New CPU cooler (quiet)

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

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Boring story incoming...

I currently have an NZXT T20 cooler on my 3770k, it's not what I originally ordered with my pc but there were some issues which meant I was sent a replacement.

Recently I realised that it was always running at 100% speed all of the time, I always thought my rig was a little loud but now it's kinda bugging me. I installed fanspeed to regulate the speed down and with a few other tweaks in the rig it's now really quiet at idle.

The problem is that as I'm using fanspeed to control the speed the PC is noisy when it's booting up and is pretty much silent or 100% and when it is 100% it's the loudest thing in my rig, way louder than the 7970WF.

So, I would like something that is nice and quiet at idle, ideally with 4 pin so my mobo can control it via pwm and something that is reasonably quiet at high levels too.

I overclock my 3770k, currently to 4.4GHz so it needs to be a competent cooler too.

Thanks!
 
ElliorR said:
Have you considered something like the Corsair H80i?
Click to expand...
This actually looks like it might be a good bet after all (H80 or H50), the Z9 won't fit anything taller than the T20 as it's almost touching the window of the case already.

And I can pop whatever fan I want on there, will probably go for a H50 and a noctua fan.
 
The T20 is 160mm tall which is the height for the majority of heatsinks out there. Get An Alpenfohn K2. It's within your budget, is more efficient than the Megahalem which you'd need extra fans for anyway, has PWM functionality so you can reduce the fan speed, and it's leagues better than the H50, and much quieter and cheaper.
 
Thanks a lot, I don't know what I was reading but I had it in my head that the T20 was 140mm =/
 
There are a few Alpenfohn coolers between the £30-50 marks.

What makes the K2 £20 better than say the Brocken or Matterhorn Pure?

Not questioning your choice, just that I'm looking at the same and am wondering which is best for me, whether the K2 is worth the extra!

Thanks :)
 
Originally I wasn't planning on doing any overclocking at all, but have been convinced it's worth it to get a 4670k and clocking it up for gaming...

Number 1 consideration for me is that it has to be quiet on idle.
 
So after some tinkering and more googling it appears that I had overlooked a bios setting which allowed me to enable voltage control rather than PWM control for the CPU fan.

It's not displayed at all in the 3D bios and a little hidden in the advanced bios options. So now I have proper non speedfan fan control!

Still not sure whether it was always in PWM mode and I didn't realise the noise or maybe I managed to change the setting due to restoring defaults or something..

*Shrug*
 
just going to sling in my 2 cents here, my Apache Blacks are insanely quiet, I have 2 120mm on my Antec liquid cpu cooler, 2 attached to my side panel and 1 140mm attached to the front. currently running them all on full to settle the new ones in and it is totally bearable, though I will be turning them down. Just wish they made 200mm ones to stick on the top of my case! , I would buy them in a heartbeat.
 
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