![[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR](./core/images/default/default_avatar_medium.png "[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR"){kind=avatar}
Tweet
We outfit the compact Corsair 250D with Intel’s new Core i7-4790K CPU and a dual-rad closed-loop cooler
Length of Time: 2–4 hours | Level of Difficulty: Intermediate
The mission is simple: We wanted to take Intel’s Devil’s Canyon CPU as far as it would go in a compact chassis. For those who don’t know what Devil’s Canyon is, it’s Intel’s newest line of Haswell-K CPUs, which are specifically designed to be overclocked. Intel reengineered the thermal interface material (aka paste) and packaging used in Devil’s Canyon to dissipate heat better than last year’s Haswell-K CPUs. We should mention Devil’s Canyon CPUs are technically only supported by a limited number of 8-series mobos, but will work in all new 9-series boards.
Intel’s Haswell CPUs were introduced almost a year ago now, leaving those always on the hunt for the next big thing with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs. Let the thumb-twiddling cease, at least for the moment, as Intel’s new Core i7-4790K aka Devil’s Canyon has been hyped as the second coming of the Celeron 300A. With rumors saying the chip would easily hit 5GHz on air, enthusiasts everywhere are expecting this chip to finally get us to that sweet 5GHz overclock mark that hasn’t been seen since the days of the original Sandy Bridge CPUs. Was the wait worth it? We grabbed a freshly minted Core i7-4790K to answer the question. Could we get our Core i7-4790K to our desired overclock? Read on to find out!
Overclocking Goodness
We used Corsair's 250D case as the frame for our overclocking escapade. The cube-shaped 250D is one of the few SFF boxes compatible with dual-rad closed-loop coolers. We opted for Enermax’s Liqtech 240 to cover our cooling needs; it’s an impressive cooler and kept our Core i7-4790K at an acceptable 69C under multi-threaded workloads. We then grabbed an ASUS Z97I-PLUS Mini ITX mobo, which sports Intel’s newest Z97 chipset, and despite its diminutive size, supports a plethora of overclocking features. For RAM, we decided to go with a pair of 4GB ADATA DDR3/2400 modules. Although RAM clocks haven’t made huge differences before, using higher-clocked modules with Haswell does aid performance. The GPU duties were covered by an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780, which is fast, quiet, and runs on the cool side. On the storage front, we opted to use a single Seagate 600-Series 480GB MLC SSD. That’s enough space to live on, so the rig’s hard-drive population is zero. The box has plenty of room for multiple SSDs and HDDs, though. Finally, we supplied the juice through Corsair’s RM 650 PSU, which gives us 650 watts of power and modular cabling.
1. Toss out the odd bay.
To get the 250d ready for our build, we needed to first remove its ODD bay. To do this, we removed the top panel to expose the case’s innards. Next, we unscrewed the ODD from its perch at the top-front—just four small screws, not a problem. From there, you just have to slide the bay toward the rear a tiny bit and lift it out. We’re not using an ODD in this build, as there’s little use for one in 2014—with a speedy Internet connection and an 8GB fl ash drive, you can do almost everything that an ODD does. Plus, we needed the space to install the full-size cooler.
2. Install the CPU and RAM.
The installation of our CPU and memory here is pretty standard stuff. You’ll fi rst line up the pins of the processor with appropriate ones on the socket and then clamp it into place. There are two notches cut out of the CPU at the top of the die to help guide you. Line up the CPU’s notches with the ones on the socket and then fasten the CPU into place with the mobo-CPU latch. Remember to mind the pins: If you bend the pins on the mobo, you’ll kill it. To install the RAM, we unlatched the RAM slots, then lined up the DIMM’s notches to fit properly into the RAM slot and pushed down gently but firmly on the module until we heard it click into place.
3. Install the cooler's block.
Installing the cooler was similar to most other closed-loop liquid-cooler installations we’ve done. We first mounted our backplate onto the motherboard with screws and rubber washers. Next, we secured the water block to the CPU by fastening it with four mounting screws. Here’s a quick PSA on screw tightening: Always make sure you don’t overtighten the water block when installing it, as you could crack your motherboard if you’re overzealous about it. We generally recommend tightening the screws in an X-pattern, which should make it easier to mount the block evenly onto the CPU and motherboard. The X-pattern should be used whenever you’re installing a heatsink or a closed-loop liquid cooler.
4. Install the mobo and radiator.
Installing the Enermax Liqtech 240 was a bit tricky, to say the least. To get things started, remove the 120mm side case fan. The next step is to install the motherboard into the case, using four motherboard screws. Now comes the hard part, you’ll have to wedge in the Liqtech 240 cooler at a 45-degree angle. Once the radiator is safely inside the case, secure it with eight mounting screws. The cooler’s clearance above the motherboard wound up being less than 1cm, so it’s a very tight fit. We don’t recommend newbie system builders attempt an installation of the Liqtech 240 inside a SFF case, as it may be too frustrating. We actually threw around a few expletives ourselves during the cooler installation, so it was definitely a challenge.
5. Toss in the GPU.
The GeForce GTX 780 slid into the 250D with ease. To get started on the installation, unscrew the thumbscrews that hold the video card bracket into place. Once the bracket is free, slide the video card into the PCIe lane. Once in, you’ll need to secure the card in place with its bracket. We like the design of the 250D, as it positions the GPU to exhaust its heat directly out of the chassis. Most cases trap the GPU exhaust heat inside, which can cause thermal issues or disrupt airflow. We should mention that one downside to the 250D is that it only supports two-slot video cards, so if you have a massive three-slot card, it won’t fit in this box. Another thing to be aware of is that extra-long video cards won’t fit into the 250D, either. According to Corsair’s website, the maximum GPU length for a 250D is 11.4 inches.
6. Wire up the system.
To install the PSU, we removed the PSU backplate of the case by unscrewing two thumb screws. We then slid the unit into place and screwed it in securely. Next, we wired up the motherboard for power and plugged in the case’s front-panel connectors. Lastly, we wired up the rest of the motherboard connections for front-panel USB 3.0, audio, and finished up by plugging in our fans. The downside to our 250D is that there’s little room for us to hide any of our cabling. In a standard midtower, most of the cabling can easily be routed and concealed. That said, we are impressed with the size of the 250D; we love it’s short height of 11.4 inches. And we can’t really complain about the cable-routing, but hope that some future SFF cases will offer better routing options.
1.) The Enermax Liqtech 240 cooler comes with two 120mm fans and a ton of cooling capacity. 2.) This Asus motherboard measures just 6.7x6.7 inches, and it’s packed with some high end features. 3.) Corsair’s 250d provides us with a front 140mm fan and (amazingly) will take a good sized liquid cooler. 4.) The GeForce GTX 780 still offers awesome performance while running cool and quiet, and even fits in our case, to boot.
Devil’s Canyon Brinsg the OC Heat -- But Not Enough
Frankly, we weren't very blown away with the overclocking performance of the Core i7 4790K. After hearing tales of 5GHz on air using a busted heat sink from a Pentium III, we expected more.
We were able to get the chip stable at 4.7GHz using 1.35 core voltage, but anything beyond that was BSOD heaven. In November 2013 we tested the Falcon Northwest Tiki, which sported an Intel Core i7-4770K overclocked to 4.7GHz, so our 4.7GHz overclock isn’t a spectacular accomplishment. Since that was the limit, we backed it down just a notch at 4.6GHz to try to tame the somewhat loud noise the cooling was making.
Our Devil’s Canyon box beat out our Zero-Point in a few benchmarks, producing wins in ProShow Producer 5.0 and Stitch.EFX, which it did by an average of 18.5 percent. In multi-threaded workloads such as Premiere Pro and X264 HD 5.01, even the ancient Sandy Bridge-E part with six cores could beat out the Devil’s Canyon part.
We also compared our rig to Digital Storm’s micro-tower Bolt II, which sports a Core i7 4770K overclocked to 4.5GHz. It was pretty much a tie in the CPU tests, but the Titan Black in the Bolt II trounced our GeForce GTX 780 big time. In 3DMark 11 and Batman: Arkham City we took a beating by 25 percent and 54 percent, respectively. We won’t even mention the Falcon Tiki Z reviewed this month, with its dual-GPU Titan Z. Of course, our entire build cost about two-thirds what just the GPU in the Tiki Z sells for, so you might want our Devil’s Canyon rig, after all!
Our goal for this build it was to get a Devil’s Canyon part up to 5GHz, but didn’t achieve this overclocking feat with our rig. Not that anyone with a Core i7-4770K would likely be considering an upgrade, but news fl ash: Don’t bother. If you’ve held onto an Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge part for the past few years, and you’re looking for good time, Devil’s Canyon is a good fit for you. The Core i7-4790K currently has the highest base and turbo boost clock speeds of any i7 desktop part, and it costs the same as a Core i7-4770K, so new builders should rejoice.
This article was taken from the December issue of the mag.
More...
Length of Time: 2–4 hours | Level of Difficulty: Intermediate
The mission is simple: We wanted to take Intel’s Devil’s Canyon CPU as far as it would go in a compact chassis. For those who don’t know what Devil’s Canyon is, it’s Intel’s newest line of Haswell-K CPUs, which are specifically designed to be overclocked. Intel reengineered the thermal interface material (aka paste) and packaging used in Devil’s Canyon to dissipate heat better than last year’s Haswell-K CPUs. We should mention Devil’s Canyon CPUs are technically only supported by a limited number of 8-series mobos, but will work in all new 9-series boards.Intel’s Haswell CPUs were introduced almost a year ago now, leaving those always on the hunt for the next big thing with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs. Let the thumb-twiddling cease, at least for the moment, as Intel’s new Core i7-4790K aka Devil’s Canyon has been hyped as the second coming of the Celeron 300A. With rumors saying the chip would easily hit 5GHz on air, enthusiasts everywhere are expecting this chip to finally get us to that sweet 5GHz overclock mark that hasn’t been seen since the days of the original Sandy Bridge CPUs. Was the wait worth it? We grabbed a freshly minted Core i7-4790K to answer the question. Could we get our Core i7-4790K to our desired overclock? Read on to find out!
Overclocking Goodness
We used Corsair's 250D case as the frame for our overclocking escapade. The cube-shaped 250D is one of the few SFF boxes compatible with dual-rad closed-loop coolers. We opted for Enermax’s Liqtech 240 to cover our cooling needs; it’s an impressive cooler and kept our Core i7-4790K at an acceptable 69C under multi-threaded workloads. We then grabbed an ASUS Z97I-PLUS Mini ITX mobo, which sports Intel’s newest Z97 chipset, and despite its diminutive size, supports a plethora of overclocking features. For RAM, we decided to go with a pair of 4GB ADATA DDR3/2400 modules. Although RAM clocks haven’t made huge differences before, using higher-clocked modules with Haswell does aid performance. The GPU duties were covered by an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780, which is fast, quiet, and runs on the cool side. On the storage front, we opted to use a single Seagate 600-Series 480GB MLC SSD. That’s enough space to live on, so the rig’s hard-drive population is zero. The box has plenty of room for multiple SSDs and HDDs, though. Finally, we supplied the juice through Corsair’s RM 650 PSU, which gives us 650 watts of power and modular cabling.
To get the 250d ready for our build, we needed to first remove its ODD bay. To do this, we removed the top panel to expose the case’s innards. Next, we unscrewed the ODD from its perch at the top-front—just four small screws, not a problem. From there, you just have to slide the bay toward the rear a tiny bit and lift it out. We’re not using an ODD in this build, as there’s little use for one in 2014—with a speedy Internet connection and an 8GB fl ash drive, you can do almost everything that an ODD does. Plus, we needed the space to install the full-size cooler.
2. Install the CPU and RAM.
The installation of our CPU and memory here is pretty standard stuff. You’ll fi rst line up the pins of the processor with appropriate ones on the socket and then clamp it into place. There are two notches cut out of the CPU at the top of the die to help guide you. Line up the CPU’s notches with the ones on the socket and then fasten the CPU into place with the mobo-CPU latch. Remember to mind the pins: If you bend the pins on the mobo, you’ll kill it. To install the RAM, we unlatched the RAM slots, then lined up the DIMM’s notches to fit properly into the RAM slot and pushed down gently but firmly on the module until we heard it click into place.
3. Install the cooler's block.
Installing the cooler was similar to most other closed-loop liquid-cooler installations we’ve done. We first mounted our backplate onto the motherboard with screws and rubber washers. Next, we secured the water block to the CPU by fastening it with four mounting screws. Here’s a quick PSA on screw tightening: Always make sure you don’t overtighten the water block when installing it, as you could crack your motherboard if you’re overzealous about it. We generally recommend tightening the screws in an X-pattern, which should make it easier to mount the block evenly onto the CPU and motherboard. The X-pattern should be used whenever you’re installing a heatsink or a closed-loop liquid cooler.
4. Install the mobo and radiator.
Installing the Enermax Liqtech 240 was a bit tricky, to say the least. To get things started, remove the 120mm side case fan. The next step is to install the motherboard into the case, using four motherboard screws. Now comes the hard part, you’ll have to wedge in the Liqtech 240 cooler at a 45-degree angle. Once the radiator is safely inside the case, secure it with eight mounting screws. The cooler’s clearance above the motherboard wound up being less than 1cm, so it’s a very tight fit. We don’t recommend newbie system builders attempt an installation of the Liqtech 240 inside a SFF case, as it may be too frustrating. We actually threw around a few expletives ourselves during the cooler installation, so it was definitely a challenge.
5. Toss in the GPU.
The GeForce GTX 780 slid into the 250D with ease. To get started on the installation, unscrew the thumbscrews that hold the video card bracket into place. Once the bracket is free, slide the video card into the PCIe lane. Once in, you’ll need to secure the card in place with its bracket. We like the design of the 250D, as it positions the GPU to exhaust its heat directly out of the chassis. Most cases trap the GPU exhaust heat inside, which can cause thermal issues or disrupt airflow. We should mention that one downside to the 250D is that it only supports two-slot video cards, so if you have a massive three-slot card, it won’t fit in this box. Another thing to be aware of is that extra-long video cards won’t fit into the 250D, either. According to Corsair’s website, the maximum GPU length for a 250D is 11.4 inches.
6. Wire up the system.
To install the PSU, we removed the PSU backplate of the case by unscrewing two thumb screws. We then slid the unit into place and screwed it in securely. Next, we wired up the motherboard for power and plugged in the case’s front-panel connectors. Lastly, we wired up the rest of the motherboard connections for front-panel USB 3.0, audio, and finished up by plugging in our fans. The downside to our 250D is that there’s little room for us to hide any of our cabling. In a standard midtower, most of the cabling can easily be routed and concealed. That said, we are impressed with the size of the 250D; we love it’s short height of 11.4 inches. And we can’t really complain about the cable-routing, but hope that some future SFF cases will offer better routing options.
1.) The Enermax Liqtech 240 cooler comes with two 120mm fans and a ton of cooling capacity. 2.) This Asus motherboard measures just 6.7x6.7 inches, and it’s packed with some high end features. 3.) Corsair’s 250d provides us with a front 140mm fan and (amazingly) will take a good sized liquid cooler. 4.) The GeForce GTX 780 still offers awesome performance while running cool and quiet, and even fits in our case, to boot.
Devil’s Canyon Brinsg the OC Heat -- But Not Enough
Frankly, we weren't very blown away with the overclocking performance of the Core i7 4790K. After hearing tales of 5GHz on air using a busted heat sink from a Pentium III, we expected more.
We were able to get the chip stable at 4.7GHz using 1.35 core voltage, but anything beyond that was BSOD heaven. In November 2013 we tested the Falcon Northwest Tiki, which sported an Intel Core i7-4770K overclocked to 4.7GHz, so our 4.7GHz overclock isn’t a spectacular accomplishment. Since that was the limit, we backed it down just a notch at 4.6GHz to try to tame the somewhat loud noise the cooling was making.
Our Devil’s Canyon box beat out our Zero-Point in a few benchmarks, producing wins in ProShow Producer 5.0 and Stitch.EFX, which it did by an average of 18.5 percent. In multi-threaded workloads such as Premiere Pro and X264 HD 5.01, even the ancient Sandy Bridge-E part with six cores could beat out the Devil’s Canyon part.
We also compared our rig to Digital Storm’s micro-tower Bolt II, which sports a Core i7 4770K overclocked to 4.5GHz. It was pretty much a tie in the CPU tests, but the Titan Black in the Bolt II trounced our GeForce GTX 780 big time. In 3DMark 11 and Batman: Arkham City we took a beating by 25 percent and 54 percent, respectively. We won’t even mention the Falcon Tiki Z reviewed this month, with its dual-GPU Titan Z. Of course, our entire build cost about two-thirds what just the GPU in the Tiki Z sells for, so you might want our Devil’s Canyon rig, after all!
This article was taken from the December issue of the mag.
More...