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Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3: Keeping Threadripper Running Happy With Air Cooling

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  • Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3: Keeping Threadripper Running Happy With Air Cooling

    Phoronix: Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3: Keeping Threadripper Running Happy With Air Cooling

    We recently looked at several Noctua cooler options for Intel's Core X-Series while today the tables have turned and we tried out Noctua's TR4-SP3 heatsink that is capable of cooling the high-Wattage Threadripper and EPYC processors with air cooling.

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    No point of reference, no frequency monitoring so we can spot thermal throttling... Very informative.

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    • #3
      Interesting comment on offsetting the fans. I have a spacier chassis and am using a Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 there for the 1950X. I had the same issue with the RAM modules, and also ended up offsetting the fan a bit to be able to keep the RAM... Looks like there is room for optimization for air cooling in this area...

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      • #4
        Originally posted by bug77 View Post
        No point of reference, no frequency monitoring so we can spot thermal throttling... Very informative.
        There is no reference cooler, but, it would be nice to compare it to a liquid cooler. Seeing frequencies would've been nice. There was obviously not going to be any thermal throttling going on at 66C - TT kicks in much higher than that, but, I do wonder if XFR adjusted the clocks at any point (if this is what you were implying, but note that turbo/XFR speeds are not the same thing).

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        • #5
          Running 'cpupower monitor' seems to let you look at the frequencies for individual cores. My 1700 goes up to ~3.2 GHz for all 8 cores (16T) at max load. I've seen it go up to ~3.7GHz for a core (2T) and ~3.3-3.5GHz for 2-4 cores (4T-8T). This is within the boost range for the 1700. It rarely touches 45C for temperature while under load. I guess this is to be expected for a processor with a TDP of 65W. I wouldn't mind increasing the TDP or max temp ~10% higher to see if all 8 cores could do 3.3+GHz or so almost giving me a 1700X, ha. Not sure how I can get it up to XFR frequencies in linux. cpupower shows 3 P-states at the bottom:

          analyzing CPU 15:
          driver: acpi-cpufreq
          CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 15
          CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 15
          maximum transition latency: Cannot determine or is not supported.
          hardware limits: 1.55 GHz - 3.00 GHz
          available frequency steps: 3.00 GHz, 2.70 GHz, 1.55 GHz
          available cpufreq governors: ondemand performance
          current policy: frequency should be within 1.55 GHz and 3.00 GHz.
          The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
          within this range.
          current CPU frequency: 1.55 GHz (asserted by call to hardware)
          boost state support:
          Supported: no
          Active: no
          Boost States: 0
          Total States: 3
          Pstate-P0: 3600MHz
          Pstate-P1: 575MHz
          Pstate-P2: 3800MHz

          I used the gentoo genkernel, with the ACPI P-States driver turned on.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by audi100quattro View Post
            Running 'cpupower monitor' seems to let you look at the frequencies for individual cores. My 1700 goes up to ~3.2 GHz for all 8 cores (16T) at max load. I've seen it go up to ~3.7GHz for a core (2T) and ~3.3-3.5GHz for 2-4 cores (4T-8T). This is within the boost range for the 1700. It rarely touches 45C for temperature while under load. I guess this is to be expected for a processor with a TDP of 65W. I wouldn't mind increasing the TDP or max temp ~10% higher to see if all 8 cores could do 3.3+GHz or so almost giving me a 1700X, ha. Not sure how I can get it up to XFR frequencies in linux. [...]
            AFAIK, that's what overclocking is for. Kidding aside, XFR is managed by the processor internally; Linux may just never show the core's actual frequency properly (I know it never showed the 400 MHz boost my Haswell was supposed to reach on a single task, however O/C'ing the CPU to that clock speed and running tasks would result in very similar performances).
            Moreover, on a 1700 (not X), XFR is limited to 50 MHz - way within the margin for error in most benchmarks. So...

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            • #7
              Boost is also managed internally as long as you're not overclocking, but I've yet to see it go between 3.7 and 3.75 GHz for a core (2 threads) letting me verify XFR, but maybe I just need to run more single threaded tasks. I am fairly confident cpupower monitor is giving me the right clocks, since it works on my i7-4710HQ laptop including in the turbo range and when I overclock the 1700 to 3.3GHz.

              My 1700 goes up up to 3.3GHz at 1.09-1.1V, which I believe is the stock Vcore voltage. It either doesn't post or is unstable at 3.325GHz and above at that voltage. So, good job doing the binning AMD! Now, is the 1600MHz (100MHz x16 threads) boost from the multiplier-only overclock worth turning off the boost which affects at most 1-2 cores (1000Mhz from 3.7-3.2=500MHz x2 threads in my case)? I think yes.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Think View Post
                Interesting comment on offsetting the fans. I have a spacier chassis and am using a Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 there for the 1950X. I had the same issue with the RAM modules, and also ended up offsetting the fan a bit to be able to keep the RAM... Looks like there is room for optimization for air cooling in this area...
                Noctua should offer a simple plastic shroud to offset the fan while still hitting the whole front face of the cooler. And a shroud would improve cooling in general because it gets rid of the motor hub "shadow".

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                • #9
                  I'd like to see how the cooler performs when these two Noctua fans are replaced by two high-rpm blowers from Delta Electronics.

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