Is watercooling quieter than air cooling?

[Jeroen1322]

Hi guys! 

 

 

A friend of mine has a H100i So he uses 2 fans and he made the argument that it was quieter than air cooling. (He doesn't even OC his CPU.....)

I don't think this is true because it uses 2 fans and if you air cool with like a Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Pro it uses just 1 fan.. 

 

Please prove him wrong  

[Jogostar]

it is, with enough radspace and low RPM fans.

[Jeroen1322]

it is, with enough radspace and low RPM fans.

And just with the stock fans without fan controller or fan controll software? 

[cerulean]

Depends on your fans and radspace really

 

But 99 percent of the time it's going to be quieter. It's only in cases where your running a stock clocked i5/i7 under a D14 and you can get away with running both fans at their minimum rpm when water cooling has no benefit over air.

[s3ns3]

he is wrong.depends on the fans. also h100i has a pump.and loud stock fans 

 

ofc with costum loop its true

Edited January 18, 2014 by s3ns3

[SAV1OUR]

you still have to have fans, but you can find quieter fans and you dont have to put up with the loud heatsinks   

[MrSuperb]

In my personal experience the pump of AIO wc solutions alone is louder than good fans ...

[s3ns3]

It's only in cases where your running a stock clocked i5/i7 under a D14 and you can get away with running both fans at their minimum rpm when water cooling has no benefit over air.

with a stock i5/i7 quad you can use passive cooling. just the heatsink

[cerulean]

with a stock i5/i7 quad you can use passive cooling. just the heatsink

 

I wouldn't ever want to use passive the way ambients fluctuate around where I live. But your right on that.

 

My point was that the only case where air cooling is going to be more silent than water is when your using the most effective heatsink possible with the most silent fans out there on their lowest rpm's, as soon as you ramp those rpm up at all then a watercooling loop will have an advantage because it's a more effecient cooling method and wont need the same increases in fan speed to keep temps in check

[Guest GRRigger]

Is watercooling quieter than air cooling? what kind of question is that?

It all depends on fans. you can have bequiet or noctua cpu cooler, msi or other quiet gpu aftermarket cooler, quiet PSU fan ( RM series, XFX, Seasonic ) and quiet case fans, then yes, aircooling CAN BE dead quiet.

[xDLGx]

As far as the CPU goes... with a noctua u14s for example you'll have a really hard time finding a water cooled solution that makes less noise, as the noctua really makes none at all.

 

Water beats air when you're also cooling the GPU. Air is silent when the system is idle, water can be silent even when the system is under max load. Blower style air coolers stand no chance here... and even 3-slot coolers on the Asus matrix cards can be heard when under load.

[Faa]

In my personal experience the pump of AIO wc solutions alone is louder than good fans ...

Exactly. The pump of a H100i is just so much louder than a noctua fan at 1000rpm.

[FluffyNuggets]

Yes, it's no comparison. WC is as quiet as you want it to be. I run all my fans around 800RPM using adapters and all you hear is air moving. So it sounds the same whether I'm surfing the web or playing a game! I don't think people on air realize how dramatic a difference WC is for noise. To me it's worth all the money and time needed in order to do it. If you only WC the CPU and leave the GPU on air then don't expect it to sound much different than it does right now. GPU fans are annoying, I don't care how quiet they are.