Merge pull request #564 from 3mdeb/develop

Publish "Upgrading your gears with liquid cooling"

blog/content/post/2023-10-22-liquid-cooling.md

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+---
+title: Upgrading your gears with liquid cooling
+abstract: 'The post describes the story of upgrading a MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 Full
+           PC build with Dasharo firmware from 3mdeb to a 14th Gen Intel CPU
+           and a liquid cooling.'
+cover: /covers/liquid-cooling.png
+author: michal.zygowski
+layout: post
+published: true
+date: 2023-12-18
+archives: "2023"
+
+tags:
+  - dasharo
+  - open-source
+  - msi
+categories:
+  - Firmware
+  - Miscellaneous
+
+---
+
+## Introduction
+
+A time comes when you want to upgrade your gears in your desktop, say a CPU.
+Either your use case changes or you have different needs, which force you to
+look for a different, more beefy CPU. In general CPU exchange is limited to
+swapping the CPU in the socket. But is that all?
+
+## Upgrading your cooling solution
+
+Depending on your setup, your old CPU may have behaved well with the current
+cooling you have. It was selected to satisfy the needs of your old CPU by
+providing enough heat dissipation. But a CPU upgrade  may cause your cooling
+solution to be insufficient, especially if the performance gap between the old
+and new CPU is significant. In this blog post I will show you a short story of
+upgrading from Intel Core i5-12600K to Intel Core i9-14900K and a standard
+fan+radiator solution to liquid cooling solution and what difficulties you may
+encounter during such journey. My entry point is the
+[MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 Full PC build](https://shop.3mdeb.com/shop/dasharo-supported-hardware/dasharo-compatible-with-msi-pro-z-690a-ddr4-full-pc-build/)
+with Dasharo firmware and a custom chassis:
+[MSI MAG FORGE 111R](https://www.msi.com/PC-Case/MAG-FORGE-111R).
+
+### Choosing an appropriate model
+
+Choosing a liquid cooling model is not that simple task. First of all you have
+to take the chassis dimensions into consideration. So it is necessary to take
+a tape measure and note the dimensions of the chassis sides with mounting
+holes. Typically this is a top or front side (at least in my case). These
+should be prepared to fit 120 mm wide fans or radiators by standard. However,
+depending on the height on the chassis, the number of fans you will be able to
+fit will be different. In my case the choice was as follows:
+
+- take liquid cooling with 2x120mm fans (either on top or front side)
+- take liquid cooling with 3x120mm fans (only front side)
+
+Thankfully my front side can fit 3x120mm and considering the performance gap
+in my CPUs, I decided to go with 3x120mm solution MSI MAG Coreliquid 360R v2.
+But little did I know back then that mounting it will not be an easy task.
+
+### Watching liquid cooling mounting tutorials
+
+I may be a BIOS/firmware developer, but little do I know about advanced PC
+assembling like liquid cooling assembly. Before I could start playing with it,
+I had to watch a few tutorials how to NOT mount the liquid cooling to make it
+perform at its best. Personally I recommend the following in general:
+
+- [The Gamer's Nexus' guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbGomv195sk)
+
+  {{< youtube BbGomv195sk >}}
+
+- [The Provoked Prawn's guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcyYHGtArs)
+
+  {{< youtube qQcyYHGtArs >}}
+
+They give very good overview how to properly mount a liquid cooling. That's
+what I watched initially when getting to know how to deal with liquid cooling.
+
+### Mounting the liquid cooling
+
+Now that I have been promoted from total noob, to a beginner, I have unboxed
+the cooling parts and started mounting them. Having learned about the air
+bubbles and recommended mounting I have decided to mount it on the front side
+of the chassis with the pipes going upwards to the CPU cooling block. This
+should ensure that the pump will live a long life. Yes...
+
+That's where the hardships began. I own a Nvidia RTX 3060, which is quite a
+big monster to be honest. To my surprise, when I mounted every parts of the
+cooling according to my initial plan, it occurred that I can no longer fit my
+graphics card... The cooling pipes going from radiator to the CPu cooling
+block were too short to pass them around the Nvidia GPU. So either I had to
+put a smaller GPU or resign from liquid cooling. It was very bad news for me.
+
+But then I took another look at the radiator carefully and noticed, that the
+pump is actually not in the CPU cooling block, but in the radiator itself!
+
+![Pump and radiator](/img/liquid_cooling_radiator.jpg)
+
+Remembering physics back from the school, if I placed the radiator with the
+pipes on the upper side, the air bubbles would not get into the pump right? To
+be sure I have searched for a more suitable tutorial, specific to my liquid
+cooling model and I found [Gear Seeker's
+guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayE9X71SDeY) which explicitly says that
+this cooling should be mounted with the pipes upside. You may imagine what
+relief I have felt when I watched it. I took apart the cooling from my chassis
+right away and started mounting it with the pipes on the upper side. THanks to
+that the pipes would no longer need to go around my GPU (they would actually
+be hanging above the card with plenty of free space).
+
+![Liquid cooling mounted](/img/liquid_cooling_mounted.jpg)
+
+### Cooling efficiency
+
+I have no comparison of liquid cooling on a i5-12600K, so I can only share the
+results of i9-14900K. When idling the CPU stays at around 40 Celsius degrees.
+
+![Idle CPU temperature](/img/cpu_idle_temp.png)
+
+When playing a not-so-heavy game like League of Legends for example, the
+temperature varies from 60 to 80 degrees depending on the load.
+
+![CPU temperature under semi load](/img/cpu_semi_load_temp.png)
+
+This is where the fans are getting a bit noisy. I am considering adjusting the
+fan curves to reduce the loudness. Also the pump is generating its own
+constant noise, which is much more audible than fan+radiator solution.
+Although there are no BIOS setup options for adjusting fan curves yet, but
+automatic fan control is coming to Dasharo firmware v1.1.3 compatible with
+MSI PRO Z690-A (DDR4), so manual adjusting of the temperature/speed points
+in code and recompilation will be possible.
+
+![CPU fan curve](/img/cpu_fan_curve.png)
+
+Liquid cooling should have a bit more heat capacity than fan+radiator solution
+and so the inertia of cooling will be different (there is no need to spin the
+fans to high speed right away when CPU crosses 80 degrees, because the liquid
+is still probably much colder than that). But that is a topic for another
+story and hopefully a blog post.
+
+## Summary
+
+Had I watched more tutorials I could save a few hours of time and nerves...
+Despite being an experienced engineer working with hardware everyday, I still
+underestimated the amount of information I need to get the best out of the
+products I have bought.
+
+If you liked the content or have questions, follow me on
+[my social media](https://blog.3mdeb.com/authors/michal-zygowski/). I am also
+very active on the [Dasharo Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#dasharo:matrix.org)
+with the rest of the team. I also encourage to follow 3mdeb social media
+to be up to date with what we are doing:
+
+- [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/3mdeb/)
+- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/3mdeb/mycompany/)
+- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_djHbyjuJvhVjfT18nyqmQ)
+- [Twitter (X)](https://twitter.com/3mdeb_com)
+- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/3mdeb/)
+
+Unlock the full potential of your hardware and secure your firmware with the
+experts at 3mdeb! If you're looking to boost your product's performance and
+protect it from potential security threats, our team is here to help.
+[Schedule a call with us](https://calendly.com/3mdeb/consulting-remote-meeting)
+or drop us an email at `contact<at>3mdeb<dot>com` to start unlocking the hidden
+benefits of your hardware. And if you want to stay up-to-date on all things
+firmware security and optimization, be sure to
+[sign up for our newsletter](https://newsletter.3mdeb.com/subscription/PW6XnCeK6).
+Don't let your hardware hold you back, work with 3mdeb to achieve more!