Widescreen Gaming Forum

Thinking about new hardware to add to my system. In 2007 I was thinking to get water cooling, now thinking also the same. But... There are more things. I was also thinking about getting silent fans, to make my computer case silent. About my budget, first was the idea 100 euro, but it could be changed.

Already have a antec 900 case.


Okay now I need to know, what do I have to choose.
Thing to know are, I need to travel with my case to LAN-partys. Also it's also need to be silent, to get a volume level that is lower than now. And yea I know that my case isn't build to be silent, but to get rid of it is also...

Have a stock cooler on my e8400 and also stock cooler on my 8800 GTS (the 640 mb version).

So now how to make it silent.

The most affordable way to start on that venture is a CPU cooler like the Xigmatek HDT-S1283. You have to realize first that is a gaming case and has lots of mesh. Antec equips that case with their TriCool adjustable fans that can go from low speed and quiet to high speed and loud. Usually Med is the best setting. Even at low speeds though the ample mesh and space the case has is going to offer good ventilation, at the trade off of interior noise coming through, primarily from the stock CPU and GPU fans. You can get the HDT-S1283 CPU cooler for $35 or even less.

Silencing GPUs gets a bit trickier, there are fewer choices that fit a given GPU and they typically are hard to get affordably. The Thermalright HR-03 is one of the better ones for that GPU and can be usued with or without fan, but is not usually seen lower than $55.

So, between the two of those that's $90, most of your budget, but far more effective toward achieving the end goal than swapping case fans.

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2233&page=5

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermalrights-hr-03-a-vga-cooler-gorilla,1360.html

Low speed fans, good airflow, soft case feet, sound dampening materials on case sides, rubber mounts for hard drives...

The loudest thing in my case is my PSU fan.. which I'll likely be replacing before long.

ATM I have 4 Noctua fans in my case. Those things make no noise, I can actually hear my hard-drives now. Although they are not cheap; newegg.com has them but they can be found cheaper elsewhere.

If you a serious about silencing, here is your best bet:

http://www.silentpcreview.com

There is no such thing as a silent PC either, there are merely degress of "less noise"

My suggestion is, don't over due or get too hung up on the whole silent thing, other wise it is a very deep money pit. The more you spend, the less degrees of "less noise" you will achieve.

A insulated case, quite fans & heat sink, quite PSU and a quite HDD will drop your decibels nicely.

Other than that:

http://www.silentpcreview.com

**Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention, for gaming rigs, stay away from ATI if your going for less noise.

Agreed with Johnny

Best Fans ever...trust me on this..
YATE Loons

Get a fan controller, zalman heatsink and whatever you do silence that graphic card...those things are whiny!

zalman heatsink

Absolutely would disagree with this now. All the recent Zalman heatsinks I've had the "pleasure" of trying don't hold a candle to the Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 with a Noctua or Scythe S-Flex fan attached. Don't cool as well, aren't as quiet. Some of the recent Zalman sinks are rather on the noisy side. :(

But having a read of SPCR gets a thirding from me. :)

you could always keep your case far away and use extension cables and external ROMs :)

[quote]zalman heatsink

Absolutely would disagree with this now. All the recent Zalman heatsinks I've had the "pleasure" of trying don't hold a candle to the Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 with a Noctua or Scythe S-Flex fan attached. Don't cool as well, aren't as quiet. Some of the recent Zalman sinks are rather on the noisy side. :(

But having a read of SPCR gets a thirding from me. :)

hmm, well, I'm more out of it than I used to be, the 7700cu was amazing, the 9x00 series not sure, or either the newer ones...just get something that has a fan control so its not screaming unless it absolutely needs to be.

silent computers are great...I love mine I consider it silent. BUT it was pricy to get there. New fans VGA/CPU coolers, easily $100 without going top of the line.

Yeah, without a doubt the 7700Cu was an awesome heatsink. It cooled the PWMs and mobo nicely too. Zalman's recent stuff hasn't been as good, and the 7700 can't cope with the heat generated by the newer quads. :(

Okay first fixing my homework and then I will read the link. First I will say, thanks all, and I mean less noise :wink:

Lot of good suggestions here, I was mainly paying attention to the $100 budget mentioned. If you can afford more than that, of course you could do better than just a quieter CPU and GPU cooler. It's still a good starting point though.

If you're looking for both quiet and the ability to handle a high OC, then I'd recommend water cooling.

It will start as far more expensive than high quality air coolers, but a good custom kit will last you many generations of systems.

For instance: My current setup cost ~$250 a couple years ago and was cooling an AMD Opti 165 OCed to 2.7 GHz, and an overclocked 6800GT. Now that same system is cooling my Intel C2D 8400 OCed to 4.1 GHz (which requires an unusually high vcore of 1.5v to sustain) and a 8800 GTS 512MB video card. I only needed to spend ~$20 on the entire cooling system to upgrade it to the new platform and video card, and I never see CPU temps higher than 30*C idle and 42*C under load.

And there is a barely audible hum coming from the computer itself. :)

Water cooling has always been intriguing to me, but I am still very skeptical about the risk and of course it's pretty expensive. As far as longevity goes, the vinyl tubing certainly doesn't have a long life and you need be careful to select compatible non corrosive parts.

Even then there is some amount of corrosion that takes place in the radiators and such even with anti corrosive fluid additives, which need be replaced regularly too. PC water cooling systems are really just as complex as car cooling systems, except with expensive electronics thrown into the mix.

When it comes right down to it it's a lot of risk, expense, and maintenance just to get superior high performance OCing, and even then if you use it for that purpose it's not any quieter than a good air system with a mild OC, in fact usually louder. At that point there's not much price difference between getting faster parts and just mildly OCing them with air vs lesser parts and doing a HP OC with water, and with the former of course, no risk and high maintenance.

If they were to make systems with better hoses and sealing methods vs just vinyl tubes stretched over barbs, I might be more inclined to pursue it. I've used vinyl tubing a lot for various applications and I've seen how quickly it can go yellow, get stretched out, and lose it's suppleness.

Water cooling has always been intriguing to me, but I am still very skeptical about the risk and of course it's pretty expensive. As far as longevity goes, the vinyl tubing certainly doesn't have a long life and you need be careful to select compatible non corrosive parts.

Most people (who know what they're doing) use silicone based tubing. The best 1/2" silicone based tubing costs about $2/foot or less if you can get it on sale, and even a loop like mine only uses about 3 feet. Unlike vinyl tubing it does not discolor or become brittle/crack over time.

Even then there is some amount of corrosion that takes place in the radiators and such even with anti corrosive fluid additives, which need be replaced regularly too. PC water cooling systems are really just as complex as car cooling systems, except with expensive electronics thrown into the mix.

I've seen bad corrosion on systems using the wrong KIND of anti corrosive additive, or when people use an additive which is only designed to be anti-fungal and not anti corrosive. I use "Water-Wetter", which costs about $7 per bottle (and I still have half of it after doing multiple systems), and plain distilled water from the grocery store. I've broken down all my waterblocks and radiator and found no corrosion whatsoever after over 2 years of use. Really, as long as you do the research before hand there is no danger of corrosion.

When it comes right down to it it's a lot of risk, expense, and maintenance just to get superior high performance OCing, and even then if you use it for that purpose it's not any quieter than a good air system with a mild OC, in fact usually louder. At that point there's not much price difference between getting faster parts and just mildly OCing them with air vs lesser parts and doing a HP OC with water, and with the former of course, no risk and high maintenance.

The risk is pretty minimal given the benefits. Just do a 24 hour leak test before actually powering on the system. If the cooling system can run 24+ hours without leaking, its not going to leak. I've carted my machine to many LAN parties and have never had a problem with this, as well as everyone I know who has leak tested the system beforehand.

In terms of it being louder than a quality air cooling system, you must have either listened to a system with crummy pump/fan, or are making that assumption based on faulty information. One of the "loudest" pumps out there commonly used in water cooling systems is the "D5" pump (it goes by many brands including Danger Den, but its the same exact pump). Its no louder than an average 7200 RPM HDD.

In terms of "maintenance", every year or so I have to top off the system with about 1/2 cup of coolant. Really, thats it. Only time I've ever had to break the system down was when I put it in a new system, which was kind of unavoidable. :)

Also keep in mind that a well designed water cooling system only needs two 120mm low RPM fans at MOST (mine actually only uses one). High performance air parts typically use 2 on the CPU, and one on the video card, and the performance doesn't even come close to a properly designed water cooled system.

If they were to make systems with better hoses and sealing methods vs just vinyl tubes stretched over barbs, I might be more inclined to pursue it. I've used vinyl tubing a lot for various applications and I've seen how quickly it can go yellow, get stretched out, and lose it's suppleness.

Again, nobody should use vinyl based tubing for water cooling systems for the very same reasons you mentioned.

As far as the barbs go, just use stainless steel/brass barbs and steel wormgear clamps, and you will not have a problem as long as you leaktest everything beforehand.

Yeah I know of the silicone tubing, but wasn't sure what percentage of silicone it actually has and if it's all that much better. It also kinks easier. Every pic of a WC system I see usually looks like the vinyl stuff. Vinyl seems bogus, esp without collar type fittings, which is what I'd like to see them go to like the automotive industry uses on brake lines.

On noise, maybe the pumps have gotten quieter, but I take much of the WC trivia I glean from the XtremeSystems Forum guide. They speak of head pressure needed for a full HP WC system, like one CPU block and 2 GPU blocks. That requires a powerful pump and tri rad, preferably with dense fins, so loud fans too to push air through it.

On the air side of things, I was thinking more in terms of the Xigmatek HDT-S1283, which does well with just the one fan and cools very well on High, moderately well on Low, and is ultra quiet on Low. It would easily handle a moderate OC on even a i7.

I haven't thoroughly researched the GPU air coolers as I don't know what GPU I want yet. I do know the Thermalright HR-03 GTX has been used on some of the cards I'm considering though. I just don't know if there'd be enough room for it, esp on an SLI setup in the case I'm looking at.

The GPU/Us could end up being something like the GTX 260 Core 216, GTX 295, GTX 285, or GTX 300. One thing's for sure though, I won't even bother with an aftermarket cooler for the GPU unless I get an XFX, as they're the only ones that don't void the warranty.

The thing is though, I had really only planned on OCing the CPU, and only mildly if I go with the i7 940, a bit more so if the 920. I probably won't need to OC the GPU. I tend to look at the already factory OCed ones anyway.

Well damn, now I'm back to what could be a simple one block WC system if I just OC the CPU. :lol: I think I talked myself into a corner on this argument. Seriously though, I really think the HDT-S1283 would serve me adequately. I'm not one to see how high I can OC something.

My low noise setup:

Antec P182 with added noise dampening mats
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P with low noise adapter
Case fans: 3x Noctua NF-S12-1200 with low noise adapter
PSU: Corsair HX520

GTX260 @ 30% min fan speed is the most noisy component.

I could make it more silent by disabling 1 fan and closing front panel but then temps would rise too much.

Accelero Xtreme 8800
Looks like they tested in my case :D

Will look into those Noctua fans :)

Yeah, the Noctua fans are nice. Keep in mind that they are almost dead quiet without a fan controller, so if you want to use a fan controller you may want to look into the Yate Loon fans.

Damn, replaced my cool pasta from my videocard, -6c idle :D

Next up, my cpu cooler. Only thing i hate is that pushpin system :x