Hi all:

We're building our biggest, most capable vMix Live and Call system. I noticed that on the Obsidian Reference system page,
vMix is suggesting liquid CPU cooling. This will be our third vMix system and we mainly use it with vMix Call from our
studio but we do haul the entire system out on location, often shooting with 3-8 cameras.

We really are pushing vMix to it's limits so we want the best system we can afford. I am honestly pretty paranoid to
have a liquid cooled CPU system that is being hauled in and out of cars and carted on location. A leak could be disastrous.
Neither of our other two systems are liquid cooled and we have not had too many overheating issues but this system
has a bigger motherboard, faster and beefier CPU and GPU.

We are not overclocking like gamers would though. I am thinking of the https://www.amazon.com/g...A3KGNLL200UCI2&psc=1 case that will have three fans, two up front and one in the rear of the case.

We will be using:

X299 Motherboard
The Corsair Obsidian Case
Intel Core i9 10900X
NVidia P5000 GPU

So we will be generating some heat, of course.

For those of you have built a few higher end vMix systems, if you were hauling a system around on location and in and out of cars,
would you risk liquid CPU cooling? With this configuration, would you add additional case fans? CPU dedicated fan if we can find
one that fits this case?

FWIW, we like quiet while in the studio obviously, don't like a high dB noisy system but concerned about liquid leaks from
a system that may take some jarring in transport.

New here, your recommendations and advice are appreciated. All of my research seems to point to gamers
and we are not gaming/overclocking but are pushing the hardware with multiple 4K cameras, occasional 4K
live streaming, etc. Advice?

The risk with a liquid cooler is even smaller than with a huge mechanical fan. The pad that comes on the CPU is small, the fan is mounted on the "ceiling" of the case.
We use these ones.
cooler

im curious what have you seen come loose ? also what sort of conditions created the problems ? was it people still being careful in a normal car or was it roadie throwing stuff around a trailer ?

Ive always used laptops when out and about but im looking at buiding a desktop in a rack case to move around.. i have been wondering how robust it would be..

no probs... i'll look to be careful as i can then i guess.. use something shock absorbing under the case in the car, was also thinking no mechanical hard drives would prob be a good idea..

i was looking at air coolers the other day.. some of the noctua models look like they do a decent job compared to water cooling. my concern with transporting water cooled system is any problems such as a leak could be a major thing whereas an air cooler problem can probably be fixed a lot easier. the main concern with air cooling is a large fan/heatsink is top heavy and only has motherboard screws for support.. i was thinking to maybe macguyver an extra bracket attached to the top of the fan and then to the case for extra height support.. there are also some air coolers with less bulky heatsinks/fans which still seem to do a decent job..

if you buy an air cooler that is compatible with the CPU and you arent overclocking i wouldnt expect too many problems with temperature, my concern is how well does it hold up to being moved around regularly. which probably comes down to how heavy/bulky it is and how well the bracket is designed..

also.. have you seen nvidias 3000 series cards are about to be released ? if you are building from scratch, the 3090 is listed as having large performance increases over the previous generation cards.. might be worth checking out if you dont already own the P5000..

I use an Airptop PC from Compulab. It's a fanless custom workstation. The entire case, which is quite small, is a metal array of heat pipes & sinks. The case dissipates 300 watts

https://fit-iot.com/web/products/airtop3/

Mine is older, with an i7-5775c and GTX 750 TI. There's a ton of I/O but only one PCIe 16x slot for the GPU.

The third generation Aitrop can handle Core i9 9900K 8-core CPU + Quadro RTX 4000 graphics. There are options for various CPUs, GTX, RTX or Quadro GPUs.

No TB3 yet (bummer!) but there's an optional built-in 4x Gbit NIC with 802.3af PoE on all ports.

These are designed for industrial applications. Very rugged. 5-year warranty.

I would prefer water cooling in a portable system. The pad on the CPU is very small. The 3 fan cooler (Corsair H150) on the top of the case is connected with 2 very stable flexible tubes.
A cooler like the Noctua Air CPU Cooler has a very large mass and the danger of the heavy cooler breaking during transport is higher.
Our system travels a lot and without any problems. GPU is a GeForce® RTX 2080 Ti. About the same size as the RTX5000. 1x BM8k, 1x BM Duo2, 1x BM HDMIRecorder.

Been away from the forums for a while over the holidays but getting back to you, we mostly use vMix for corporate and broadcast work even and it's been pretty solid. We occasionally use LiveStream Studio
as vMix isn't really optimized for the live TV/event workflow where you get hit with constant last minute changes that can be impossible or difficult to implement into vMix.

LiveStream Studio is much more like a traditional video switcher and it can be more flexible if there are a lot of last minute changes. That said, we generally like vMix much better, it's just that when you build a show with
150 to 250 events in it in vMix and then a producer wants to you insert a spare 55 title cards five minutes before air, vMix isn't the right tool. That's stressful no matter what you are using but moving stuff around at the last
minute isn't vMix's strong suite.

vMix is amazing when we have a show where we have done a live rehearsal and tech rehearsal and the show it SET and we are going to broadcast it. Not as good when producers have a million last
minute changes like on fundraisers, galas and telethons, I am starting to budget for an extra graphics person and workstation to handle last minute changes to L3s, new title cards, inputting
into live scrolls, etc. It's not even vMix, it's that that kind of workflow demands a TV control room model where you have a director, TD, VTR, Sound Mixer and graphics person, each on their own
workstations. Expecting one person on one vMix station to handle all of that at once is physically impossible.

Overall, after using the crap out of vMix in 2020, which was our first year using it, huge thumbs up, it's an AMAZING tool and overall, has been very reliable although we did have it totally
crash in the middle of (thank goodness) a talent tech rehearsal with 8 vMix callers and not the show. Still don't know why it did that but that could also have just been a Windows/PC issue and
not a vMix issue.

I say to any who are on the fence, there is really nothing else like vMix on the market. But you have to put some serious bucks into your build it you are going to use it professionally for paying clients.
Our latest build was about $12k all in and there plenty of users on here who have sunk even more into their builds. if you're using it at a low, undemanding level, you don't need that. But when you are doing eight live cameras, revolving groups
of 8 vMix Callers, tons of graphics and overlays and lots of events, you need a monster system.