Just how silent can an air cooled computer be?

[Howitz]

with fans running and decent temps of course. My new build is pretty silent even when under load, i do hear the air flowing trought and a little bit the fans, but the fans are less loud than the air noise itself so i guess that's pretty good right? also i have it less than 2 feet away from me on my desk, if it was underneath it i can say i'd hear pretty close to nothing even if i'd pay attention.

 

Fractal design define S with full noise dampening panels, 2x fractal gp14 as case fans, XFX GTR RX480 gpu and 212 evo cpu cooler and evga g2 650w psu. that's gotta be pretty silent right? how do i compare to other common air builds on noise levels?

[Cereal5]

My computer is probably in the middle of loud and quiet (unless under load, I ramp my fans up a lot). But even with a full water loop you have fans cooling that rads so there will always be some noise. Unless you buy that passively cooled PC Linus reviewed 6 months or so ago

[Fatelinha]

5 minutes ago, Howitz said:

with fans running and decent temps of course. My new build is pretty silent even when under load, i do hear the air flowing trought and a little bit the fans, but the fans are less loud than the air noise itself so i guess that's pretty good right? also i have it less than 2 feet away from me on my desk, if it was underneath it i can say i'd hear pretty close to nothing even if i'd pay attention.

 

Fractal design define S with full noise dampening panels, 2x fractal gp14 as case fans, XFX GTR RX480 gpu and 212 evo cpu cooler, that's gotta be pretty silent right? how do i compare to other common air builds on noise levels?

Fractal Design is just superb in terms of noise cancelling, you have possibly the best, yet reliable, silence possible in your budget

[ZeusXI]

3 minutes ago, Howitz said:

with fans running and decent temps of course. My new build is pretty silent even when under load, i do hear the air flowing trought and a little bit the fans, but the fans are less loud than the air noise itself so i guess that's pretty good right? also i have it less than 2 feet away from me on my desk, if it was underneath it i can say i'd hear pretty close to nothing even if i'd pay attention.

my pc, Project Silence, at idle, its absolutely quiet. i have it configured to idle, no fans going (cpu fan stays at min speed which is about 380 rpm) and temps are in low 30's, and when it gets into the 60's the fan rpm goes up to 1400 (75%) and barely audible. my GPU has been modified though. i took the gpu shroud off so the external fans that are connected to it have a more direct air cooling bit. I keep those at 50% non-gaming, and once the GPU hits 55C they boost up to 60% (which is still really quiet like a whisper). so my desktop is really quiet when gaming or idle. 

[tomaatvk]

5 minutes ago, Howitz said:

with fans running and decent temps of course. My new build is pretty silent even when under load, i do hear the air flowing trought and a little bit the fans, but the fans are less loud than the air noise itself so i guess that's pretty good right? also i have it less than 2 feet away from me on my desk, if it was underneath it i can say i'd hear pretty close to nothing even if i'd pay attention.

 

Fractal design define S with full noise dampening panels, 2x fractal gp14 as case fans, XFX GTR RX480 gpu and 212 evo cpu cooler, that's gotta be pretty silent right? how do i compare to other common air builds on noise levels?

I have a thermaltake core p3 case (so an open air case) with a palit GTX 1070 super jetstream and I have a 5820k that had a cryorig R1 ultimate on it. The GPU can go full load at 30% fan speed which is barely audible and as long as my CPU wasn't overclocked that far my CPU fans didn't need to speed up while running it at full load. The PSU is also a RM750i which can handle that all fine while running at low RPM. To hear my rig at full load you had to stick your ear in it. Now with my CPU overclocked and the CPU cooler changed for an AIO it's a bit louder because it needs to take care of a lot more heat.

[Bananasplit_00]

air cooling can be passive cooling aswell... anyway i cant hear my CPU fans and i dont even have a sidepanel, even with my GPU fans not running i cant hear my CPU fan nor my 80mm casefan at all if i dont try to filter out just that sound

 

*edit*

aircooling varies in noice from "no sound" to "turbojet in your ear"

[Howitz]

4 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

air cooling can be passive cooling aswell... anyway i cant hear my CPU fans and i dont even have a sidepanel, even with my GPU fans not running i cant hear my CPU fan nor my 80mm casefan at all if i dont try to filter out just that sound

yeah i see, i could try to make custom fan curves, i have everything running on default curves but it's still close to silent, i'll see if i can improve with custom fan curves. I think my rx480 and my evga g2 psu do idle when not under load tho, so that helps, the loudest thing in my system right now got to be the 212 evo cpu cooler fan, i can always get a new fan for that if it really bother me.

[Bananasplit_00]

1 minute ago, Howitz said:

yeah i see, i could try to make custom fan curves, i have everything running on default curves but it's still close to silent, i'll see if i can improve with custom fan curve. I think my rx480 and my evga g2 psu do idle when not under load tho, so that helps, the loudest thing in my system right now got to be the 212 evo cpu cooler fan, i can always get a new fan for that if it really bother me.

GPUs have always been the main noice makers for me, CPU and casefans are near silent and then you have the GPU screaming like a little shit

[Howitz]

Just now, Bananasplit_00 said:

GPUs have always been the main noice makers for me, CPU and casefans are near silent and then you have the GPU screaming like a little shit

well, my gpu is the xfx rx480 gtr, so the fans idle by default when not under load and it never go past 70 celsius under full load with fans running at like 1400 or so rpm if i'm not mistaken.

 

If i do ramp up the rpm there's like a breaking point on the noise curve where it suddenly start making a lot of noise tho, i think around 2400 rpm.

[paddy-stone]

25 minutes ago, Howitz said:

with fans running and decent temps of course. My new build is pretty silent even when under load, i do hear the air flowing trought and a little bit the fans, but the fans are less loud than the air noise itself so i guess that's pretty good right? also i have it less than 2 feet away from me on my desk, if it was underneath it i can say i'd hear pretty close to nothing even if i'd pay attention.

 

Fractal design define S with full noise dampening panels, 2x fractal gp14 as case fans, XFX GTR RX480 gpu and 212 evo cpu cooler and evga g2 650w psu. that's gotta be pretty silent right? how do i compare to other common air builds on noise levels?

The noisiest part of your PC will be the 212 evo, a better CPU air cooler such as the Noctua NH-D15 will be much quieter operation even under full load.

[Howitz]

21 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

The noisiest part of your PC will be the 212 evo, a better CPU air cooler such as the Noctua NH-D15 will be much quieter operation even under full load.

Or a new fan on the 212 bruh...

[Bananasplit_00]

10 minutes ago, Howitz said:

Or a new fan on the 212 bruh...

nah get something bigger if you want more quit, NH-D14/D15 or ShadowRock 3

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, Howitz said:

Or a new fan on the 212 bruh...

No, the 212 even with a better fan will still have to go faster to cool the heatsink, than a bigger heatsink like the aforementioned Noctua NH-D15... although the D15 is huge, it has almost as good cooling capacity as some AIO water coolers when in a case with good airflow.

[WoodenMarker]

Passive cooling can be essentially silent asides from electrical noise. 

If you mean active air cooling, using only ssd's for storage and low rpm NF-S12A's is probably about as good as it gets. It's extremely quiet and is what I run for my test bench so that I can evaluate the loudness of other components. With the usual ambient noise at its lowest, it's hard to hear the fan from more than a few inches away.

I hope to one day have a similar configuration for my primary system but ssd's are still a bit pricey and there aren't many cases that utilize NF-S12A's as well as NF-A14's. 

I'm also fairly satisfied with my system's noise for now.

 

The noise you're describing as air moving is turbulence due to the fan design. Air moving is almost always quieter than the fan itself. Considering the fans you're using, that's most definitely the case.

 

[Bcat00]

If anyone can make their fans run at 600rpm during high load then i give them a thumbs up - air cooling of course.

The lowest I've managed to push my system without going into thermal throttling is 700rpm and that's me cutting a giant heat sinks onto my gpu back side to lower its temp by 4 degree.