Switching to Air Cooling?

[Babypowder]

Hello! ^.^

So, over the past years I have always inclined to water cooling my PC. 
I have had the Swiftech H220x (which sadly broke ;-; ) and currently have the H100i GTX. 

Both of them where always running with 2x Noctua NF-12's. 

Now, I am not sure if I am paranoid or just "picky", but I think that even with the H100i pump in 

quiet mode, tuning the RPM's just right (they are connected directly to the mobo), and even switching 

cases to a Fractal R5... I just think it's sometimes too loud. 

Again, I might be nit-picking and really it's not that loud, but I wanted to ask if I should change to an

air cooler. Something like a BeQuiet or Noctua heatsink. There are some air coolers that perform just as well

but I've always heard that (to a degree) water cooling was always quieter. 

Let me know your thoughts! ^.^

PS - I have an Asus gtx 970 STRIX that I am SURE does a ton of noise when fans spin. I am currently looking into maybe

upgrading that to a 1080 or 1070 from EVGA...Maybe those will be quieter when the fans spin. 

[Enderman]

the H100i fans are FREAKING LOUD

replace those

 

the pump is actually extremely quiet (as long as you dont have air bubbles going through it)

 

so yeah, stick with liquid cooling and buy some bequiet or noctua fans

 

btw sorry about your swiftech cooler, i know they suck badly, ive seen tons of failures

[Heesleemer]

compared to my h90 my NH-D15 works wonders on the ear... the pump although very quiet, still bugged me compared to the large 140mm fan noise (which is almost non existent) with that said my case is very open near my head so that's also a thing.... 

[WoodenMarker]

Yes, the pump is easily audible if the rest of your system is quieter. If you don't want to lose on performance, the NH-D15 is a good option.

[Bcat00]

You are in luck because i went through what you have before. First up, you are not nit picky about the pump noise. Change it to the noctua nh-d15 to settle the noise problem with the cpu noise. 

 

As for your gpu, you can look into the arctic accelero cooler mod or the thermalright mk26 if you want to use noctua fans on the gpu.

 

i have personally tried all of the products and i can assure you, it takes quite the ear to hear anything when you are gaming.

 

As for idle, you can just let the gpu and cpu fans run at 300rpm with the chassi fans off.

[iiNNeX]

4 hours ago, Babypowder said:

Hello! ^.^

So, over the past years I have always inclined to water cooling my PC. 
I have had the Swiftech H220x (which sadly broke ;-; ) and currently have the H100i GTX. 

Both of them where always running with 2x Noctua NF-12's. 

Now, I am not sure if I am paranoid or just "picky", but I think that even with the H100i pump in 

quiet mode, tuning the RPM's just right (they are connected directly to the mobo), and even switching 

cases to a Fractal R5... I just think it's sometimes too loud. 

Again, I might be nit-picking and really it's not that loud, but I wanted to ask if I should change to an

air cooler. Something like a BeQuiet or Noctua heatsink. There are some air coolers that perform just as well

but I've always heard that (to a degree) water cooling was always quieter. 

Let me know your thoughts! ^.^

PS - I have an Asus gtx 970 STRIX that I am SURE does a ton of noise when fans spin. I am currently looking into maybe

upgrading that to a 1080 or 1070 from EVGA...Maybe those will be quieter when the fans spin. 

 

If you want silence from the GPU, I recommend waiting for the Hybrid version from those cards. Yes it is water cooled AIO too, however there is no pump noise or fan noise.

 

I have the same fans you mention on my system and it's dead silent. The only pump that I can actually hear is the one on the EK AIO, which I am getting rid off anyway.

 

[WoodenMarker]

1 hour ago, iiNNeX said:

however there is no pump noise or fan noise.

Pumps and fans make noise. There isn't a way around that aside running them in a vacuum.

[Babypowder]

Thanks guys. 

I might eventually get a NH-D15 to try out and have the same performance as a water cooler. 

Im sure I am picky, but sometimes I just get annoyed with the Noctua fans ramping up to 1.5k-2k rpm. 
Also the H100i GTX keeps it at around 38-42* C while browsing and doing other minor stuff, and 53-57* C while gaming. 

 

[iiNNeX]

7 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

Pumps and fans make noise. There isn't a way around that aside running them in a vacuum.

Well obviously they make noise but I mean you really can't hear them, they are that quiet.

[Bcat00]

Pretty sure he made it clear he doesnt want to go water cooling anymore.

 

I know water cooling is all the hype nowadays, but every pump i came across from working at a computer shop had taught there will always be noise.

[WoodenMarker]

7 hours ago, iiNNeX said:

Well obviously they make noise but I mean you really can't hear them, they are that quiet.

I can hear my Noctuas as long as they're above 200rpm or so and I don't think the pump is as quiet. 

I personally run my NF-S12A's and NF-A15's at ~90rpm which is when I can't hear them anymore. 

[aisle9]

9 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

I personally run my NF-S12A's and NF-A15's at ~90rpm which is when I can't hear them anymore. 

... How? My Redux fans won't even spool up below 250-350 RPM

[WoodenMarker]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

... How? My Redux fans won't even spool up below 250-350 RPM

Running two 5 way splitters daisy chained off of the cpu_fan header. Other headers aren't as reliable for pwm. 

[iiNNeX]

12 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

I can hear my Noctuas as long as they're above 200rpm or so and I don't think the pump is as quiet. 

I personally run my NF-S12A's and NF-A15's at ~90rpm which is when I can't hear them anymore. 

What ? Does your left ear touch the computer casing when you play or something ? lol

 

Also 90RPM ? Pretty sure no fan will run at that RPM, and if they do, that's pretty pointless cooling haha.

[WoodenMarker]

2 minutes ago, iiNNeX said:

What ? Does your left ear touch the computer casing when you play or something ? lol

Also 90RPM ? Pretty sure no fan will run at that RPM, and if they do, that's pretty pointless cooling haha.

PWM Noctuas can get that low and they cool my 5930k and 290x just fine. The system is under my desk and I have the habit of purposely picking out the noise of my system in a room to learn how to better make it quieter. 

[iiNNeX]

5 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

PWM Noctuas can get that low and they cool my 5930k and 290x just fine. The system is under my desk and I have the habit of purposely picking out the noise of my system in a room to learn how to better make it quieter. 

I admire your patience, but your version of perfectly fine cooling is a lot different than mine it seems.

 

At that RPM actually, it pretty much doesn't matter what fan you use, they will perform 98% the same.

[WoodenMarker]

2 minutes ago, iiNNeX said:

I admire your patience, but your version of perfectly fine cooling is a lot different than mine it seems.

At that RPM actually, it pretty much doesn't matter what fan you use, they will perform 98% the same.

My cpu doesn't get above 70c at load and my gpu peaks at 82c. 

Few fans can even get to 90rpm and still provide any airflow at all. 

[iiNNeX]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

My cpu doesn't get above 70c at load and my gpu peaks at 82c. 

The point is few fans can even get to 90rpm and still provide any airflow at all. 

82C while watercooled is extremely hot in my books... Hell my Hybrids which are an asetek AIO basically, with a push and pull noctua NF-12s running at 900rpm never exceeded 52C at full load, overclocked to 1480mhz.. I can imagine they won't break into the 50s if I had them under custom loop with more rad space too, so I hope you see where I am coming from.

 

CPU wise, my EK Predator 240 keeps the 4.65ghz 6700k at 77C max (benchmark load) with 1.38v! Custom loop 360 rad should put this down quite a bit too.

 

And honestly the fans at 800-900 rpm are quieter than the pump on the EK AIO is... which is already pretty quiet but you can just hear some sort of static electricity sound. 

[aisle9]

16 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

Running two 5 way splitters daisy chained off of the cpu_fan header. Other headers aren't as reliable for pwm. 

Huh, I might try that. My Gigabyte board got very, very angry at me when I tried to use a splitter on it. I can't hear my system during normal operation at all now that the Black drive is gone, and it's twelve inches from my left ear.

[WoodenMarker]

4 minutes ago, iiNNeX said:

82C while watercooled is extremely hot in my books... Hell my Hybrids which are an asetek AIO basically, with a push and pull noctua NF-12s running at 900rpm never exceeded 52C at full load, overclocked to 1480mhz.. I can imagine they won't break into the 50s if I had them under custom loop with more rad space too, so I hope you see where I am coming from.

CPU wise, my EK Predator 240 keeps the 4.65ghz 6700k at 77C max (benchmark load) with 1.38v! Custom loop 360 rad should put this down quite a bit too.

And honestly the fans at 800-900 rpm are quieter than the pump on the EK AIO is... which is already pretty quiet but you can just hear some sort of static electricity sound. 

My card is air cooled and 82c at load is perfectly fine for a 290x. 

800-900rpm is pretty far from inaudible. Most people stop noticing the noise at ~500rpm for Noctuas. 

[iiNNeX]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

My card is air cooled and 82c at load is perfectly fine for a 290x. 

800-900rpm is pretty far from inaudible. Most people stop noticing the noise at ~500rpm for Noctuas. 

I take it you use a fan controller for the noctuas? As my motherboard fan control won't let me get them lower than 30%.

 

Problem is when I had my Fan controller from Lamptron, I set them to the RPM I wanted but then when the PC restarted as they required a higher voltage than what the RPM I had set was, they wouldn't spin up. So I had to manually max them out and put them back down again each time... Basically they needed a high volt surge to wake. 

How did you fix that problem ?

[WoodenMarker]

2 minutes ago, iiNNeX said:

I take it you use a fan controller for the noctuas? As my motherboard fan control won't let me get them lower than 30%.

Problem is when I had my Fan controller from Lamptron, I set them to the RPM I wanted but then when the PC restarted as they required a higher voltage than what the RPM I had set was, they wouldn't spin up. So I had to manually max them out and put them back down again each time... Basically they needed a high volt surge to wake. 
How did you fix that problem ?

I mentioned earlier that my fans are powered off of 2 daisy chained 5 way splitters off of the cpu_fan header. 

PWM pulses 12v to power the fans so it doesn't have that issue. 

[Bcat00]

Ahh the good o spltter, gotta love the guy that came up with it ?

A tad expensive but then again i snagged mine from work 

[WoodenMarker]

7 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

Ahh the good o spltter, gotta love the guy that came up with it ?

A tad expensive but then again i snagged mine from work 

It wasn't too bad. They're Evercool 5-way pwm splitters and were ~$10 each from Directron. 

[IcEWoLF]

On June 2, 2016 at 1:32 PM, Enderman said:

the H100i fans are FREAKING LOUD

replace those

 

the pump is actually extremely quiet (as long as you dont have air bubbles going through it)

 

so yeah, stick with liquid cooling and buy some bequiet or noctua fans

 

btw sorry about your swiftech cooler, i know they suck badly, ive seen tons of failures

 

100% agree with this, I have an H100i V2 and the fans that come with it are total trash, have vibrations, and they are cheaply made, they do move tons of air but just poor quality fans. I replaced my fans with the Thermaltake Riing fans and the system is 2x quieter and no vibration. I wish my fans were pwm but I can live without pwm for now since I use the mobo bios to control the speeds.

 

you might consider fractal designs Venturi fans or noctua fans.

If you just switch the fans you will see a big change in noise levels.