Quietest cooling solution for me

[Jonny Wright]

I have started to purchase parts for my new build and would like some advice on the best cooling solution for my needs. I have kind of lost touch with coolers so have little knowlege on what the best / generally most preferred method is.

 

It will be to cool an i7 4790K, full spec can be posted if required. I'm not going to be doing any serious OC'ing but will most likely play a little bit. Its all going into my existing case, Antec P182 which I believe takes 120mm fans. I have been primarily looking at all-in-one watercooling solutions. Theres no real reason for this, just an option I have been considering. 

 

My main requirement is that it is quiet. Can anyone either suggest an AIO WC which will fit my case, or if anyone knows of any good air coolers I am open to recommendations! 

 

Again, only real requirement is that its as quiet as possible, oh and ideally under ?100 (~ $150 / ?125).

 

Thanks!

[xendrome]

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (or it's direct replacement if discontinued) would be my vote, not water cooling however.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Get a Corsair 80i. I have one on my i5 3570K setup.

 

If you aren't going to overclock, don't get the K version. They like to run overclocked, not just a little OC.

 

With a fan controller, or BIOS, you can get it to be really quiet. Just understand that water cooling is never silent. You need a way to cool that water solution.

[Jonny Wright]

Yeah, I know silent is hard. The case is pretty gopd with noise mind. Are the Noctua fans all they are hyped up to be?

[Praetor]

Noctua fans are worth every penny spend; very silent and very good with the air flow. Of course a good aired case does wonders as well.

 

Myself i have a Scythe fans and they are pretty good as well.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Noctua live up to their name. Scythe, CoolerMaster, Xigmatek, AeroCool are all OK fans. They're not top notch, but they aren't bad, either.

[+Thayios Subscriber²]

I use an H100i with four quiet PWM corsair SP120 fans (push & pull) and it barely ever spools them up - if it does it's more quiet than any other fans I've ever heard.

 

My gaming rig is my HTPC rig as well, so I need it to be as quiet as a bluray player would be normally. I run 4.8 Ghz on a 3570k daily with a heavy overclock on the GTX 970 and it's whisper quiet.

[Andre S. Veteran]

I used Noctua fans in the last 3 PCs I built and I wouldn't use anything else now. They're just completely silent. You hear a soft calm breeze noise when they spin up fast (i.e. when capping the CPU 100% for a while), most of the time nothing. I used the U14S in two PCs but take care that the fan doesn't get in the way of the RAM slots, that happened to me with the MSI Z87-Gaming motherboard (I just put the fan on the other side blowing inside the case but that's far from optimal).

[Mockingbird]

Noctua NH-D15 

[+kpo6969 Subscriber¹]

I'm running an i7 4790k stock with Noctua U14S and very quiet. Just check Noctua site for motherboard issues (1st pcie x 16).

[BillyJack]

I have a micro setup. Same CPU with Corsair H105. I replace corsairs fans with Noctua NF-F12PWM. They are designed for radiators and are quite.

 

My case have Noctua Noctua NF-S12A fans. They push good air and you cannot hear them or if you can it is very little. Keep in mind they push less air then a lot of other fans with faster RPMs but with fans that are around the same RPM they push a lot more air. What does that mean. They are the quietest fans you can get that push the most air.

 

I have the Lian-Li PC-V359WB. I mention it because it has enough room for a water cooler but is small. My setup is dead quite. Even when I play games or convert videos. The loudest part is the Nvidia GTX 780 ACX. The fans are not blower fans so it keeps the GPU cooler and the fans are quitter.

 

I will not lie. The PC has fans. You can hear them. However, trust me when I say it is dead silent.

 

None of this matters if you do not know how the entire setup performs. It is 72 in the room and the CPU is 32. All other sensors including memory, PCIE are less than 32. The VCORE is 40 and the back VCORE is 45. The fans cannot push enough air across them. If I turn the case fans off and only let the radiator fans pull air out of the case then the VCORES fall to 35 or so but then the CPU and ram go up some. When I play BF4 the CPU never goes about 40. All other sensors go up but say under 40 and the VCORES get up to 48 - 49. The GPU does not even increase the fan speed. Occasionally it will but it is rare and if it does it is so little that I do not notice.

 

Yes while I game my PC is dead silent and it is a micro setup.

 

Something else to think about is the motherboard. I have ASUS with PWM. It works great because they have their own software that I can use to create profiles for the fans. It works with fans that have PWM and do not. I set all of those fans to the least RPMs I can. Then I set them to ramp up some when the temp hits a certain point. You get the idea. It is nice to be able to create profiles for the fans.

 

I have the radiator fans pushing air toward the radiator out of the case. The Noctua NF-F12PWM fans are designed to push air against the radiator. The design allows them to cool the radiator while being quite. Look into it on their site. There are three case fans pulling air into the case and one that pulls out the back. I have Corsair HX750i. It's fan does not run until eat gets hot. I have never had the fan run.

 

Oh yea. I am not sure if it is good for the pump but it is connected to a fan header and I set the RPM lower so that I do not hear it.

 

I hope all of that helps.