Case Finding - Airflow vs. Noise

[AntKingNo1]

Hello there,

I'm a pc enthusiast from germany and have grown to be a fan to linustechtips in the past few months, so I thought that I can find the most qualified people to aid me in my search of a case here :-)

My yearly ritual of swapping big components comes to the point where I would like a new case, since I'm adding an SLI configuration with it ( two GTX 770 from Asus because of the awesome cooling).
The whole point is simultaneously to make my system quiet, so the thing that's solid is that I'm getting three 140mm fans from beQuiet to deliver a great airflow to both 770s while doing so quietly.

So I looked for a  case that is
a ) quite silent because of it's structure
or
b ) good at delivering air in & out of the case.

In my understanding a case doesn't need to be sound damped when the airflow is direct to the graphics card(s). (I took care of other heat/noise problems with an cpu cooler of bequiet and a Dark Power Pro power supply, so I'm focussed on the cards)

I narrowed it down to these slick babys from Corsair; the 760T Graphite and the 750D Carbide, because they
-provide direct airflow from at least the top front fan (because with just one drive cage used one fan is taking air direct to at least one card without anything in the way)
-can use two 140s in the front and one in the back

-have a windowed side ( I love to peek into the pc)

But the only thing making me hesitate to decide between these two is because wether or not a closed front panel like the 750D is delivering enough air into the case, and if it would make a different in keeping more noise inside.
When I look at the 750D I think it's better than the other in keeping noise inside because of the "closed" front, but wouldn't it need to make the fans run faster to deliver the same air inside (the sides of the front panel have just slits)?
And when I look at the 760T, I wonder if it wouldn't get to noisy because of the open front panel, despite the probably incredible air intake.

So my question is, does anyone have experience with either one case to tell me which would more effective in cooling and "being quiet"? Or do you guys know any other case that would fit my needs better? (I think it's quite useless to point to another company than Corsair, because of Linus I'm almost obsessed with cases from them)

Oh, and in any case (haha) I would put a noise damping foam from inside to the top, so it doesn't matter if the top has openings, just as long the sides are closed.

I hope my help request doesn't seem to be too much irrational, but here it is anyway. Thank in advance for every suggestion!   

Greetings,
Jason

[TheKDub]

A closed front should keep more noise inside, though it will restrict airflow by a little bit, but not enough to do any damage.

[seiny]

Fractal design define R4

[Clyne]

NZXT H440 for quiet

NZXT Phantom 530 

NZXT S340 if you don't want to spend much money on a case.

[WereCat]

I have Fractal Define R4 which is really silent even with stock fans. Airflow is OK but I took out my HDD cages to make it better. It is just watercooling not optimized if you are looking on that.

[othertomperson]

Just saying from my experience with air-cooled SLI, the GPU fans alone won't be silent. They won't even be quiet. My experience is entirely with Palit's 3GB GTX 580s, so it may vary by cooler manufacturer, but in my case three AF-140s and 2 SP-140s at 35% are by a long way not the most distracting source of noise at idle, and under load those GPUs are loud.

 

Worth taking into consideration if you're going to be paying a premium on a quiet case possibly at the expense of airflow only to fill it with noisy components anyway.

 

To be fair to Palit, one of the causes of noise is Nvidia's fault. Nvidia has a thing where if you run a multi-monitor setup the GPU won't downclock to its idle voltage and frequency. This makes sense because 51MHz isn't enough to run two desktops and causes severe artefacting. Unfortunately this still applies when you have two cards in SLI. Turning SLI off allows both GPUs to downclock and suddenly quiet.

[Gix7Fifty]

@AntKingNo1 Low noise components will yield better results than noise dampening material.

[Syraz]

Be Quiet Silent Base 800, coming in October

[AntKingNo1]

A closed front should keep more noise inside, though it will restrict airflow by a little bit, but not enough to do any damage.

If it's not really a big deal, than I'm worrying too much^^

 

Just saying from my experience with air-cooled SLI, the GPU fans alone won't be silent. They won't even be quiet. My experience is entirely with Palit's 3GB GTX 580s, so it may vary by cooler manufacturer, but in my case three AF-140s and 2 SP-140s at 35% are by a long way not the most distracting source of noise at idle, and under load those GPUs are loud.

 

Worth taking into consideration if you're going to be paying a premium on a quiet case possibly at the expense of airflow only to fill it with noisy components anyway.

 

To be fair to Palit, one of the causes of noise is Nvidia's fault. Nvidia has a thing where if you run a multi-monitor setup the GPU won't downclock to its idle voltage and frequency. This makes sense because 51MHz isn't enough to run two desktops and causes severe artefacting. Unfortunately this still applies when you have two cards in SLI. Turning SLI off allows both GPUs to downclock and suddenly quiet.

That's odd, so youre two cards are running pretty fast and load, just so handle your multi-desktop?

Well, I wouldn't say the 770 from Asus is noisy, because it/they are running with a DirectC II cooler, so they wouldn't be as loud as any other 770 (except maybe the MSI one).

But do you think that's common even for the newer versions of nvidia? (Btw, I'm just using one monitor)

[othertomperson]

If it's not really a big deal, than I'm worrying too much^^

 

That's odd, so youre two cards are running pretty fast and load, just so handle your multi-desktop?

Well, I wouldn't say the 770 from Asus is noisy, because it/they are running with a DirectC II cooler, so they wouldn't be as loud as any other 770 (except maybe the MSI one).

But do you think that's common even for the newer versions of nvidia? (Btw, I'm just using one monitor)

 

One of them, yes. The primary one downclocks as normal, but the second one will only downclock if SLI is disabled. This results in a 10 degree Celsius difference between the top and bottom GPU. Under load this gap closes to about 4 degrees C and is just caused by convection and I'm reasonably happy with this difference.

 

I've seen correspondences with Nvidia about this and Nvidia have always maintained that "it's not a bug, it's a feature, so doesn't warrant fixing." I don't know if they've fixed it for the 600 or 700 series.

 

Just using one monitor though it will be completely fine.

 

If you go with an open cooler, though, do make sure your airflow is good. It's so easy to cock it up with an air cooled SLI setup and have them throttle. If you have a side fan space they are perfect for this, otherwise make sure there's good airflow around your GPUs so that the air from the bottom GPU isn't just blown straight into your top GPU. It is possible for this setup to still be better than with reference coolers, but it's very easy for it to be a lot worse.