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Air cooling or water cooling for silence. Wat do.

Ridorii

Building another computer, about quarter the way through at of getting all the parts. Was wondering what would be more optimal for silence, air cooling (Something like a noctua NH-U14) or water cooling (H110i GTX). I was going to run the noctua with 5x corsair SP140 fans in the system but I had a change in cases. What should I do? Current case is a Fractal Design R5, also ive already purchased one SP140 fan.
Heres the build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/yfWCNG
Sankyuu, and happy new year <3

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Go with noctua fans instead of corsair regardless of what you get

Water cooling will be quieter Nope

CPUIntel 4670k  Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H  RAMKingston HyperX 8GB  GPU - EVGA 780  Case - Fractal Design Define R4    Storage - 2TB WD Black, Samsung 840 Evo 128GB     PSU - Corsair RM650  Display -  Benq XL2430T and Acer S235HL  Cooling - CM Hyper 212 Evo  Keyboard - Corsair K95  Mouse - Razer Deathadder  Sound - Sennheiser HD 558                                 Mic - Blue Snowball  Phone- OnePlus One  Tablet - Nvidia Shield

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Air cooling by far, fewer moving parts (air cooler has fans vs water has fans and a pump)

My water cooler is pretty loud, should've gone air. A good air cooler will match or beat a liquid cooler a lot of the time, too.

Project White Lightning (My ITX Gaming PC): Core i5-4690K | CRYORIG H5 Ultimate | ASUS Maximus VII Impact | HyperX Savage 2x8GB DDR3 | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB | WD Black 1TB | Sapphire RX 480 8GB NITRO+ OC | Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ITX | Corsair AX760 | LG 29UM67 | CM Storm Quickfire Ultimate | Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum | HyperX Cloud II | Logitech Z333

Benchmark Results: 3DMark Firestrike: 10,528 | SteamVR VR Ready (avg. quality 7.1) | VRMark 7,004 (VR Ready)

 

Other systems I've built:

Core i3-6100 | CM Hyper 212 EVO | MSI H110M ECO | Corsair Vengeance LPX 1x8GB DDR4  | ADATA SP550 120GB | Seagate 500GB | EVGA ACX 2.0 GTX 1050 Ti | Fractal Design Core 1500 | Corsair CX450M

Core i5-4590 | Intel Stock Cooler | Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI | HyperX Savage 2x4GB DDR3 | Seagate 500GB | Intel Integrated HD Graphics | Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 | be quiet! Pure Power L8 350W

 

I am not a professional. I am not an expert. I am just a smartass. Don't try and blame me if you break something when acting upon my advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...why are you still reading this?

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Building another computer, about quarter the way through at of getting all the parts. Was wondering what would be more optimal for silence, air cooling (Something like a noctua NH-U14) or water cooling (H110i GTX). I was going to run the noctua with 5x corsair SP140 fans in the system but I had a change in cases. What should I do? Current case is a Fractal Design R5, also ive already purchased one SP140 fan.

Heres the build:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/yfWCNG

Sankyuu, and happy new year <3

So you're thinking of buying one of the best and quietest aircooled solutions on the market, but put some "lesser" fans in? Aircooling will give you less parts that can break, and less parts that make noise.

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Building another computer, about quarter the way through at of getting all the parts. Was wondering what would be more optimal for silence, air cooling (Something like a noctua NH-U14) or water cooling (H110i GTX). I was going to run the noctua with 5x corsair SP140 fans in the system but I had a change in cases. What should I do? Current case is a Fractal Design R5, also ive already purchased one SP140 fan.

Heres the build:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/yfWCNG

Sankyuu, and happy new year <3

If you want absolute silence, air cooling as you can have it so absolutely no fans are spinning at idle. With water cooling, there's always a pump running.

 

Now, I hear people saying there are very quiet pumps you can buy, I can't give any comment on that, never owned a pump myself so I wouldn't know. But logically, pump will always be louder than nothing going on so yea.

 

Stay away from AIO's though, those normally have cheap pumps which are often audible when aiming for a silent build.

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Quietest CPU cooler and the market is Be Quiet!'s Dark Rock Pro 3, it even beats out the NH-d15 in sheer noise tests

Hello there, fellow dark theme users

"Be excellent to each other and party on dudes." - Abraham Lincoln    #wiiumasterrace

 

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You sure? I'd love to hear your reasoning.

It would seem I am wrong

CPUIntel 4670k  Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H  RAMKingston HyperX 8GB  GPU - EVGA 780  Case - Fractal Design Define R4    Storage - 2TB WD Black, Samsung 840 Evo 128GB     PSU - Corsair RM650  Display -  Benq XL2430T and Acer S235HL  Cooling - CM Hyper 212 Evo  Keyboard - Corsair K95  Mouse - Razer Deathadder  Sound - Sennheiser HD 558                                 Mic - Blue Snowball  Phone- OnePlus One  Tablet - Nvidia Shield

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Quietest CPU cooler and the market is Be Quiet!'s Dark Rock Pro 3, it even beats out the NH-d15 in sheer noise tests

 

Dark rock runs quieter? Well alright, ill opt for that.

However, now that we're going air cooling, what fans(inb4NFF12) , and how many fans should I buy? Do I need a fan controller? Also, do I need to set up fan curves for optimal silence?

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Dark rock runs quieter? Well alright, ill opt for that.

However, now that we're going air cooling, what fans(inb4NFF12) , and how many fans should I buy? Do I need a fan controller? Also, do I need to set up fan curves for optimal silence?

For fans, Noctua's NFF-12s, Be Quiet!s Silent Wings 2, whatever Noiseblocker's 120mm fans are, EKWB Vardars, and the Nanoxia 120mm fans are not the worst either. Buy as many as you need, but not an absurd amount (around 3 is enough for most cases) a fan controller is really only needed when you mobo doesn't have enough headers for all your fans and fan curves can be tweaked to make your pc quieter.

 

If your really obsessed with silence, you can make a fully passively-cooled PC with no fans (someone on the forums has done this but I'm forgetting his name)

Hello there, fellow dark theme users

"Be excellent to each other and party on dudes." - Abraham Lincoln    #wiiumasterrace

 

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For fans, Noctua's NFF-12s, Be Quiet!s Silent Wings 2, whatever Noiseblocker's 120mm fans are, EKWB Vardars, and the Nanoxia 120mm fans are not the worst either. Buy as many as you need, but not an absurd amount (around 3 is enough for most cases) a fan controller is really only needed when you mobo doesn't have enough headers for all your fans and fan curves can be tweaked to make your pc quieter.

 

If your really obsessed with silence, you can make a fully passively-cooled PC with no fans (someone on the forums has done this but I'm forgetting his name)

The R5 has mainly 140MM fans, should I go for the bigger noctua NF-A14?

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The R5 has mainly 140MM fans, should I go for the bigger noctua NF-A14?

Sure, bigger fans are usually quieter

Hello there, fellow dark theme users

"Be excellent to each other and party on dudes." - Abraham Lincoln    #wiiumasterrace

 

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