How quiet can you go?

Scottland

Scottland

Scottland

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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North Wales
Hi,

My system is air cooled at the moment, and is very quiet. A single hard drive is louder than the 4 600rpm 120mm fans inside it.

I've got a burning desire to rehouse it into a new case with a custom loop, but noise is my main priority. So the question is, with a decent pump and large rad(s) how quiet can I go and still get better temperatures than air?

Currently in the system is a Xeon 1275v3 and GTX 970, both of which would want to be in the loop. But they'll probably be replaced with something newer next year - so I will want a little headroom in there.


Performance and cost isn't the overriding justification here, I just want to satisfy a desire is all.


Cheers
 
Disclaimer: I didn't set-up my watercooling loop so its possible it could run quieter, almost certainly in fact.

The pump noise in my machine is quite noisy, much nosier than the large slow RPM fan set-up I used to run.

I was expecting a wonderfully quite machine with almost no noise, instead I have a low drone from the pump all the time which isn't enough to be distracting but enough to annoy over time ( I use headphones to block it now).

Plus side it doesn't get any louder when under load.
 
you could achieve the same noise levels as you have just now but with far better thermal performance provided you bought the correct gear,even under load.Couldnt get much quiter as any decent fan is gonna be inaudiable at 600rpm or below
 
Yeah, provided 2-4 fans @ 600rpm would cool sufficiently, that I'm comfortable with noise wise - pump however what could constitute a 'silent' pump that wouldn't be audible?
 
Always found AIO setups very hit and miss noise wise - the first setup I ever had had variable pump control and I never heard it (except under extreme load) - the swiftech kit I had after that was pretty reasonably quiet (but not silent) but the Antec 1250 I put in my latest rig was horribly noisey and ended up having to pull it.

I've done a few installs for other people using Corsair H1xx and again fairly varied most are tolerably quiet but some much more noticeable.

My setup now has big "passive" heatsinks with slow speed (~600rpm) fans and seems to work pretty well and decently quiet.
 
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You don't need water cooling to be quieter. Replace your PSU with a fanless one, switch to SSDs, and replace your CPU cooler with a Nofan CR-95.
 
^^ Also need a GPU that can run quiet - its often the loudest thing in the case.

Also a fanless PSU isn't the only option - mine runs passive upto 250watt load (i.e. all desktop stuff) and the fan only kicks in during gaming/heavy loads and even then its a very quiet Sanyo Denki so unless I really rinse the PSU forcing the fan to ramp up its pretty much silent.
 
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As I said in the OP, I want to do a custom loop because I want to - not because I think it'll be quieter. I just want to keep the sound level the same or below what I have currently.
 
Most depends on:
- What fans you use
- What radiators you have them blowing through
- What pump you have
- What case you have and how its accoustics affect things
- What components you have and how the airflow over them affects the accoustics
- What settings you have everything running at
- What noises YOU personally find to be bothersome

Most w/c builds I have seen and/or done myself have been pretty quiet on low settings. However, they've all been designed around getting the best silence at highest performance, so can be turned up if needs be. Not really done a best performance at the lowest noise, yet...
 
You can keep the current sound lvl, just make sure you mount the pump so the vibrations dont pass into the case and use quiet fans.

Its sometimes a lot to do with luck also, my last set of graphics cards used to whine under very heavy overclocks, but my current ones are silent. You could test that i guess though by telling your fan not to come on with a profile and give it a few seconds blast in a benchmark to see if its a whiner.
 
My pump speed and fans are at the lowest possible rpm and its dead silent. Temps are good. I have my tower right next to my face too. My missus hated my old air cooled pc.
 
Scottland said:
As I said in the OP, I want to do a custom loop because I want to - not because I think it'll be quieter. I just want to keep the sound level the same or below what I have currently.
Click to expand...

Buy a quality D5 pump with speed control. Buy quality pwm fans and set a fan curve, repeat set a fan curve. ;)

Did I mention the fan curve?

I use Speedfan and it's brilliant. Your water can cool almost passively under normal load, and under heavy load Speedfan will ensure the fans dissipate heat when needed.

It took me ages to get it the way I want, but even with a GPU on air the results are great.

And, enjoy building the loop. It's great fun.
 
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