Window kit influence on noise dampening

[hunchi]

Hi all,

 

after 15 years or so, I'm thinking to finally exchange my blue ringed Lian Li B25 for something more up to date. I had a closer look on the Fractal Design R6 series. They seem to have pretty heavy noise dampening modules in the side plates, so I was wondering: Has someone ever looked into the impact of a noise-dampened side plate versus a window kit? It must be lacking some of the insulation... how big is this impact? Can you hear it?

 

And changing good old stuff I was also thinking about changing my beloved Noctua air-cooler, which is with me since AM2+ socket days in 2007 and was supplied with free socket-adapters since then (until recent AM4) by Noctua. That really blew my mind - hands-down best service experience I had in all hardware related issues so far. Would you rather go with a new air cooling solution for the new case or jump to a AiO watercooling system (having a Ryzen 9 3900X in mind)?

 

Any other thoughts of changing gears are highly welcome as well of course I was actually getting quite frustrated with the Lian Li over the years. Exchanging front-fans is a crazy undertaking as you cannot access it from the front but only from inside the case: You have to get rid of the HDD cage to access the fans... but then you have to get rid of the GPU to access the hdd-cage... and the HDDs themselves. Resulting in a major Hardware battle just due to a blo**y fan failing

 

Cheers

hunchi

 

 

 

[Aristotle2019]

I don't have any experience with the case, but 

These are the best case reviews out there . 

However,they don't do a silence test. 

I'm not sure if this does either but 

I would say that a heavy heatsink would do, but u cud invest in an average open loop with the moduvents on top, the side panel shifted to the back, a 360 rad up top and a 280 in front, with silent pressure optimized fans on top, rear, front, bottom too. 

And since this interferes with storage,u can probably get an external enclosure for your HDDs . 

 

Otherwise.. I think a Noctua NH-D15 would be the best solution and will provide amazing thermals, u will still need the moduvents on top because if u keep the side panel in the front for HDD storage behind it, air flow will be restricted in the front. And Ur GPU will also need air. This case feels like only water cooling can help it achieve the best silence possible. But I might be wrong. 

 

I'm embarrassed by my lack of help. 

[Bombastinator]

PCs with clear side windows Generally transfer more noise than a sound deadened side panel.  If your parts don’t make much noise there’s not much noise to transfer though.  

Cases do very widely as to sound transfer.  You wouldn’t just need window bs no window, you’d need that particular case.  There are websites concerned only with noise.  They are usually older.  Low noise computing was a big big thing some years ago.  I remember silentpc.com was one of them.  I don’t know if they’re even still around though.  
What one person can or cannot hear is pretty subjective.

I like air. That’s me though.  There will be biases going both ways. It usually comes down to fan noise vs pump noise.  The loudest and hottest thing is probably going to be the GPU.  Modern CPUs are relatively low power.  A 65w CPU and a 200+w GPU often happen.  Stock cooler for the  CPU and put the old noctua on the GPU?  Kind of a pain.  There’s a LTT video that implies it’s less of a pain than a water loop though.

That’s an unusually quiet air cooler.  That case doesn’t have a ton of air movement.