Delid and Direct Die Cooling
IHS was removed from the 7980XE with Der8auer’s Delid Die Mate X. Silicon was then scraped off using a credit card and polished to a shine with paper towel. This was particularly time consuming as it was difficult to clean around the exposed contacts on the PCB. The contacts were then covered with liquid electrical tape. This is not usually necessary however, direct die cooling requires a generous amount of liquid metal to achieve good contact with the heatsink. After about three months use, some corrosion occurred to the die of the 7980XE. You can see very slight imperfections which I assumed was from impurities in the die.

Modification Process
Expanding the liquid cooler required draining the cooler through the fill port on the CPU/Pump block. The fittings from the block were then removed and replaced with Bitspower 3/8 ID 5/8 OD compression fittings. The thread did not have to be modified. Two 240mm Hardware Labs GTS Xflow radiators were installed, and all components connected using EK ZMT tubing. The line between the CPU/pump block had an EK-QDC fitting for installing and removing a reservoir. This was used to fill and bleed the loop, and was then later removed using the quick disconnect fittings.

All benchmarks were completed in this system with the 7980XE overclocked as high as 5.1GHz 1.425V. There are no graphical benchmarks as both graphics cards perform just above their rated specifications due to the 1800MHz 850mV undervolt.

HWbot Submissions
PiFast score - Novice League
12sec 600ms with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 5100MHz

SuperPi - 1M score - Novice League
7sec 108ms with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 5100MHz

SuperPi - 32M score - Novice League
6min 23sec 996ms with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 5100MHz

wPrime - 32M score - Novice League
2sec 297ms with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 5100MHz

wPrime - 1024M score - Novice League
33sec 452ms with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 4800MHz

XTU score - Novice League
2851 marks with Intel Core i9 7980XE [74.0 degrees °C under load] at 5110MHz

Cinebench - 2003 score
9694 points with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 5100MHz

Cinebench - R11.5 score
48.76 points with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 4800MHz

Cinebench - R15 score - Novice League
4875 cb with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 4900MHz

Cinebench - R20 score - Novice League
11217 marks with Intel Core i9 7980XE at 4800MHz