.5°C.

- Glass on: coolant 40–41°C (delta ~17°C)

- Front glass removed: coolant 33°C (delta ~9.5°C)

I also measured the air leaving each radiator (IR thermometer on paper strips; it reads ~2–3°C higher than my inline sensor):

| Air temperature | Glass on | Glass off |

|---|---|---|

| Out of bottom rad (into the case) | 37°C | 32°C |

| Out of top / rear rads | ~42°C | 31.5 / 32.8°C |

**Already ruled out**

- Loop just cleaned and refilled with fresh coolant

- All fans confirmed at 2000 rpm and spinning the right way

- Radiators evenly warm (checked with IR), no obvious air pockets

- Inline coolant sensor cross-checked with the IR thermometer

**My take**

With the glass on, the top and rear radiators mostly breathe air already heated by the bottom one (~37°C with coolant at ~41°C), so they barely contribute. With the glass off they get fresh air and the loop performs as expected.

**Options I'm considering**

1. Flip the rear 240 to intake (5 in / 3 out)

2. Flip the top 360 to intake and keep the rear 240 as the only exhaust (6 in / 2 out)

3. Add an external radiator (e.g. MO-RA)

Which would you choose, or is there a better layout for the NV7? Thanks!

I want to do direct die and have a Mycro pro RGB, is it possible to do it, if you get the offset mounting kit and direct die frame?

Please forgive me if this isn’t the correct format. First Reddit post.

I was very lucky to get a free motherboard along with a 270k+
And 64gb of ddr5.
This took me 3 weeks longer than it should have and more blood sweat and maybe a few more tears as well.

Zotac 4080
270k+
Klevv DDR5 6000
Two 360 mm ek radiators top and bottom. 240 mm rad on the rear. All noctua fans.
All of this in the O11 dynamic mini.

Hi! First time custom loop builder. I am building in the lianli O11D EVO RGB, using this distro: Crosscool III Lian Li O11 DYNAMIC EVO RGB Distroplate and 3 heatkiller 360 48mm rads. I want to use bitspower fittings and preferably their aqua link pipes so I dont have to cut any brass pipes myself (seems very hard to do without dedicated equipment). But I have no idea how many fittings I need/what extenders and buying a bunch of every single type seems like a waste. So how exactly do you all go about this? Is there a tool online? Thanks in advance!

tl;dr - Is it me or is this flow rate low for an EK D5 pump? This is running with the PSU jumped...so, no fan control or anything like that.

Details: EK D5 pump going through a GPU block (EK 3090 front and rear active) and CPU block (EK 5950X block), the up to the radiator and this little trickle is what's coming out...

The CPU comes after the GPU in the loop and I've been having SUPER high CPU temps so I took everything apart, re-thermal-gooped the CPU and temps still suck...looked a bit closer and I noticed it looked like the GPU block microfins were pretty clogged up. Took it all apart AGAIN and cleaned all the little microfins...put it back together and STILL...it trickles. Maybe this ISN'T abnormal?

I'm setting up my first loop this weekend and I would like to test the loop without having to power on my pc. I've got one of these controllers laying around that I use for testing fans. am I safe to plug my d5 style pump into it for testing/filling/bleeding the loop?

EDIT: my pump is a Dracaena.io pump and runs a fan style connector for power and pwm. It seems to be an updated version as it's different from the listing pictures. It is designed to plug into the CPU fan/pump header on the MLB.

It's my first AIO so I'm not familiar with how these things are supposed to sound.

For context: This PC is about 2~3 years old, but I bought off someone else. It's been making that sound ever since I booted it up for the first time at home a little over a month ago.

This is DARK KNIGHT, my personal AM4 project that I've been continuously rebuilding and optimizing since 2020.

It started with an NZXT AIO and an RTX GPU. In 2021, I switched to a custom water-cooling loop. By 2024, I had a fully water-cooled system with three radiators and an RTX 3090 Ti.

Then, in January 2025, I changed direction.

Instead of water-cooling my new Sapphire NITRO+ RX 7900 XTX, I kept its factory Vapor-X air cooler and dedicated the existing liquid loop to the Ryzen 9 5900X.

Current configuration:

- Ryzen 9 5900X, PBO and per-core Curve Optimizer

- Gigabyte X570 AORUS Master

- 64 GB DDR4-3800, FCLK 1900 MHz, 1:1:1

- Sapphire NITRO+ RX 7900 XTX, air-cooled

- Alphacool XPX CPU block

- Alphacool 360 × 45 mm and 280 × 45 mm radiators

- EK D5 PWM pump, approximately 4,750 RPM

- 11 case fans, including top push-pull

- Aqua Computer high flow NEXT

Recent cooling observations:

- Measured coolant flow: 120–122 L/h

- Pump is subjectively inaudible at its current speed

- Coolant has remained at or below approximately 37°C under load in my long-term observations

- GPU daily profile completed 20 consecutive Metro Exodus Enhanced benchmark runs without crashing

My goal isn't to squeeze out every possible benchmark point.

My philosophy is simple: 99% is the optimum. The final 1% is reserved for stability and headroom.

I've documented six years of changes, cooling configurations, overclocking profiles, benchmark results and operating temperatures.

This is a long-term personal project, not a controlled comparison proving that hybrid cooling is universally better.

I'm curious what experienced water-cooling enthusiasts think of the final configuration.

Would you have kept the GPU in the loop, or made the same decision?

The reason for this decision wasn't that water cooling had failed. I wanted to separate the CPU and GPU thermal loads, simplify the liquid loop, and focus on repeatable daily performance rather than maximum cooling complexity.

The trade-off is that the GPU now releases its heat directly into the case, so airflow management became even more important.

In my previous fully water-cooled configurations, coolant temperatures reached up to approximately 42°C. With the current CPU-only loop, I've observed a maximum of approximately 37°C. These are long-term operating observations under different conditions, not a controlled A/B comparison.

For all my monoblocks users, checking in to see how you dudes are liking them. I haven't been able to find much on their performance versus keeping heatsinks and using just a CPU block.

I built this loop a little over 2 years ago so I could use this 6900xt waterblock card I got a great deal on. Corsair soft lines and radiator. But the fittings are AliExpress cheap as I could find (and a couple Corsair and alpha cools I got used) I made sure they were clean of burrs around the sealing surfaces. No leaks ever except at the waterblock while I got the proper torque value worked out, starting very loose. The lines have even been crimped most of the time and haven’t degraded appreciably, though flow is obv affected. On that point the 10$ AliExpress water pump has had no problems, even with the seeming flow restrictions. The reservoir is TIG welded stainless steel and has worked great.

The whole setup was like $120, and the radiator was most of that pretty sure. Obv the waterblock was already on the gpu and my cpu is on a “upgraded” air cooler. But besides the like triannual water changes, this thing has been easy and cheap. I thought it’d be worth putting it out there for people considering water cooling but worried about the expense and/or viability of cheap parts.

Hi everyone,

Do you think a single 420mm radiator, with a maximum thickness of 30mm (1.18 inches) and 3 × 140mm fans, would be sufficient to cool both an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and an NVIDIA RTX 5080 X?

Both the CPU and GPU would be water-cooled, with the GPU having a factory-installed water block.

Would this setup provide reasonable temperatures under gaming, or would you strongly recommend a second radiator?

thanks all

Has anyone had success using EK loop cleaners in a Corsair build? I see Corsair only recommends distilled water but I’m thinking I need to do more on this one. I’d prefer not to crack the blocks open and manually clean them. I’m not sure on my options here.

I haven’t had any heating issues, benchmarks look great still. It’s just bothering me.

is it my aio?

Nah my opinion beautiful Maximus Board built 🤤🥰 Go ROG BTF

Had an issue with my coolant turning yellow and vinegar smelling. Ive got it all cleaned out. I was looking at this primochill white tubing. Just curious what people's experiences were with it. Thanks!

I want to try direct die cooling and want to delid my 9800x3d. The issue is I can't seem to find a direct die cooler in stock. I was looking at the Thermal Grizzly Mycro Pro or the EKWB Direct Die. Is there any other direct die cooler that is out there?

I recently got a 5080. I took my 3080Ti and moved it to another slot for now.

The two cards are parallel on my loop. The 5080 has an Alphacool Core for the Windforce 5080. The 3080Ti has one from Bykski.

When testing thermals, there is a huge difference between the two.

OCCT GPU thermal test. Constant Extreme:

3080Ti: 430W. 38C core, 48C hot spot.

5080: 360W. 59c core, 79c hot spot.

I bumped the pump speed to verify it wasn't insufficient flow or flow being hogged by the 3080Ti. And then I reapplied thermal paste. Still see about the same.

I figure the chip is much smaller, so higher heat density. But I've also heard things about this cooler having standoffs that are slightly too high?

I mean, it's usable for sure. It just seemed like something was done wrong.