Best cooling performance for least noise?

[malawar]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to building PCs and I'm planning a workstation that will handle some heavy tasks. I haven't decided on all the components yet (listed some at the end of this post). I guess I'm trying to find the cooling solution that will give me the most performance for the least amount of noise. Or some sweet spot in the middle since a "maximum performance for zero noise"  isn't really realistic at this time. Noise is essentially generated by moving components so I'm trying to limit those as much as possible. Or, if I can keep my system cool enough, it won't have to generate as much noise since it's cooled effectively.

I wrote down some thoughts on the different paths I could take for cooling. I would appreciate any advice or feedback on them.

Custom water loop:

I like this option even though it's more of a hassle. I don't mind going for it if it's really better in terms of cooling and noise. I can't find any good resources that compare custom water cooling effectiveness/noise to other solutions. I think it has more moving parts than the other 2 solutions though?

• Pros: can cool multiple components - more effective than AIO or air cooling? - awesome aesthetics - can be fun maintaining it if you're an enthusiast
• Cons: more expensive? - more complicated - more maintenance - loud?

AIO (liquid cooling):

I've shortlisted the ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 for this option. Though I can't decide whether there's any real value in jumping from 360 to 420.

• Pros: easy installation - effective cooling - can look better than air cooling
• Cons: the loudest relatively speaking? - only cools one component (cpu)? - hard to tell if it fails compared to air cooling

Air cooling:

NH-D15S or Dark Rock 4. As far as I can see and read, this solution is quiet until you start overclocking and the fans start ramping up? Also can't really decide which model is better on the line up.

• Pros:  the quietest? - least effective relatively?
• Cons: might have clearance issues - ugly. - only cools one component (cpu)?

Some more questions/thoughts:

- Does case airflow really matter with AIO or custom loops as much as it does with air cooling?

- Are there diminishing returns with radiator sizes? 360 vs 420

- Is it okay to go for a fan-less power supply like the one I picked? 

- Ice Giant cooler seems to be a really promising product, might wait for that.

 

Build so far (all subject to change as I learn more):

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-4000 CL18 Memory
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Asus ROG Strix Helios ATX Full Tower Case
SeaSonic M12II EVO 850 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply

[emosun]

12 minutes ago, malawar said:

"maximum performance for zero noise"  isn't really realistic at this time.

put the machine in a different room , thats what i did.

turns out running cables through a wall is infinitely cheaper than any water cooling setup. the fans can run as fast as they want and it's 100% silent in here

[malawar]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

put the machine in a different room , thats what i did.

turns out running cables through a wall is infinitely cheaper than any water cooling setup. the fans can run as fast as they want and it's 100% silent in here

Completely agree! However I can't play that card at this time.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, malawar said:

Completely agree! However I can't play that card at this time.

in that case just save your money and deal with the noise until you can becuase once you've had 100% silence there's really no reason to bother buying fans and water coolers that just combat noise levels

[Grabhanem]

If you have unlimited budget and don't mind maintenance, custom loops are generally the best cooling performance at very low noise. Stick some Noctua fans on your radiators (A12x25s are exceptionally good at low RPM) and run the pump at half speed and you have essentially a silent system.

 

The D15 is also nearly inaudible in my experience, but not quite as much total cooling capacity. That said, it should be fine on a 5950X if you're not pushing crazy overclocks.

 

Arctic and EK AIOs have excellent cooling performance, but might put out a bit more noise from pump whine etc.

 

What graphics card do you have? Generally GPU fans are a bigger contributor to total system noise, so in that case custom watercooling would likely be the quietest.

 

Fanless PSUs are fine (most high end PSU fans are nearly silent anyway) but are you sure that's the right model? I don't recall ever seeing a fanless M12ii, as that's generally considered a pretty poor PSU.

[malawar]

19 minutes ago, emosun said:

in that case just save your money and deal with the noise until you can becuase once you've had 100% silence there's really no reason to bother buying fans and water coolers that just combat noise levels

I guess, though I won't be able to have the system in a different room any time soon, and I'll still need cooling.

[malawar]

5 minutes ago, Grabhanem said:

If you have unlimited budget and don't mind maintenance, custom loops are generally the best cooling performance at very low noise. Stick some Noctua fans on your radiators (A12x25s are exceptionally good at low RPM) and run the pump at half speed and you have essentially a silent system.

 

The D15 is also nearly inaudible in my experience, but not quite as much total cooling capacity. That said, it should be fine on a 5950X if you're not pushing crazy overclocks.

 

Arctic and EK AIOs have excellent cooling performance, but might put out a bit more noise from pump whine etc.

 

What graphics card do you have? Generally GPU fans are a bigger contributor to total system noise, so in that case custom watercooling would likely be the quietest.

 

Fanless PSUs are fine (most high end PSU fans are nearly silent anyway) but are you sure that's the right model? I don't recall ever seeing a fanless M12ii, as that's generally considered a pretty poor PSU.

Thanks for the feedback, that's really helpful. I've been reading more about custom loops and, so far, it seems like the way to go. I'd appreciate any resources you can point me to to learn more about putting together custom loops.

Haven't decided on a graphics card yet. There are some fan-less options too. I don't know if they come with a good reputation. But I guess with custom loops, I can still keep whatever card I choose cool enough.

I haven't researched PSU's yet, but so far that model came up when I filtered for fan-less power supplies on pcpartpicker.com. My initial direction was to limit as many moving parts and that's why I went with fan-less. But I think something from Be Quiet would be good too?

[narrdarr]

Yes a custom loop as long as you're willing to drop a brick of cash will out preform everything else in both performance and noise. However cost and maintenance maybe an issue for you.

 

 

der8auers video shows when pushing that cpu to the max. That a 240 barely keeps up. High-end air coolers should have a bit more over head. But still going to have fan speed up during heavy loads. 

 

A 360 aio would make sense but it's always a bit or miss on how loud the pump is going to be along with it's a clc.

 

It I were to build this I would middle ground it with something in between a clc aio and a custom loop. Here my config.

 

Well before the config. Yes airflow is a must. The more restrictive, the more force is needed, the more the fans have to work. 

 

The config

Case p500a 

Alphacool Eisbaer 420 cooler

6x p14 pwm co fans

 

Why these?

P500a

is a nice case that's not stupid expensive that's has great air flow and can actually support a 420mm aio. 

 

Alphacool Eisbaer 420 

Full copper aio(copper block and copper rad). 420mm rad (3x140mm). It's also design to be maintenance friendly and expandable. 

 

P14 pwm co fans

Although the case comes with rgb fans that are in there on right decent and the eisbaer does coming with 3x be quiet pure wing 2 140s. The p14 can keep up with nh fans which will out preform both the stock case fans an the be quiet fan at a cheap cost. 

 

 

 

 

 

[malawar]

10 hours ago, narrdarr said:

Yes a custom loop as long as you're willing to drop a brick of cash will out preform everything else in both performance and noise. However cost and maintenance maybe an issue for you.

 

 

der8auers video shows when pushing that cpu to the max. That a 240 barely keeps up. High-end air coolers should have a bit more over head. But still going to have fan speed up during heavy loads. 

 

A 360 aio would make sense but it's always a bit or miss on how loud the pump is going to be along with it's a clc.

 

It I were to build this I would middle ground it with something in between a clc aio and a custom loop. Here my config.

 

Well before the config. Yes airflow is a must. The more restrictive, the more force is needed, the more the fans have to work. 

 

The config

Case p500a 

Alphacool Eisbaer 420 cooler

6x p14 pwm co fans

 

Why these?

P500a

is a nice case that's not stupid expensive that's has great air flow and can actually support a 420mm aio. 

 

Alphacool Eisbaer 420 

Full copper aio(copper block and copper rad). 420mm rad (3x140mm). It's also design to be maintenance friendly and expandable. 

 

P14 pwm co fans

Although the case comes with rgb fans that are in there on right decent and the eisbaer does coming with 3x be quiet pure wing 2 140s. The p14 can keep up with nh fans which will out preform both the stock case fans an the be quiet fan at a cheap cost. 

 

 

 

 

 

Wanted to thank you for taking the time to explain, that's really well thought out. I guess the Asus case isn't great with airflow from the reviews I'm reading too.

I wanted to make sure I understood this bit correctly. So basically, you'll cool the processor with the AIO and the use a custom loop for anything else - GPU, etc? 

Wouldn't using a custom loop suffice? I mean I'd rather deal with one cooling system rather than two? Two systems would also be double the noise?

[narrdarr]

12 hours ago, malawar said:

Wanted to thank you for taking the time to explain, that's really well thought out. I guess the Asus case isn't great with airflow from the reviews I'm reading too.

I wanted to make sure I understood this bit correctly. So basically, you'll cool the processor with the AIO and the use a custom loop for anything else - GPU, etc? 

Wouldn't using a custom loop suffice? I mean I'd rather deal with one cooling system rather than two? Two systems would also be double the noise?

It would be one loop. there are 2 types of aios. There is a clc(close loop cooler) and an expandable. 

 

Clc is sealed and not design you to do any maintenance or add to the loop.

Expandable aios allow for you to do your own maintenance and add to the loop.

 

To be honest most expandable aio are a gimmick. As they use the same mix metals as a clc, low end pump, no specs of how many things can add to the loop, or any information on the best solution (water mixture) to use in there system. 

 

There is one exception. That is the cooler I recommend. The alphacool eisbear 420. It a great expandable aio that's all copper ( no mixed metal), and a decent enough pump. You can add the gpu block to this loop. Would not need two loops.

 

 

But like I said this is a middle ground recommendation as custom loop allow does preform better will cost much more. 

 

[For Science!]

I think it's also good to point out that just because it is a custom loop, it is not automagically superior. Custom loop just lets you expand on the available surface area semi-indefinitely, and that's what gives you the performance/silence. 

 

The complexity is only in the setting up process, the difficult in "maintaining" it is really a non-factor since you could choose to neglect it, and it will still beat the lifetime of most AIOs. The only reason why you think about the maintenance of a custom loop is because you can maintain it at all, and it is for the good of the system.

 

I personally have my doubts about ice giant, sounds a bit too good to be true.

[narrdarr]

5 minutes ago, For Science! said:

ice giant

??

[malawar]

15 minutes ago, narrdarr said:

??

 

https://www.icegiantcooling.com/

 

The one in the video is the prototype - apparently the production model is supposed to be the latest and greatest.

[malawar]

25 minutes ago, narrdarr said:

It would be one loop. there are 2 types of aios. There is a clc(close loop cooler) and an expandable. 

 

Clc is sealed and not design you to do any maintenance or add to the loop.

Expandable aios allow for you to do your own maintenance and add to the loop.

 

To be honest most expandable aio are a gimmick. As they use the same mix metals as a clc, low end pump, no specs of how many things can add to the loop, or any information on the best solution (water mixture) to use in there system. 

 

There is one exception. That is the cooler I recommend. The alphacool eisbear 420. It a great expandable aio that's all copper ( no mixed metal), and a decent enough pump. You can add the gpu block to this loop. Would not need two loops.

 

 

But like I said this is a middle ground recommendation as custom loop allow does preform better will cost much more. 

 

Makes sense - probably going to go full custom loop in that case.

[For Science!]

16 minutes ago, narrdarr said:

??

ThermoSiphon cooling, they had a massive cooler prototype that performs well (but it is huge) they claim the production model will be half the size and perform the same, but I have my doubts.

 

https://www.icegiantcooling.com/

 

[malawar]

1 minute ago, For Science! said:

ThermoSiphon cooling, they had a massive cooler prototype that performs well (but it is huge) they claim the production model will be half the size and perform the same, but I have my doubts.

 

https://www.icegiantcooling.com/

 

I think they are aiming for Q1 2021 release, maybe in line with CES.

I can use the time to learn more about custom loops and decide once all the new stuff is released.

[For Science!]

Just now, malawar said:

I think they are aiming for Q1 2021 release, maybe in line with CES.

I can use the time to learn more about custom loops and decide once all the new stuff is released.

Yeah, and even with the best case scenario, they are still pretty ugly imo

 

My only thought with you in particular is that the 5950X is likely the last AM4 CPU, so if AMD releases the next platform, you may need a new CPU block/mounting hardware.

[freeagent]

I couldn’t care less about looks.. I’m into it’s performance.. I will be getting one of them if the reviews are favorable. I’m sure they will be.. I’ve hit that heat pipe limit with my x5690 both on my LGMRT and TS140P and those coolers are rated for 320w and 360w. I was watching at the wall too, that cpu can pull a lot of juice. Pretty close to the one in the video.

[malawar]

2 hours ago, For Science! said:

Yeah, and even with the best case scenario, they are still pretty ugly imo

so ugly ! lol

 

2 hours ago, For Science! said:

My only thought with you in particular is that the 5950X is likely the last AM4 CPU, so if AMD releases the next platform, you may need a new CPU block/mounting hardware

was thinking the same, not rushing anything