Just how quiet is water cooling compared to air cooling?

Ricochet J

Ricochet J

Ricochet J

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29 Jun 2004
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I understand there are a lot of factors to consider such as fan selection, fan size, pump noise etc.

I'll be building a computer in a month or two so I'm starting to look around and water cooling has cropped up.

For my next system, I will be after reduced noise.


So generally how quiet is water cooling?

Ta :)
 
Yes it is quieter and allows you to use ultra high end in near silence.. If you are not going uber high end you should be able to acheive very quiet without needing water.
 
As you've said, the two things that make noise are the fans an the pump.

At the moment I'm thinking of getting a bay reservoir and having my pump in there, not only would this reduce the chances of the pump running dry, but due to the pump being submerged in water, it'd probably be silent.

The thermochill rads are designed to work with much lower cfm fans, so that slow, quiet fans still provide excellent cooling.

Oh, and at the moment, my project name is probably going to be: "there's a rad in mi kitchen" :D
 
pumps once bled should be silent
fans on low rpm silent
psu near silent

temps

gpu down from 95 degrees to 46
cpu down from 55 degrees to 36

simple
 
I'm using poweradjust to controll my pump and fan controller to controll my fans.
Pump is running at 50% and you can't hear it, also fans at low speed (rpm) and they are very quiet as well.
With this I'm getting great temps, so WC is much quieter than AC.
 
I run a near silent loop and bought components best suited to this. I have a d5 vario on setting 2 and 3x140mm yate loons @ 600rpm on a hwlabs sr1-420 rad. Noisiest component is my 1.5tb samsung eco drive and i have to try to hear that. The noise and cooling are in a different league to air, really is a big difference. If your intested in my build its in my sig :)
 
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My fans are 1000rpm and i use a scythe kaze master fan controller to drop the speed down. Match fans to how much heat (in watts) you need to remove at the delta (air in to water temp) you want. This is a well used table it includes the most commonly used 3x120mm rads.
triplesv2oc920deltat.jpg

Note how high fin per inch (fpi) rads like the gtx perform poorly at low rpm but offer the best cooling at high rpm (noisy)
Low fpi rads, sr1, thermochill, rx all perform well with lower rpm but tail off with medium and high speed fans compared to the gtx.
 
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JeffyB said:
My fans are 1000rpm and i use a scythe kaze master fan controller to drop the speed down.
Click to expand...

Actually, bulldog, what Jeffy has done is a good idea. Think about what your ideal speed would be, it can be quite hard to decide. But then buy fan with a slightly higher speed, that way you can drop it down when you want to and crank it up if the situation requires :)
 
Watercooling being quieter than air cooling used to apply to the old days when air coolers used high speed 80mm and 92mm fans but a single 120mm / 140mm low rpm fan on a pipe cooler will always be quieter than 3 low rpm fans on a radiator plus the pump noise for the sake of a extra 200mghz overclock.

And anybody that thinks a computer running with temps in the high 30s is better than a computer with temps in the 50s is suffering from OCD as all you have is a lower temp reading in task bar.

:D :p :)


.
 
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A single fan on a heatsink is no match for a custom water loop when it comes to cooling a heavily overclocked cpu.
 
Ricochet J said:
For my next system, I will be after reduced noise.


So generally how quiet is water cooling?

Ta :)
Click to expand...


He never asked about overclocking he asked how quiet watercooling was and a single fan pipe cooler will always be quieter than 3 fans plus pump hum/whine.


.
 
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I were expecting to overclock my i7 920 to around 4.5/4.6GHz with quieter fans x 3 with a custom water set up. I just had enough with air cooler so the H50 too (both not good enough for high end heavily overclocked)
 
I cannot hear my 140mm fans at 600rpm, i sure could hear my 120mm fan on my old heatsink when the cpu was put under heavy load. A d5 vario on setting 2 is inaudiable and there is no whine.
 
At 600rpm they are inaudiable, yet the water loop will be removing much more heat as water is a better conductor and the radiator has amuch larger surface area than any of those heatsinks. Air can be quiet but cannot maintain that level of quietness at high overclocks compared to water. Also gpu fans are usually the noisiest fans in a pc (being the smallest) when they are under load, my gpu will be added to my loop on monday making the pc as quiet as it can be. I personally don't like the looks of most of the big coolers, being slave to their function they look cumbersome and ugly and for me building a pc is as much about its use as it is how it looks. I think of it in the same way i think of a piece of furniture in the room.
 
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I could never go back to air now I have watercooling.

With the right setup you can have the loop very very quiet.

Huge Heat sinks are vulgar :D

Shrouds on rads are a must for improving temps and noise and pumps in suspended positions.
 
easyrider said:
I could never go back to air now I have watercooling.

With the right setup you can have the loop very very quiet.

Huge Heat sinks are vulgar :D

Shrouds on rads are a must for improving temps and noise and pumps in suspended positions.
Click to expand...

This reminds me, if you have a shroud, do you also need a gasket? Also, what function does a gasket serve :confused:
 
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