Need Suggestions: Quiet CPU Cooler

Andromeda1983 · 22 Apr 2013 at 22:41

I recently had to replace my H80 with a H60 cause the H80 failed but sadly it looks like the pump on my H60 isnt that great as I have had to lower it to 3200rpm to stop the pump from making a horrendus noise. I have had particular bad luck with closed loop CPU coolers and as such I finally have decided to go back to standard air cooling so I do not have to deal with annoying pump's.

My System:

2700K running at 4.5GHz (1.285v)
16GB Corsair Vengence 1600mhz (9-9-9-24, will remove heatsinks if needed)
MSI-Z77-GD55 Motherboard
Nvidia 660Ti GPU
Xonar Essence STX Sound Card
Fractal R4 Black ATX Case
Seasonic x650 PSU

My budget is 100 and my only provision is that its quiet and at least useable in the Fractal's airflow environment. Will be looking to order it on Saturday

doyll · 22 Apr 2013 at 22:59

With R4 you can use any of the big coolers. BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 2 is supposed to be quieter than most. I'm using Phanteks PH-TC14PE and Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme in my R2 and the just fit.. think R4 is about 15mm more room. If you considerthe SA SB-E it very wide

Cooler size comparison (Width x Depth x Height looking from front of case with motherboard laying flat)
K2 . . . . . .= . . . . 8x 6mm pipes 140x128x158mm 146x154x160mm w/ 120mm & 140mm PWM fans 43.2mm*
D14 . . . . .= . . . . 6x 6mm pipes 140x130x160mm 140x158x160mm w/ only 2011 has PWM fans 44mm*
TC14 . . . . .= . . . 5x 8mm pipes 140x134x160mm 140x159x171mm w/fans, PWM adaptor included 40-45mm*
Silver Arrow . = . . 4x 8mm pipes 147x123x163mm 151x149x168mm w/Fans 40.87mm*
SA SB-E . . . .= . . 8x 6mm pipes 155x105x164mm 170x130x170mm w/ 140mm & 150mm PWM fans 31.9/39/46mm**
SA SB-E Extreme . 8x 6mm pipes 155x105x164mm 155x130x165mm w/fans Reason it's smaller is 140mm fan vs 150mm fan.
HE01 . . . . .= . . . 6x 6mm pipes 140x119c160mm w/ 140x38mm PWM fan
Dark Rock Pro . =. 7x 6mm pipes 133x124x166mm 133x149x166mm w/ 120mm & 135mm PWM fans
*cooler base to bottom fin. (add 8mm for motherboard to bottom fin.)
**fins are at 3 different levels

K2, D14 & TC14 are about same except for TC14 140mm fans & 31mm RAM clearance stack up to 171mm (my R2 is 165mm clearance and TC14 fits)

SB-E is widest by 15mm. Even wider with TY-150 fan = 170.

farmerboy-86 · 22 Apr 2013 at 23:26

To add my pennies worth I was in same boat had a few closed koop coolers there good dont get me wrong but had issue with noisy pumps also, so recently went back to air
I brought the aska venom medusa cooler its big covers alk 4 ram slots on my m5a99x evo r2 board and I have patriot black mamba ram I have about 4/5 mm gap between cooler and ram so if you have large heat sinks woukd be an issue but for cooling and low noise this is the cooler for you, I also wanted quiet cooler and this didnt disappoint me it has noise reduction cable lowering fans to 1000 rpm from 1600 rpm you can hardly hear it
It has 120 venom fan at front push and 140 venom in middle pulling the heatsinks are massive I googled this cooler couldn't find any reviews but I took a chance as u am a aska fan boy and wow my 8350 oc to 4.5 GHz idles at 29 degress and in prime 95 hits 56 at socket 46/47 on the core with noise reduction cable couldn't ask for more especially as games wont get temps no where near prime 95 hope this helps performance like this at £50 cant be bad

Andromeda1983 · 23 Apr 2013 at 00:30

Yeah clearance seems to be a non-issue with the case and as for the ram, I can simply remove the heatsinks, they are for show anyway. Now looking at most reviews it seems that the Dark Rock from Bequiet are pretty damn quiet but apparently so is the NH-D14 if you use the L.N.A. I guess i'll have to look into it more, so long as its quiet I dont mind losing a bit of cooler perf, my overclock isn't exactly what you would call insane.

wazza300 · 23 Apr 2013 at 00:41

d14 is good,mine didn't come with the pwm fans though it was an earlier model so I swapped them for some akasa apache fans,you wont need to as they are noctua pwm now
runs my 2600k at 4.6ghz max temp is 75c and that's with a pretty high cpu voltage 1.37v,its very quiet too,cant hear it at all

doyll · 23 Apr 2013 at 01:36

DRP2 has PWM fans D14 does not. That means DRP2 on a PWM controlled motherboard slowly ramps the fan rpm up as needed so you can set them to run very slow when you are not working computer hard but they will run up to full speed when you start using all cores at full power... much easier than have to open up case and remove LNA to use full power without overheating.

You could get real fancy and change your case fans to PWM too and control them with CPU PWM signal using PWM splitter withe molex power. Have several systems running this way now. All fans idle at 6-700 rpm and ramp up as airflow and cooling is needed.

My 980 with TC14PE and 2x TY-143 2500rpm PWM fans is 25c idle@700rpm and 48c load@950-1000rpm with ambient of 20-22c. You can hear it at at full load just enough to know it's working.

When comparing cooling of different coolers I look at noise, temperature and what rpm the fan are running.. That compares apples to apples