How loud is the stock Intel heatsink?

[Aereldor]

Greetings.

In the pursuit of silence despite my below-average Cooler Master N300, I've tweaked my 3 case fans to spin at the lowest RPM settings I could find, mounted my HDD with elastic bands, and bought an MSI GPU where the fans turn off at idle for silent operation most of the time. However, the computer is still rather noisy. I concede that some of this may be from the hard drive, but the only other suspect is the intel stock cooler that came with my Core i3-4160.

 

Thus, my question is; in your doubtless varied experiences, how loud is the stock Intel heatsink? And what's a cheap alternative that's quieter?

 

Regards,

Aereldor. 

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

 

imo the stock heatsink is pretty quiet in my experience... though i configured it to only ramp up in games

 

a good replacement would be the cooler master hyper 212 evo, though make sure your case fits a heatsink tower

[manikyath]

from my experience its not *that* loud by itself, but it seems to "echo" in cheap cases quite well.

 

a bigger & better heatsink certainly wont hurt tho.

[LogicalDrm]

Its bit subjective question. I mean you can look for desibel readings and all. Last time I heard one, it was clearly audible under benchmark test (which would mean 100% speed).

 

Cryorig H7, 212 Evo/212X and Pure Rock are the cheap alternatives. All are quieter than stock.

[ShadowCaptain]

mhm its not that loud really, though certainly far from the quietest cooler

 

depends how susceptible to noise you are

[Guuhan]

Got one and I don't really hear a lot of noise from it. Only the GPU is working hard for me !

[Antibull]

Well I found it way to loud when I had it on my 4160(I don't even have HDD because those are to loud for my liking). Replaced it with an noctua cooler. No sounds from my pc anymore

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, ShadowCaptain said:

mhm its not that loud really, though certainly far from the quietest cooler

 

depends how susceptible to noise you are

Extremely, and in hindsight, I should probably have invested more in silent components and considered using less moving parts.

[flibberdipper]

Mine was fairly quiet. I actually just ran it at max most of the time so that I could get a higher 24/7 OC.

[aisle9]

It gets "whiny" under heavy load, but at lower to mid speeds, it's fairly quiet imo. There are certainly quieter aftermarket coolers out there, and even a small, lower-powered (i.e., quiet) cooler can handle a 4160.

[Aereldor]

Do you guys believe a case upgrade to the Corsair 100R (one of the few cases available in my country) will alleviate this noise problem to any extent? Or should I consider replacing my 7200RPM 1TB WD Caviar Blue drive instead?

[IsaacDaGrazin]

Jet engine

[LogicalDrm]

On 15.3.2016 at 4:29 PM, Aereldor said:

Do you guys believe a case upgrade to the Corsair 100R (one of the few cases available in my country) will alleviate this noise problem to any extent? Or should I consider replacing my 7200RPM 1TB WD Caviar Blue drive instead?

I don't think neither of those will really help. If you can get noise dampening foam somewhere, use that where ever there is bare steel paneling. And if your temps are ok, you can block some vents like those two on left side of the case.

[iamdarkyoshi]

The LGA775 cooler on my testbench is whisper quiet

[ThomasD]

On Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 10:16 AM, LoGiCalDrm said:

Its bit subjective question. I mean you can look for desibel readings and all. Last time I heard one, it was clearly audible under benchmark test (which would mean 100% speed).

 

Cryorig H7, 212 Evo/212X and Pure Rock are the cheap alternatives. All are quieter than stock.

The answer sort of depends on the demands you place on the cooler.  The stock cooler does not have great cooling properties - it is ok for ordinary sorts of loads, and in that use is reasonably quiet.

 

It does not cool well under heavy loads, or even moderate overclocks - and will quickly become audible as it tries to keep up.  But it never really gets terribly loud (too small, and too slow for that), the main issue under heavy load is that it fails to keep up with the heat, and you will get high temps and maybe even throttling.

 

All the ones DRM mentions are significantly better performers.  They will stay quiet longer, and will keep your temps lower than stock as you increase load.

 

But, if you never push your CPU you'll never really notice their benefits

[LogicalDrm]

1 minute ago, ThomasD said:

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I haven't run with one in ages. I've built one system with it. And to cheap case. In there it was as loud as I remembered. But still quieter than what person had before. Thats why I say its subjective. For me its loud cooler. For someone else its not.

[Aereldor]

1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

I don't think neither of those will really help. If you can get noise dampening foam somewhere, use that where ever there is bare steel paneling. And if your temps are ok, you can block some vents like those two on left side of the case.

Every single part of the case is bare steel paneling, save for the front, which is some kind of coarse plastic mesh. Guess I've got some work to do.