r0cketman

Thank you both for your advice. I'll run the fans at a lower RPM for now and consider getting a better cooler at some point.

I've recently build a new PC, and I've been playing with fan placement / curves to get an efficient cooling setup. For placement, I settled on 2 intakes in the front, 1 in the back (all 120mm) and a stock Wraith Prism on my Ryzen 3700x. To reduce noise, I created slightly less aggressive fan curves than the defaults, with case fans maxing out at 80% and the CPU fan only going to 100% at 90C. Under load (Furmark GPU and CPU stress tests simultaneously) here are the temps I got from various sensors: CPU: 86 PCIEX16: 52 VRM: 55 System 1: 46 System 2: 44 GPU: 71 Then, as a baseline, I turned all the fans up to 100% (except for GPU fans) and let the temperatures settle. As expected, the noise was much, much worse. The new temps were: CPU: 82 (4 lower) PCIEX16: 49 (3 lower) VRM: 52 (3 lower) System 1: 44 (2 lower) System 2: 40 (4 lower) GPU: 71 (no change) So the question I have is this: Given the relatively small reduction in temperatures I saw when running fans at 100%, is it worth it to keep the parts just a tad cooler for their durability, or will it make no practical difference and I'd be fine with a quiet, slightly hotter PC? My gut says the temp changes are insignificant, but I'm guessing the motherboard manufacturer set up the fan curves to be aggressive for a reason, so I don't want to just go with my gut. Thanks for any advice/information in advance!

+1 for adjusting fan curves I had the same problem (CPU temperature spikes at near idle, fan ramping up and down making noise), also with a 3700x. I have a Gigabyte Aorus Elite x570 mobo. What I noticed is that the CPU temperature fluctuates a lot more in the motherboard fan control software (for Gigabyte that's SIV), while in Ryzen Master it's stable, going up and down 5ish degrees. Since SIV controls the fans, the fans would go up and down all day, which was annoying. I'm guessing you have the same problem, but with the Asus fan control software (or BIOS, if you're just using that for fan control). What I did is flatten out the fan curve a bit in the range of "near idle" in SIV, which for me is 48-60C (with the stock cooler) and made it steeper beyond that. So now when the PC has an idle/light load and the SIV reported temperatures jump around in the 48-60 range, the fan's speed only changes by small amounts (10% over the whole range), which removes the annoying ramp up, ramp down noise. In Ryzen Master, the temperature is reported at a steady 43-48C, so I think everything is ok.