Best Silent Air-Cooler

[DanTheMuffinMan]

Hello Guys,

 

After switching to water cooling 6 months ago and getting nothing but problems I think I'd like to switch back to good ol reliable air-cooling. Could I get some recommendations from you experts on the best, silent, not-ass-ugly air coolers out there for LGA 1150 CPU sockets? I've got a nice Black/Orange themed system going on right now, so I don't want to stick a huge Noctua cooler in the middle of it again. I've heard good things about BeQuiet...

 

Thanks for looking

[othertomperson]

There are none. If it moves, it makes noise.

[Phllips]

dark rock 3 pro by BeQuiet or noctua but they ugly

[Shaqo_Wyn]

I've heard good things about BeQuiet...

 

Thanks for looking

 

Just get that then...

[Phllips]

There are none. If it moves, it makes noise.

Noctua are working on a noise canceling thing that makes it pretty much silent.

[SeanBond]

Dark rock is probably your best bet, either that or a noctua cooler and replace the poo looking fan

[Rheinwasser]

NH-D15.

[nj4ck]

If your build is black and orange, there's really only Be Quiet. And those things are sexy as hell.

 

[VMaxMuffin]

@DanTheMuffinMan go for the Be Quiet! Dark Rock lineup if you want to stick with your colour theme. It isn't the absolute best for absolute balls-to-the-wall overclocking, but it's definitely good enough (that's my understanding from reviews at least).

[HerEscutcheon]

Dark Rock Pro 3, NH-D15, Cryorig R1.

[Mateyyy]

• Dark Rock 3 from be quiet! - from my own experience (in my rig now) it is dead silent, and it keeps my 4670K when it's at stock at 50C at full load, and when it was overclocked to 4.4GHz (can't remember the voltage) it ran at about 70C at full load (keep in mind that Haswell CPUs, when overclocked, run very hot, because of the cheap thermal material between the core and the heatspreader).

 

• Dark Rock 3 Pro from be quiet! - Dark Rock 3 but with better performance because it's.. bigger

 

• NH-U14S from Noctua - good performance and very quiet, but doesn't look as good as the Dark Rock 3 imo.

 

• NH-D14 from Noctua - bigger and still very quiet, again, doesn't look as good as the Dark Rock Pro 3 imo

 

• Shadow Rock 2 from be quiet! - a bit cheaper than the other options, while still having good performance, looks and still being quiet.

[othertomperson]

Noctua are working on a noise canceling thing that makes it pretty much silent.

 

"Pretty much"? It's either silent or it isn't.

 

If you want silent you could get a power-optimised CPU and run it passively with the fan just coming on when it needs to. That'd be silent.

[skullbringer]

Dark Rock Pro 3 from beQuiet!

[Phllips]

"Pretty much"? It's either silent or it isn't.

 

If you want silent you could get a power-optimised CPU and run it passively with the fan just coming on when it needs to. That'd be silent.

http://youtu.be/E7Y9dV0XX6s?t=6m34s

[Interfectorem]

dark rock 3 pro by BeQuiet or noctua but they ugly

I think the Dark Rock Pro 3 looks quite nice, even though it's still a giant ass hunk of aluminum strapped to your motherboard.

[VMaxMuffin]

"Pretty much"? It's either silent or it isn't.

 

If you want silent you could get a power-optimised CPU and run it passively with the fan just coming on when it needs to. That'd be silent.

 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound?

[othertomperson]

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound?

If this is cooling for a server that no one's every going to be around, why would OP care about silence?

http://youtu.be/E7Y9dV0XX6s?t=6m34s

"So this will be a zero decibel CPU cooler?"

"Ah... in theory yes, in practice unfortunately that's not possible"

Tell me again how this is contradicting anything I said.

[Phllips]

If this is cooling for a server that no one's every going to be around, why would OP care about silence?

 

 

"So this will be a zero decibel CPU cooler?"

"Ah... in theory yes, in practice unfortunately that's not possible"

 

Tell me again how this is contradicting anything I said.

I never said you where wrong. just thought you would be interested in it. 

[DanTheMuffinMan]

Sounds like BeQuiet's Dark Rock 3 is the winner here. I'm gonna tinker with my H320 to see if I can get it back to being quiet, but if not I'll get the Dark Rock. Thanks guys.

[othertomperson]

I never said you where wrong. just thought you would be interested in it. 

 

I do apologise, I mistook your tone for argumentativeness.

 

I'd like to get my hands on Noctua stuff, they seem to be doing the most R&D for quiet air cooling. I find the mire of fanboyism both for and against them difficult to see through. Some people say that they are silent, others say that they are actively loud unless you run them at 30% constantly, and they are expensive so I can't afford to buy a load of their stuff just for the sake of trying it out for myself.

[loccilucas]

ph-tc14pe or dark rock pro 3. Would be your best bet, if you had alot of money you could just get a D15 and replace the fans for the industrial type.

[Dimwitted]

The big thing about the Noctuas is that they have excellent engineering to get superior airflow while running slow. That is the key. Every fan will be loud turned up to max RPM's. The nice thing is that the Be Quiet! Silent Wings are made from the same cloth as the Noctuas. Same tech and generally excellent airflow at low RPM's and they look better.

[loccilucas]

I'm not being a smart arse. OP asked for something that does not exist. I'm not going to lie.

It's ovbious what he meant, you were being a smart arse.

[VMaxMuffin]

If this is cooling for a server that no one's every going to be around, why would OP care about silence?

 

 

I meant that if it's quiet enough so that you can't hear it from outside the PC Case (which is essentially what reviewers are reporting) then it's, to all intents and purposes, 'silent'.

[othertomperson]

I meant that if it's quiet enough so that you can't hear it from outside the PC Case (which is essentially what reviewers are reporting) then it's, to all intents and purposes, 'silent'.

 

OK, but that would need the case to be soundproofed to some extent. I was under the impression that the 750D had quite a bit of mesh at the back.