Looking for a quiet cooler

[dpodblood]

Hey Guys,

I just upgraded my case from an old (and heavy) Thermaltake Armor to the Antec Eleven Hundred. With 120mm and one 200mm fan this case is much quieter than my old one. That has got me wishing for a quieter CPU cooler since the CPU cooler is the only fan now making significant noise in the system (other fans are virtually inaudible).

I have been looking into off the shelf liquid cooling systems such as the Corsair H50 or the Antec Khuler. Are these systems significantly quieter than a traditional heatsink/fan setup?

Currently I have a Corsair A70 cooler with two 120mm fans (see below).

 

[Face2Face]

You might want to move this to the Cases and Cooling section.

 

[24601]

If you want to get below case fan level of volume, then you have to use

Thermalright True Spirit 140
or
Thermalright Archon

www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/coolers/gelid-black-edition/zchart_table_big.png

Do note that your graphics cards will be the loudest component of your system if you have a mid-range one or higher.

Closed Loop water doesn't get quieter for same performance until you get to H220 levels, which is super expensive in comparison.

 

[dpodblood]

If you want to get below case fan level of volume, then you have to use

Thermalright True Spirit 140
or
Thermalright Archon

www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/coolers/gelid-black-edition/zchart_table_big.png

Do note that your graphics cards will be the loudest component of your system if you have a mid-range one or higher.

Closed Loop water doesn't get quieter for same performance until you get to H220 levels, which is super expensive in comparison.

Thanks. I agree that the graphics card is the loudest, but only under load. Idling or normal desktop usage it's virtually silent.

 

[Yuriman]

Off the shelf liquid coolers won't be much, if any better. You're looking at $200+ to really justify a liquid cooling.

There's no need to replace your heatsink, as heatsinks make no noise. Your fans are the problem so the first thing I'd do is undervolt your fans, and if that's unsatisfactory, look into replacing them with something like a 120mm Yate Loon low speed model, they have very quiet bearings and a good blade design at a bargain price.

 

[hans030390]

The True Spirit 140 is really quiet, though installing the fan is a real PITA. It only does a decent job cooling my 2500K (4.5GHz, 1.37V or so), but it's good enough and worth the lack of noise. I'm assuming adding a 2nd fan would help.

I had the Kuhler 620 in push/pull configuration. It cooled better than the TS140, but the pump also made an audible, well, pump noise when running (it also made clicking noises). I'm not sure this applies to all closed water loops, though. If you get a unit with a quiet pump and use some quiet fans, closed water cooling units are pretty nice.

 

[Ajay]

Noctua has a nice 150 (fan) mm unit if it will fit in your case. They always have great build quality, run quiet (a friend has one) and I think they include NT-1 which is a good TIM.

 

[UNhooked]

I would just get a quieter fan. The Corsair A70 is a good cooler. I would also clean it, the tower coolers do get clogged which makes the fans work harder.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835242014

 

[Concillian]

Noctua includes fan adapters that reduce voltage so they can be quiet. D14 or C14 are both solid for that. I have a C14 that's virtually silent when on the resistor plug. I have one in use on my wife's 4.1 GHz 3570k, it's enough cooling to still run a mild OC.

Realistically, any decent heatsink will at least work acceptably with a quieter fan. I've successfully used the Xigmatek S1283 with an undervolted fan on OCed CPUs too. I bet all you need to do is get a fan controller and / or good quality fans that don't make funny noises when undervolted. Some fans make quite a hub ticking racket when undervolted. I've had bad luck with the yate loon "M" fans undervolting, but the "L" fans work better, mainly because you don't need to drop the voltage as far to get them quiet. Noctua fans have been very smooth undervolted, as have my Antec True Quiet Pros

 

[Sazuzaki]

just switch the fans with high static pressure low noise ones, I use Swiftech Helix fans on my radiators and they perform well even at max rpm they are pretty quiet compared to other fans.

 

[ehume]

When you break it down, you have a contact plate to transfer heat from the CPU's IHS; heatpipes to transfer heat from the contact plate; fin stack(s) to transfer heat from the heatpipes; airflow to pick up heat from the finstack(s); fan(s) to move the air to allow the heat to be removed from the heatsink.

At each of these points you have decisions to make. Between IHS and contact plate is the TIM. The contact plate can be soldered to the heatpipes or just clamped. Heatpipes vary in number and diameter. The more you have, and the greater their diameter, the more heat the collection of them will carry. Four 6mm heatpipes is not adequate for overclocking.

The finstacks can be soldered or clamped to the heatpipes. Guess which produces better heat transfer?

Two fin stacks usually have a greater surface area than one fin stack. The number of fins, their width and their length (along the airflow path), the space between them -- all vary.

The only way to know what heatsinks cool well with little noise is to test them. TRUE is an excellent heatsink, comparable to the Megahalems. But the Megahalems is optimized for quiet fans; after a point, more airflow gets you fewer and fewer degrees of cooling. The TRUE, OTOH, will keep getting better cooling with stronger fans. But stronger fans make more noise.

So for quiet cooling you want something with more surface area than a TRUE. Tandem towers is the way to go. The NH-D14, the Silver Arrow and its progeny, and the Phanteks tandem tower are the best of these.

I have specimens of the Phanteks 140mm, the TY-140 (goes with the Silver Arrow), the Noctua NF-P14 (goes with the NH-D14) and the NF-A15. The TY-140 was the best of the three top 140mm heatsink fans until the NF-A15 came along. The NF-A15 is now the best of the four top 140mm fans (see my review here).

If you can still get a Silver Arrow, do so; but pay close attention to the width of your case and the height of your RAM (the clearance issue is why I buy only low profile RAM).

The Phanteks (who can remember their numbers?) is the best heatsink for cooling, but slightly more noisy than the others.

The NH-D14 SE2011 has PWM fans; the standard NH-D14 does not, which is a shame. You can mount a TY-140 on it, which allows the speed to vary with demand. Noctua makes clips that allow fans like the NF-P14 and other 140mm fans with 120mm screw holes to mount easily.

 

[24601]

When you break it down, you have a contact plate to transfer heat from the CPU's IHS; heatpipes to transfer heat from the contact plate; fin stack(s) to transfer heat from the heatpipes; airflow to pick up heat from the finstack(s); fan(s) to move the air to allow the heat to be removed from the heatsink.

At each of these points you have decisions to make. Between IHS and contact plate is the TIM. The contact plate can be soldered to the heatpipes or just clamped. Heatpipes vary in number and diameter. The more you have, and the greater their diameter, the more heat the collection of them will carry. Four 6mm heatpipes is not adequate for overclocking.

The finstacks can be soldered or clamped to the heatpipes. Guess which produces better heat transfer?

Two fin stacks usually have a greater surface area than one fin stack. The number of fins, their width and their length (along the airflow path), the space between them -- all vary.

The only way to know what heatsinks cool well with little noise is to test them. TRUE is an excellent heatsink, comparable to the Megahalems. But the Megahalems is optimized for quiet fans; after a point, more airflow gets you fewer and fewer degrees of cooling. The TRUE, OTOH, will keep getting better cooling with stronger fans. But stronger fans make more noise.

So for quiet cooling you want something with more surface area than a TRUE. Tandem towers is the way to go. The NH-D14, the Silver Arrow and its progeny, and the Phanteks tandem tower are the best of these.

I have specimens of the Phanteks 140mm, the TY-140 (goes with the Silver Arrow), the Noctua NF-P14 (goes with the NH-D14) and the NF-A15. The TY-140 was the best of the three top 140mm heatsink fans until the NF-A15 came along. The NF-A15 is now the best of the four top 140mm fans (see my review here).

If you can still get a Silver Arrow, do so; but pay close attention to the width of your case and the height of your RAM (the clearance issue is why I buy only low profile RAM).

The Phanteks (who can remember their numbers?) is the best heatsink for cooling, but slightly more noisy than the others.

The NH-D14 SE2011 has PWM fans; the standard NH-D14 does not, which is a shame. You can mount a TY-140 on it, which allows the speed to vary with demand. Noctua makes clips that allow fans like the NF-P14 and other 140mm fans with 120mm screw holes to mount easily.

Nice article :thumbsup:

I'm not sure why you mention the TY-140 throughout the article but then mysteriously don't list it as one of the comparison points though.

It really does look like Noctua went to their lawyers and asked them how closely they could carbon copy the TY-140 with a low chance of getting sued.

But really, with how cheaply the Thermalright True Spirit 140 is priced, any option above it is basically just not worth the returns.

You have to go to a H220 to get to enough returns to be worth it (Especially in the case of Ivy Bridge and Haswell overclocking)

 

[ehume]

Nice article :thumbsup:

I'm not sure why you mention the TY-140 throughout the article but then mysteriously don't list it as one of the comparison points though.

It really does look like Noctua went to their lawyers and asked them how closely they could carbon copy the TY-140 with a low chance of getting sued.

But really, with how cheaply the Thermalright True Spirit 140 is priced, any option above it is basically just not worth the returns.

You have to go to a H220 to get to enough returns to be worth it (Especially in the case of Ivy Bridge and Haswell overclocking)

The reason I did not include the TY-140 in the comparison is that TR never sent me one. The TY-140 produces about the same cooling but is not quite as quiet as the A15.

Based on my looking at those fans and measuring the frames, I suspect they are made by the same manufacturer. As you pointed out, the A15 is an evolved design, based on the TY-140.

My new 4770k rig will have two NF-A15's in push-pull on an Armageddon, with a TY-140 feeding the heatsink air from outside the top of the case. The case fan will be on a PWM circuit shared with the push fan or the pull fan -- I haven't decided yet.

On this Gigabyte board the CPU_FAN operates all the time at a varying rate (PWM) or a stepped rate (Voltage). The CPU_OPT fan only turns on when it is needed, and then it operates at a varying rate (PWM) or a stepped rate (Voltage). So I am looking at fun choices.