AMD Ryzen CPUs

@Rudski
The amount of fans is perfectly fine, as you see from the components, money was not an issue, noise is not an issue with a 15,5 dB(A) rating (https://geizhals.at/be-quiet-silent-wings-3-pwm-bl067-a1490388.html), wattage is not an issue with 3.6W each, space was not an issue, but what important was complete coverage of the radiators + 1 case fan at the back for extraction. I'd rather have more fans doing the same amount of heat transfer than fewer, louder ones.

@Serge M
The PSU argument again, fine. I've done the planing beforehand and extensive testing with HWmonitor + true wattage readout after with
nvidia-smi -i 0 --loop-ms=1000 --format=csv,noheader --query-gpu=power.draw
(http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/nvidia-monitor-power-usage/)
I've also meassured the power draw on the socket with a watt meter. The GPU is a slightly overclocked MSI 1080ti Aero rated for 250W TDP (https://geizhals.at/msi-geforce-gtx-1080-ti-aero-11g-oc-v360-007r-a1599333.html?hloc=at), but as will all Pascal cards, the GPU core is very temperature sensitive and adjusts its clock accordingly, typical clock is 1870Mhz @ 65°C and 1750Mhz @ 55°C with reduced TDP.

typical idle power draw = 60-70W
typical gaming load with 60%TDP@GPU = 290W
typical gaming load with 100%TDP@GPU = 390W
spike gaming load with 100%TDP@GPU = 440W
maximum synthetic load with 100% CPU+100%GPU = 460W
PSU efficiency for beQuiet E9-CM-480W/BN197 @ ~400W = 85-90%

Nvidia does officially recommend a 600W PSU because Nvidia does not want to get sued. If they reccomend a 480W PSU for the 1080ti, people with crappy PSUs will have issues and there will be no overclocking headroom for the AIB cards. Changing a PSU recommendation after a product launch is bad PR.

 

I'm not 100% sure on this but wouldn't 6 x 15.5db = 93 db ?

My lawnmower is rated at 90db.
A new mower today is around 60db.

 

Ehh, no. The db scale is not linear and its values are not additive. The energy of a soundwave increases logarithmically. If talking alone is ~35db(A), two people talking is not 70 db(A). If 60 db has an intensity of 1x, 70 db has a relative intensity of 2x, so double. db(A) is a weighted scale to have more relevance to the perception of the human ear. Please see DIN EN 61672-1 2003-10 electroacoustics, or google "db(a) scale".

And why not an electric lawn mower? It's much quieter. But that's an 180 off topic.

 

There’s still other stuff though that draws power, drives, fans, motherboard itself. PSU will be very stressed. It’s a decent PSU but working way harder then it should long term I think. Doesn’t leave any room to overclock the CPU either. Hope it works out, I’ve seen many blown PSU’s in my work and it can end very badly

Id have a look at Seasonic's calculator, its very in depth
https://seasonic.com/wattage-calculator

 

All loads are total system power and the CPU is already overclocked from 3.0 to 3.7Ghz. My previous beQuiet PSU stayed for 6 years and this one was one of the best on the market at the time and has a five year warranty.
I've been following the development and global adoption rates of electric cars for years now. One of the things people argue against them is "range anxiety" - the 'feeling' to run out of battery juice on the road. "PSU anxiety" is analogous to this for the PC community - the 'feeling' of having a more expensive and higher wattage rated PSU than you actually need and so abdicating your consumer agency and control in this regard. We have the free diagnostic programs, we have the watt meters - technology is not the problem, it's people's psychology and companies with a financial stake in perpetuating it.

 

That is true to a degree with people buying 1000watt plus psu’s for their systems but you have gone too far in the other direction. The accepted guideline is working out max peak power draw of all components and add 50watt for the psu you should use

 

Probably true. I still think you are borderline with that PSU though. And besides, I'm seeing 500W and 550W PSUs at almost the exact same price as a 480W. If price comparison is an argument I mean.