Silent CPU Cooler and PSU

Well I am now torn between the traditional heatsink and cooler and the Corsair H100I water cooler.

but that artic cooling freezer i30 looks amazing =0


Im now stuck for options, got some product and budget reviews to sort out now
 
oceaness said:
Yeah that is something I considered, could you just insert a resistor into the fan power cable? Even under Furmark my 670 doesn't seem to go above about 80% fan speed, so it surely makes sense to shift the fan speed down by 20% at the top and bottom end :confused:

How would something like that cope whilst gaming? I always feel I'd be more comfortable with a semi fan-less design, i.e. the fan only came on when the temperature got to say 70 or 80 maybe or rather a customisable minimum distance to Tjunction so it would work better with more CPU's, even then it could probably still be silent at very low RPM if it's technically capable of radiating 95W without a fan, which is a pretty impressive figure.

Also I guess you'd pretty much rule out any over clocking with a fan-less design?
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I could put a resistor in but would rather have a short mini-PWM plug & socket cable with an adjustable voltage control on the power lead. Then just un-plug fans from PCB, plug fans into cable, plug cable into PCB and position the control where it's convenient to access. Hope that makes sense.

For me silent CPU cooling doesn't mean no fan. It means good fans at low speed.. which is virtually silent. I've found the big twin tower coolers work quite well passively.. even better with low speed fans.

In my R2 (specs below) with 14PE venting out top fans idle 700rpm@24-28c & 100% load (rendering graphics) 950-1050rpm@44-49c With all fans (case & cooler) unplugged 100% load is 72c.. it takes 30 minutes to stabilize at 72c. Sorry, didn't check idle temp without fans. But at a guess 30-35c. Also at a guess 100% load at 7-800rpm would be 55-60c. At normal use the fans always idle.. and when rendering graphics I have to concentrate to hear the fans.. can just hear them and know system is working.

Do keep in mind all fans in my system are PWM speed controlled. I could lower the idle speed but motherboard components like Northbridge chip run hotter.. idle 50-52c@660rpm; idle 49-50c@770rpm; load 48-49c@900+rpm.
 
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FRAGMAYO said:
Well I am now torn between the traditional heatsink and cooler and the Corsair H100I water cooler.

but that artic cooling freezer i30 looks amazing =0


Im now stuck for options, got some product and budget reviews to sort out now
Click to expand...

Please keep in mind the i30 cannot compete with top of the line coolers in cooling or noise level. "Bigger is better." Better cooling and quieter too.
 
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oceaness said:
Yeah that is something I considered, could you just insert a resistor into the fan power cable? Even under Furmark my 670 doesn't seem to go above about 80% fan speed, so it surely makes sense to shift the fan speed down by 20% at the top and bottom end :confused:



How would something like that cope whilst gaming? I always feel I'd be more comfortable with a semi fan-less design, i.e. the fan only came on when the temperature got to say 70 or 80 maybe or rather a customisable minimum distance to Tjunction so it would work better with more CPU's, even then it could probably still be silent at very low RPM if it's technically capable of radiating 95W without a fan, which is a pretty impressive figure.

Also I guess you'd pretty much rule out any over clocking with a fan-less design?
Click to expand...

I have one large top chassis fan turning slowly an i7 3770 and a 7950 fanless GPU with a Nofan PSU and it plays Skyrim pretty well. I'm about to change to a GTX650 because I don't like the AMD drivers. Might be a bit hotter but but not near any limits.

You can of course fit a quiet fan to the Nofun unit.

Andi.
 
I have the Full Tower NZXT, Airflow and cooling are top notch, the fans are not very loud and have the bonus of the fan controller :D. However i do recommend cleaning it when you can (The filters work so well keeping dust out)
 
Hoodleader said:
I have the Full Tower NZXT, Airflow and cooling are top notch, the fans are not very loud and have the bonus of the fan controller :D. However i do recommend cleaning it when you can (The filters work so well keeping dust out)
Click to expand...

So you the NZXT 630 ?
 
I have the dark rock pro 2 and corsair 1200axi. The psu albeit is an overkill but the fan never turns on because even with a gtx 780 I still never use more than 30% of the max wattage so the fan doesn't turn on. With asus's fan expert 2 the pc is ultra silent even when gaming. I, even more impressed with how silent nvidias stock cooler on the gtx 780 is.
 
Thermalright Silver Arrow is really quiet, there are a few coolers of this style now I imagine would be equally effective, I'd recommend one of those but if you want a quiet pc the graphics card will be the most audible if you are gaming.

I just upgraded from a GTX 570 phantom, it was quiet compared to other cards I've had in the past but if you are more serious and not bothered for water then maybe look at aftermarket VGA coolers, prolimatech used to do some good ones.

For cases I found the fractal define very quiet, look at sound dampened cases (OcUK have a great range of custom prefitted cases in the store) and look at airflow to minimise the amount of fans you use, large fans with good airflow running at low rpm is the best way to go IMO

P.S Thermalright SA rpm is under 700 rpm idle and barely above 1000 under load
 
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There are many cooler that perform in same range as Silver Arrow.

These coolers are all within a few degrees of each other:

Cooler size comparison (Width x Depth x Height looking from front of case with motherboard laying flat)

Akasa Medusa .= . 8x 6mm pipes 144x129.5x163mm w/ 140mm & 120mm PWM fans 49.6mm*
K2 / Assassin . = . 8x 6mm pipes 140x128x158mm 146x154x160mm w/ 120mm & 140mm PWM fans43.2mm*
Dark Rock Pro 2 =. 7x 6mm pipes 133x124x166mm 133x149x166mm w/ 120mm & 135mm PWM fans
NH-D14 . . . . = . . 6x 6mm pipes 140x130x160mm 140x158x160mm w/ 120mm & 140mm fans44mm*
NH-S14U . . . = . . 6x 6mm pipes 150x52x165mm plus fans base offset 2mm 41mm*
PH-TC14PE. . = . . 5x 8mm pipes 140x159x171mm w/ 2x 140mm fans, PWM adaptor40-45mm*
Megahalem. . = . . 6x 6mm pipes 130x74x158.7mm plus fans 40mm*
HE01 . . . . .= . . . 6x 6mm pipes 140x119c160mm w/ 140x38mm PWM fan 42mm*
Archon SB-E. . = . 8x 6mm pipes 155x53.6x170.2mm plus fans 34.45mm*
Silver Arrow . = . . 4x 8mm pipes 147x123x163mm 151x149x168mm w/ 2x 140mm 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 Smaller because of 140mm fan vs 150mm fan.


*cooler base to bottom fin. (add 8mm for motherboard to bottom fin.)
**fins are at 3 different levels

K2, D14 & 14PE are about same size cooler. 14PE has 140mm front fan
140mm fans can be problematic with ram clearance.
All can interfere with PCI-e slots 1 & 2
SA SB-E is widest by 15mm. 170mm with TY-150 fan in middle. TY-150 is 169x151mm
 
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