Silent Build

[greenlotad]

I use my pc for mostly gaming, but also for occasional audio recording. Of course gaming requires power and therefore cooling, but when I record I want silence. So I have a bunch of questions. How do people usually go about silent builds? Would it be realistic/possible to use liquid cooling on high-end parts and deeply underclock them so that they can been passively/fanlessly cooled in silence? (If that question isn't clear, here's an example of what I mean. If I was to buy a 1080ti and underclock it to the point where it gets the performance of a 1070, would it run cool enough that an AIO radiator could cool it effectively without a fan?) Or is this a terrible way to approach the problem? I have far more ideas than money, so this is mostly coming from a place of curiosity. 

[handymanshandle]

Well do you have an idea of how much you'd be willing to spend?
The quietest cooling you'll get will be passive with a regular metal heatsink...

Best bet is to get a highly regarded silence optimized case and find parts that don't get hot or have fan curves that allow the fan to rest at 0% when a low load is on it.

I have a Silencio 352 and the only thing I really hear is my GPU at start up and after awhile under a heavier load, I have a R7 1700 and RX 470.

 

It's not a great quality silence optimized case, but I didn't buy it for that because my NZXT H440 would be better suited for silence optimized.

[greenlotad]

5 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

Well do you have an idea of how much you'd be willing to spend?
The quietest cooling you'll get will be passive with a regular metal heatsink...

Best bet is to get a highly regarded silence optimized case and find parts that don't get hot or have fan curves that allow the fan to rest at 0% when a low load is on it.

I have a Silencio 352 and the only thing I really hear is my GPU at start up and after awhile under a heavier load, I have a R7 1700 and RX 470.

 

It's not a great quality silence optimized case, but I didn't buy it for that because my NZXT H440 would be better suited for silence optimized.

I really have no semblance of budget here because I'm just asking out of curiosity. If I was to do something like this it wouldn't be for at least a couple years, once I finish my degree and whatnot

 

I think I see what you're saying here though; water cooling is not the place to start for silent builds. Large heatsinks, cases, and pwm fans are more important to focus on. Thanks!

[handymanshandle]

3 minutes ago, greenlotad said:

I really have no semblance of budget here because I'm just asking out of curiosity. If I was to do something like this it wouldn't be for at least a couple years, once I finish my degree and whatnot

 

I think I see what you're saying here though; water cooling is not the place to start for silent builds. Large heatsinks, cases, and pwm fans are more important to focus on. Thanks!

yes no problem, if you want to go all out for silence, you're going to need a large heatsink with a low spinning fan or a silence optimized fan.

 

Be Quiet! and Cryorig have pretty quiet and nice performing/looking products. Noctua is also a good choice I believe.