Is it possible and worthwhile to make my PC silent

Dark Light · 11 May 2016 at 08:15

I am thinking of getting a GTX 1070 or a r9 490 or something, the reason why that is relevant is because I have the opportunity to make my PC silent. I currently have an old HD 4870 and it makes a bit of noise, so if I can get a decent graphics card that will no longer be the problem.

I have a 3930k with a silver arrow SB-E extreme with a single fan in the centre, it is currently not overclocked but I would like to overclock it a bit, but I am more interested in silence rather than high performance. I have an AX 860 which should already be passive at low loads, especially with only a 150W graphics card, and an Antec 900 with stock fans.

So I am thinking that if I got a decent version of what ever card I get that is quite I could replace all the fans in the system, the heatsink's with a Noctua 140mm focus flow and the case fans with the cheaper Noctua case fans or something like that.

So, would something like that be possible in terms of making the system inaudible or very quite while still providing enough cooling for the system? And would it be worth it since decent fans are not that cheap considering that they are just fans.

Disco_P · 11 May 2016 at 10:15

Firstly don't be disillusioned into thinking that Noctua are the only good quiet fans. They certainly are not quiet at 100% and the difference between normal fans and Noctua might be a degree or two at the same volume.

I'd start with your current fans and use a fan controller to make them quieter. Rumours of the 1070 suggest won't draw much power and therefore won't require as much airflow to operate at a sensible temperatures.

Dark Light · 11 May 2016 at 12:07

Disco_P said:
Firstly don't be disillusioned into thinking that Noctua are the only good quiet fans. They certainly are not quiet at 100% and the difference between normal fans and Noctua might be a degree or two at the same volume.

I'd start with your current fans and use a fan controller to make them quieter. Rumours of the 1070 suggest won't draw much power and therefore won't require as much airflow to operate at a sensible temperatures.

The quality of the fans in my case are very poor, I don't think that slowing would silence them and doing so wouldn't provide sufficient airflow, they also wine.

zipp0r · 11 May 2016 at 12:54

i 7v my cheapo case fans to make them quiet, having "better" fans would not make any difference. consider a fan controller for yours. if your cpu fan is loud then the 2 stock noctua ones on my dh14 are pretty quiet at full speed.
as for gfx cards, the fans can be very noisy and you'd need to pick one with a good cooler, something like the evga acx twin fan ones.

Disco_P · 11 May 2016 at 15:48

If you really need fans then Arctic cooling f12 are a very good budget choice. I ran 5 of them at 5v and they were nice and quiet, no buzzing whining or ticking whilst still providing enough airflow for good temps.

They replaced my Noctuas as I had 3 but needed another 2 and the thought of spending another £32 put me off. Comparing the two brands showed minimal differences at the same noise level. Within margin of error at least.

smilertoo · 11 May 2016 at 16:42

I would say you can have silent or overclocked, i'd be really impressed if you managed both.

Morg · 11 May 2016 at 17:37

I used to have this case. Replacing the fans does help a lot, setting the top fan to slowest setting also helps (sure you know that).

Another thing is replacing the windowed panel with a plain one, that drops the sound a bit more.

If you are looking for a very quiet case tho, I'd recommend the antec p280. I changed to this one as I was tired of the lack of space in the 900. More space and fans in the p280, along with more damping.

BluD · 11 May 2016 at 17:39

Disco_P said:
If you really need fans then Arctic cooling f12 are a very good budget choice. I ran 5 of them at 5v and they were nice and quiet, no buzzing whining or ticking whilst still providing enough airflow for good temps.

They replaced my Noctuas as I had 3 but needed another 2 and the thought of spending another £32 put me off. Comparing the two brands showed minimal differences at the same noise level. Within margin of error at least.

I used to use them F12s as my goto fan, theyre so cheap ya can afford to replace them every few years when they start getting a bit noisey.

I would wait till you get your new GFX card before ya try messing around with fans, would be annoying getting it all nice and silent then everytime the GPU fires up it drowns them all out anyway. The last time i tried an aircooled GPU a few years ago it was by far the loudest thing in the PC, i had been water cooling my graphics cards since about 2003 so i didnt realise they had become so loud.

Brazo · 12 May 2016 at 11:04

One of my PCs is almost silent. Has a passive CPU cooler, a passive 750 ti gpu and its only the slight ticking from the psu (if you put your head up close) to all intents and purposes it's completely silent which is strange when runninh a game like battlefield 4!

Danny207 · 12 May 2016 at 11:07

i wouldn't know if my pc is silent haha, ( deaf here

)

doyll · 12 May 2016 at 20:14

Lots of good replies.

As for fans and their performance, here is an edited group of fans Notice the NF-A15 1500rpm cooler fan tested better than NF-A 1200rpm retail fan. The 1500rpm model with LNA is 1200rpm and has identical specifications to retail fan, but when tested the are not identical.

This is typical 'margin of error' I point this out because what means is all of these fan have near identical performance.

You can see how TY-147A is easily as good as NH-A15 and PH-F140SP and HP-II are well within margin of error of being as good.

Both Phanteks and Thermalright also idle at lower speed.

TY-147A%20NF-A15%20PH-F140SP%20and%20HP-II%20CFM-rpm_zpsevrwz2zz.png~original

Dark Light · 13 May 2016 at 05:52

doyll said:
Lots of good replies.

As for fans and their performance, here is an edited group of fans Notice the NF-A15 1500rpm cooler fan tested better than NF-A 1200rpm retail fan. The 1500rpm model with LNA is 1200rpm and has identical specifications to retail fan, but when tested the are not identical.

This is typical 'margin of error' I point this out because what means is all of these fan have near identical performance.

You can see how TY-147A is easily as good as NH-A15 and PH-F140SP and HP-II are well within margin of error of being as good.

Both Phanteks and Thermalright also idle at lower speed.

Two fans might produce the same CFM at the same RPM but that doesn't mean they are doing so same noise level, so the more expensive fans might have the same performance compared to cheaper fans but would do so with less noise, also that graph doesn't compare expensive fans to cheap fans, but expensive fans to other expensive fans.

Another thing though static pressure, and I right in saying that for heatsinks you want high static pressure but for case fans it really doesn't matter?

One thing that I could do though is leave my current CPU fan and just replace the two front case fans with new ones, turn off the top fan and add a fan to the rear.

doyll · 13 May 2016 at 11:07

Dark Light said:
Two fans might produce the same CFM at the same RPM but that doesn't mean they are doing so same noise level, so the more expensive fans might have the same performance compared to cheaper fans but would do so with less noise, also that graph doesn't compare expensive fans to cheap fans, but expensive fans to other expensive fans.

Another thing though static pressure, and I right in saying that for heatsinks you want high static pressure but for case fans it really doesn't matter?

One thing that I could do though is leave my current CPU fan and just replace the two front case fans with new ones, turn off the top fan and add a fan to the rear.

While what you say is true, all of these fans have dBA to RPM graphs just as close.

While fan price can reflect quality and performance, it is not always true. Supply and demand as well as product name have more impact. They TY-14x design series fans have a well known history of being every bit as good and quiet if not slightl better than NF-A15 design fans, but have been constantly lower priced .. sometimes less than a third as expensive. Right now NF-A14 IPPC are £22.99 while TY-143 can be found for less than a third that price. Problem is TY-143 are round design like NF-A15.

But NF-A15 cost £18.99 and until recently TY-140, TY-147 and TY-147A were less than a third that price. PH-F140xx range from £12.49-15.99 compared to Nocs of same rpm range being from £13.49-22.99. Right now PH-F140SP black is £9.95 and PH-F140MP black is £12.95. PH-F140SP is in that graph and PH-F140MP is same as PH-F140HP-II. Same fans with white fan are £2-3 more.

I want my case fans to have similar pressure ratings as my case fans. For example, the PH-F140SP is the standard case fan supply by Phanteks in their cases.

Getting case air temps .. especially the air temp going into CPU and GPU coolers .. at or near room ambient is extremely important, but often neglected by builders. It's definitely not just how many or what fans are used, but the paths the air flows from intake to component to exhaust. This path is the most critical part of case airflow and cooling.

If you are intersted, here is a link to a basic guide I did about optimizing case airflow and cooling. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=26159770&postcount=7

doyll · 13 May 2016 at 11:08

dbl post