Enermax's Liqtech TR4 liquid cooler took us by surprise in our 240mm unit review, and again in our Liqtech 360 TR4 review. The cooler is the first noteworthy closed-loop liquid cooler to accommodate Threadripper, and testing proved that it's not just smoke and mirrors: The extra coldplate size enables the Liqtech to overwhelm any of the current-market Asetek CLCs, which use smaller coldplates that are more suitable to Ryzen or Intel CPUs. 

We’re reviewing the 360mm Enermax TR4 Liqtech cooler today, matched-up against the 240mm variant and with a special appearance from the Noctua NH-U14S TR4 unit. We previously benchmarked the Enermax Liqtech 240 TR4 closed-loop liquid cooler versus the Noctua NH-U14S, resulting in somewhat interesting findings. The larger version of the Liqtech, the 360mm cooler, is now on the bench for comparison with an extra fan and a wider radiator. The NH-U14S returns, as does the X62 (mostly to demonstrate smaller coldplate performance).

We’re still using our 1950X CPU on the Zenith platform, overclocked to 4.0GHz at 1.35Vcore. The point of the OC isn’t to drive the highest possible clock, but to generate a larger power load out of the CPU (thus stressing to a point of better demonstrating performance deltas).

At time of publication, the Enermax Liqtech 240 TR4 is priced at ~$130, with the 360 at ~$150, and with the NH-U14S at ~$80.

This testing kicked-off because we questioned the validity of some cooler testing results that we saw online. We previously tested two mostly identical Noctua air coolers against one another on Threadripper – one cooler had a TR4-sized plate, the other had an AM-sized plate – and saw differences upwards of 10 degrees Celsius. That said, until now, we hadn’t tested those Threadripper-specific CPU coolers versus liquid coolers, specifically including CLCs/AIOs with large coldplates.

The Enermax Liqtech 240 TR4 closed-loop liquid cooler arrived recently, marking the arrival of our first large coldplate liquid cooler for Threadripper. The Enermax Liqtech 240 TR4 unit will make for a more suitable air vs. liquid comparison versus the Noctua NH-U14S TR4 unit and, although liquid is objectively better at moving heat around, there’s still a major argument on the front of fans and noise. Our testing includes the usual flat-out performance test and 40dBA noise-normalized benchmarking, which matches the NH-U14S, NH-U12S, NZXT Kraken X62 (small coldplate), and Enermax Liqtech 240 at 40dBA for each.

This test will benchmark the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 and NH-U12S TR4-SP3 air coolers versus the Enermax Liqtech 240 TR4 & NZXT Kraken X62.

The units tested for today include:

Before Vega buried Threadripper, we noted interest in conducting a simple A/B comparison between Noctua’s new TR4-sized coldplate (the full-coverage plate) and their older LGA115X-sized coldplate. Clearly, the LGA115X cooler isn’t meant to be used with Threadripper – but it offered a unique opportunity, as the two units are largely the same aside from coldplate coverage. This grants an easy means to run an A/B comparison; although we can’t draw conclusions to all coldplates and coolers, we can at least see what Noctua’s efforts did for them on the Threadripper front.

Noctua’s NH-U14S cooler possesses the same heatpipe count and arrangement, the same (or remarkably similar) fin stack, and the same fan – though we controlled for that by using the same fan for each unit. The only difference is the coldplate, as far as we can tell, and so we’re able to more easily measure performance deltas resultant primarily from the coldplate coverage change. Noctua’s LGA115X version, clearly not for TR4, wouldn’t cover the entire die area of even one module under the HIS. The smaller plate maximally covers about 30% of the die area, just eyeballing it, and doesn’t make direct contact to the rest. This is less coverage than the Asetek CLCs, which at least make contact with the entire TR4 die area, if not the entire IHS. Noctua modified their unit to equip a full-coverage plate as a response, including the unique mounting hardware that TR4 needs.

The LGA115X NH-U14S doesn’t natively mount to Threadripper motherboards. We modded the NH-U14S TR4 cooler’s mounting hardware with a couple of holes, aligning those with the LGA115X holes, then routed screws and nuts through those. A rubber bumper was placed between the mounting hardware and the base of the cooler, used to help ensure even and adequate mounting pressure. We show a short clip of the modding process in our above video.

Storing multiple terabytes of video content monthly is, obviously, a drive-intensive business -- particularly when using RAID for local editing scratch disks, a NAS for internal server access, and web remote backup. Rather than buy more drives and build a data library that is both impossible to manage and impossible to search, we decided to use our disks smarter and begin compressing broll as it falls into disuse. Deletion is the final step, at some point, but the compression is small enough as to be a non-concern right now. We're able to compress our broll anywhere from 50-86%, depending on what kind of content is contained therein, and do so with nearly 0 perceptible impact to content quality. All that's required is a processor with a lot of threads, as that's what we wrote our compression script to use, and some extra power each month.

Threadripper saw use recently in a temporary compression rig for us, as we wanted to try the CPU out in a real-world use case for our day-to-day operations. The effort can be seen below:

Visiting AMD during the Threadripper announcement event gave us access to a live LN2-overclocking demonstration, where one of the early Threadripper CPUs hit 5.2GHz on LN2 and scored north of 4000 points in Cinebench. Overclocking was performed on two systems, one using an internal engineering sample motherboard and the other using an early ASRock board. LN2 pots will be made available by Der8auer and KINGPIN, though the LN2 pots used by AMD were custom-made for the task, given that the socket is completely new.

The launch of Threadripper marks a move closer to AMD’s starting point for the Zen architecture. Contrary to popular belief, AMD did not start its plans with desktop Ryzen and then glue modules together until Epyc was created; no, instead, the company started with an MCM CPU more similar to Epyc, then worked its way down to Ryzen desktop CPUs. Threadripper is the fruition of this MCM design on the HEDT side, and benefits from months of maturation for both the platform and AMD’s support teams. Ryzen was rushed in its weeks leading to launch, which showed in both communication clarity and platform support in the early days. Finally, as things smoothed-over and AMD resolved many of its communication and platform issues, Threadripper became advantaged in its receipt of these improvements.

“Everything we learned with AM4 went into Threadripper,” one of AMD’s representatives told us, and that became clear as we continued to work on the platform. During the test process for Threadripper, work felt considerably more streamlined and remarkably free of the validation issues that had once plagued Ryzen. The fact that we were able to instantly boot to 3200MHz (and 3600MHz) memory gave hope that Threadripper would, in fact, be the benefactor of Ryzen’s learning pains.

Threadripper will ship in three immediate SKUs:

• 16C/32T 1950X
• 12C/24T 1920X
• 8C/16T 1900X

Respectively, these units are targeted at price-points of $1000, $800, and $550, making them direct competitors to Intel’s new Skylake-X family of CPUs. The i9-7900X would be the flagship – for now, anyway – that’s being more heavily challenged by AMD’s Threadripper HEDT CPUs. Today's review looks at the AMD Threadripper 1950X and 1920X CPUs in livestreaming benchmarks, Blender, Premiere, power consumption, temperatures, gaming, and more.

This episode of Ask GN (#56) revisits the topic of AMD's Temperature Control (TCTL) offset on Ryzen CPUs, aiming to help demystify why the company has elected to implement the feature on its consumer-grade CPUs. The topic was resurrected with thanks to Threadripper's imminent launch, just hours away, as the new TR CPUs also include a 27C TCTL offset. Alongside this, we talk Threadripper CPU die layout diagrams and our use of dry erase marker (yes, really), sensationalism and clickbait on YouTube, Peltier coolers, Ivy Bridge, and more.

For a separate update on what's going on behind the scenes, our Patreon backers may be happy to hear that we've just posted an update on the Patreon page. The update discusses major impending changes to our CPU testing procedure, as Threadripper's launch will be the last major CPU we cover for a little while. Well, a few weeks, at least. That'll give us some time to rework our testing for next year, as our methods tend to remain in place for about a year at a time.

Timestamps below.

Following an initial look at thermal compound spread on AMD’s Threadripper 1950X, we immediately revisited an old, retired discussion: Thermal paste application methods and which one is “best” for a larger IHS. With most of the relatively small CPUs, like the desktop-grade Intel and AMD CPUs, it’s more or less been determined that there’s no real, appreciable difference in application methods. Sure – you might get one degree Centigrade here or there, but the vast majority of users will be just fine with the “blob” method. As long as there’s enough compound, it’ll spread fairly evenly across Intel i3/i5/i7 non-HEDT CPUs and across Ryzen or FX CPUs.

Threadripper feels different: It’s huge, with the top of the IHS measuring at 68x51mm, and significantly wider on one axis. Threadripper also has a unique arrangement of silicon, with four “dies” spread across the substrate. AMD has told us that only two of the dies are active and that it should be the same two on every Threadripper CPU, with the other two being branded “silicon substrate interposers.” Speaking with Der8auer, we believe there may be more to this story than what we’re told. Der8auer is investigating further and will be posting coverage on his own channel as he learns more.

Anyway, we’re interested in how different thermal compound spreading methods may benefit Threadripper specifically. Testing will focus on the “blob” method, X-pattern, parallel lines pattern, Asetek’s stock pattern, and AMD’s recommended five-point pattern. Threadripper’s die layout looks like this, for a visual aid:

Because of the spacing centrally, we are most concerned about covering the two clusters of dies, not the center of the IHS; that said, it’s still a good idea to cover the center as that is where the cooler’s copper density is located and most efficient.

Our video version of this content uses a sheet of Plexiglass to illustrate how compound spreads as it is applied. As we state later in the video, this is a nice, easy mode of visualization, but not really an accurate way to show how the compound spreads when under the real mounting force of a socketed cooler. For that, we later applied the same NZXT Kraken X62 cooler with each method, then took photos to show before/after cooler installation. Thermal testing was also performed. Seeing as AMD has permitted several other outlets to post their thermal results already, we figured we'd add ours to the growing pool of testing.

Under guidelines by AMD that we could show Threadripper CPU installation and cooler installation, we figured it’d also be pertinent to show cooler coverage on TR and RAM clearance. These all fall under the “installation” bucket and normally wouldn’t get attention from us, but Threadripper’s uniquely sized socket with uniquely positioned dies demands more instruction.

Threadripper thermal compound & coldplate coverage has been a primary topic of discussion since we first showed motherboards at Computex. We’ve generally offered that, theoretically, coldplate coverage should be “fine” as long as the two Threadripper CPU dies are adequately covered by the coldplate. In order to determine once and for all whether Asetek coolers will cover the IHS appropriately, seeing as that’s what TR ships with, we mapped out the dies on one of our samples, then compared that to CLC thermal paste silk screens, coldplates, and applied thermal compound.