How quiet and cool are your PC's - Air cooled only

Prophet

Prophet

Prophet

Soldato
Joined
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So what the best combination for a quiet case that provides enough cooling for an i5/i7/PIIX4 etc?

What are your real world experiences and what would you change if you bought the system again?

Post pics if you have them :)
 
Hmm... Id say my pc is fairly quiet.

I have Fortress with the standard fans runnin + Noctua CPU cooler with push/pull config.

With my GPU's on 30% it is fine for me, even at 100% fans I don't care as I use good headphones so I can never hear my pc anyway!

As for temperatures, 39c CPU idle, 49c GPU's idle.

These go up to about 60C load CPU and 60C load GPU (60% gpu fan speed).

I could put pictures, but nothing fancy in my case in terms of lights! It's a dark gaming machine :o

If I were to build the system again... probably look at investing in a water cooling kit, but I don't go nuts with overclocking so it would be hard to value it. Only real temperatures I monitor are my hard drive temps, if I was to rebuild I would perhaps make a custom solution for them to be cooled better.
 
Ive just finished modding my CM690 a lot and switched back to it, with the fans on low its near silent and idles at 30C.
Fans on full its audible but not bad, I only ever have them on full when im gaming so the noise of the game drowns it out anyway.

Am planning to do a write up of my build but my cameras being stubborn atm.
 
Thanks for the posts guys.

I don't mind turning up the fans with gaming etc just want it to be fairly quiet when watching a movie or when working on the PC editing photo's or surfing.
 
Antec P180 + 1 front fan
E6300 1.8 w/ Freezer 7 Pro
BFG 9800GT w/ custom Rivatuner fan profile

My CPU is about 45 idle, and 60 load.
My GPU is about 52 idle, and 60 load.
 
Orange Peel said:
Thanks for the posts guys.

I don't mind turning up the fans with gaming etc just want it to be fairly quiet when watching a movie or when working on the PC editing photo's or surfing.
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Fan controller should work well for you then.
Only takes a second to switch them with the Zalman.
 
Fan controler is a must / or use intergrated hardware profiles (abit uguru etc)
Aim for a case with minimal holes and vents and a simple air path
Door on the front is also good (but that limits fan controlers)
The Accelero S1 run passive is excelent with a good airflow and most cards.

As ever it's what in side that makes the noise / heat so select hardward accordingly.
DO YOU REALLY NEED A QUAD? movies=no, games=no, web=no, photo's=no, CAD=maybe, render/encoding=yes

Select a performance level and get the lowerest power draw / heat generated hardware in that band.
Isolate everything - bungee/rubber arrowheads/gromits etc.

If the case is tidy and cool - two or three fans (total) will cool it very quietly.

My [email protected]@1.1v in a LL S80B is currently running on air - single noiseblocker S2 intake - stock cooler (low rpm) - fanless psu - passive 8800gs (600/1880/900)
It's not dead of night silent - but just above ambient during the day.
GS runs at 51c load 41c idle (folding@home) less in games, CPU is an ES so no core temp for me :( says 38c in bios idle
 
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Mine is pretty cool and pretty quiet, i run the following fans

2x2000 rpm intakes, 1 in a kama bay, 1 lower intake
2x 400-1200 rpm pwm fans on a TRUE black
1x400-1200 rpm pwm fan as rear exhaust

The 2 front intakes are ran via a fan controller which keeps them nice and quiet, dial them up for benches etc, the 2 fans on the cooler and the rear exhaust are all ran via a pwm adapter and controlled via software. Idle temps of 31-31-26-26, max load temps, 56-54-46-46.

pics
Picture008.jpg

Picture541.jpg

Picture537.jpg
 
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shadowscotland said:
Fan controler is a must / or use intergrated hardware profiles (abit uguru etc)
Aim for a case with minimal holes and vents and a simple air path
Door on the front is also good (but that limits fan controlers)
The Accelero S1 run passive is excelent with a good airflow and most cards.

As ever it's what in side that makes the noise / heat so select hardward accordingly.
DO YOU REALLY NEED A QUAD? movies=no, games=no, web=no, photo's=no, CAD=maybe, render/encoding=yes

Select a performance level and get the lowerest power draw / heat generated hardware in that band.
Isolate everything - bungee/rubber arrowheads/gromits etc.

If the case is tidy and cool - two or three fans will cool it very quietly.

I went the whole hog and used passive watercooling to remove all but a single fan.
Click to expand...

I'll have a look at the Accelero S1.

The most intensive operation the PC will have will be gaming/photo editing. I'll be doing a lot of editing and really have lost patients with waiting for processing to calculate.

I'm looking at the Lancool Dragon Lord. Seems to get good reviews and is a very functional case.
 
Unless you render multi photo's at same time a high clock will be better than multi cores.
What do you have at the minute?
As to the Lancool - if you bungee your harddrives in the optical bays and ditch the HHD rack it's a good base for a quite case. (as per Slinkie thread that you've posted in)
 
The antec mini p180 is running an e8400 with the two stock fans on low and a corsair 400W pretty much idling. Integrated graphics, it's hard to tell when its on.

Other computer is on water :)

It helps not using a quad core
 
shadowscotland said:
Unless you render multi photo's at same time a high clock will be better than multi cores.
What do you have at the minute?
As to the Lancool - if you bungee your harddrives in the optical bays and ditch the HHD rack it's a good base for a quite case. (as per Slinkie thread that you've posted in)
Click to expand...

I've currently got a AMD 64 X2 4400+ with 4GB RAM.
 
fiorget fan controlls, just adds mess and pointless. Get some good quality low rpm fans ~800rpm..

get a case that is big enough and has lots of fan spaces, good cabling routes and seprate compartments.

get decent large heatsinks that can take push pull fan configurations.

Don't skimp money on psu and get gfx cards that take the few after market coolers that you can fit a 120mm fan to.

And remember people think of quite as very different things. You'll find a lot of people saying their 2000rpm fan is quite, it won't be.
 
Fan controllers dont add any cable mess if you do it intelligently. Wish I could post pics of my setup to prove it but my camera really is doin something funny atm.
They do add a lot of adaptability though.
 
Antec 1200, fans all on low is ok.

My p182 could not keep cool with an I7 mobo in it. But it was quiet :)
 
BIGBC said:
Fan controllers dont add any cable mess if you do it intelligently. Wish I could post pics of my setup to prove it but my camera really is doin something funny atm.
They do add a lot of adaptability though.
Click to expand...
I agree with this, mine is pretty haphazard at the minute, but when i migrate to i7 il be braiding all the wires from the fan controller in black, also doing the same with the sharkoon fans as im not to keen on the white braid they currently have. Should help to make things a bit better looking, ill also try to make better use of the cable holes on my akasa eclipse motherboard tray.
 
Braiding is too much effort for me lol. I just cable tie them out of sight behind larger cables.
Do really fancy braiding it all actually but it looks so time consuming and my hardware changes about so regularly I would be consuming tonnes of the stuff.
I really need to sort out my camera - its not the cable and I cant find a card reader atm.
 
Antec 1200, Q9550 OC'd to 3.4, Noctua cooler with 1x120mm fan, GTX280

Case is dead quiet with fans on low, except for HDD chatter which does my head in. CPU runs about 27 degs idle, 59 degs Prime 95 torture test.
 
Antec 300 here, I can't hear my computer from about 2 meters away, only thing I would change would be to get a SSD as the loudest thing is the hard-drive accessing and even thats pretty quiet :D
 
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