Optimizing your computer for noise and performance

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Optimizing your computer for noise and performance

This may be useful for anyone who assembles a new PC. After I finished my recent build, I noticed that it was way too noisy under load (when playing Witcher 2 in Wine). The critical part was the power supply - Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 650W. It sounded like a taking off jet and was really annoying. Some people had a similar experience: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P3F5imJkGrU&t=33s

I looked for better confirmed silent PSUs and found that Seasonic is very reputable for that. So I got Seasonic Platinum 760W, and it makes a huge difference. It has a hybrid mode - fanless under low load, silent under medium load and cooling under high load. So far with Witcher 2 running it remained very silent.

 

[GuyNwah]

Seasonic does a good job of keeping their power supplies quiet. Many of their power supplies, especially the old reliable S12II and M12II types, are resold by other vendors with different paint.

Antec HCG (up to 620W) are Seasonic. So are Corsair TXV2, HX, and AX up to 850W (but not TX).

The Cooler Master Silent Pro M models that are made by Enhance are also very good and very quiet.

Always refer to the current Tom's Hardware Who's Who In Power Supplies when you need to know the actual manufacturer of the power supply you're considering.

 

[Glaroug.531]

Thanks for the info. I will keep this thread marked fo reference I dream a dream where I no longer need head phones and loud volume to blast out the whirring banshee (thankfully the walls are nice enough to prevent my roomates from listening to the screaches when more demanding games like the Witcher are being played).

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

My current build works pretty quietly. I didn't overclock anything so it's using a stock Intel fan (for Haswell i7 4770). The case ended up being pretty big (Cooler Master HAF XM) but it's very quiet because it uses big fans (20 cm and 17 cm). GPU fan also happened to be pretty quiet. So if you have enough room where to put the computer, get a spacious well ventilated case with big fans, and a silent power supply - it makes a huge difference noise wise.

 

[Exilium]

I used to mess around with water cooling, trying to get my rig to be quieter. However, water cooling costs a lot of money and requires much more regular maintenance than air cooling -- not to mention the constant worries about springing a leak somewhere.

Took me awhile to figure out that some air cooling brands are better than others. I've had bad experiences with Thermaltake, so I stay away from them these days. For my money, the best CPU coolers out there are the ones Zalman makes. They're nearly silent and my temps are even lower than they were when I had a high-end DangerDen water block on my processor.

Corsair PSUs are awesome, in my opinion. I've never had any power supply problems since I started buying from Corsair.

For cases, I'd choose a Cooler Master over almost anything else. They're solid, well ventilated, and designed with space in mind.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I didn't have issues with air cooling so far. Water cooling is an interesting alternative, but the maintenance seems too much. If you aren't overclocking, regular stock CPU fans are fine and they are quiet as well. Overclockers might be more interested in water cooling.

Cooler Master make good cases with good ventilation, except that they don't take care of dust prevention and you might want to find third party dust filters (like Demciflex for example) as was discussed here.

 

[dragonbird]

I have liquid cooling for the CPU, and I find it's a lot more convenient. It doesn't require maintenance, and it takes up a lot less space and is easier to keep clean than a dirty great CPU heat sink. The fact that it does take up less space makes other maintenance in the case a lot simpler. And yes, it's nice and quiet

 

[Garrison72]

I have liquid cooling for the CPU, and I find it's a lot more convenient. It doesn't require maintenance, and it takes up a lot less space and is easier to keep clean than a dirty great CPU heat sink. The fact that it does take up less space makes other maintenance in the case a lot simpler. And yes, it's nice and quiet

What does maintenance involve? Do you have to change out the liquid on occasion?

 

[dragonbird]

What does maintenance involve? Do you have to change out the liquid on occasion?

Never. I've had it for well over a year now, and maintenance just means dusting it down occasionally. There's one outlet fan that needs to be cleaned, that's all. It's definitely less work than cleaning a heat sink.

Oh, and it was cheaper than a good-quality heat sink. But I had it fitted by the shop, I wouldn't have wanted to do it myself. But then, I don't like fitting heat sinks either.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Looks like there are such options: http://www.corsair.com/us/hydro-series-h40-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler.html

I didn't exactly understand from there what makes it maintenance-free though. May be completely sealed cycle with some chemicals in the liquid.

 

[Exilium]

Do you have one of those modular units? I know a few companies make the all-in-one processor cooler. They are very easy to install and maintain, though I've never had one myself, so I can't speak to their performance.

A hand-built liquid cooling system is a lot of work. My last one had two radiators (one front and one rear), a pump and reservoir (I had to mod my case to accommodate these) and a fluid level and flow control monitor that took up two full drive bays. Really, unless you're going to run most of your lines outside your case, a custom liquid cooling system isn't all that efficient, as I found out. I also had drain the system, replace the coolant, and bleed the lines every month or so -- not to mention having to clean out the radiator fins which inevitably get deeply clogged with dust. It's also a good idea to check your lines and fittings periodically for pressure and leaks. So yeah... all in all, they're a lot of work.

Here's a pic of the first liquid cooling system I built (it was a number of years ago and I don't have any other images). You can probably see why I abandoned them.

View attachment 2012​

 

[Garrison72]

That looks like a nightmare. If can't run TW3 on high without alien tubes in my PC or multiple heat sinks....depressing.

 

[dragonbird]

Found it.
This is what I have: Antec Kuhler H20 920
And no, no maintenance needed.
It only handles the CPU cooling, so it definitely isn't a complete solution, but the space-saving does make other cooling a lot easier to manage.

 

[Garrison72]

Found it.
This is what I have: Antec Kuhler H20 920
And no, no maintenance needed.
It only handles the CPU cooling, so it definitely isn't a complete solution, but the space-saving does make other cooling a lot easier to manage.

If you have one of these and a well ventilated case with strong fans, shouldn't that be enough for someone like me who just does Word Processing and gaming?

 

[Exilium]

Found it.
This is what I have: Antec Kuhler H20 920
And no, no maintenance needed.
It only handles the CPU cooling, so it definitely isn't a complete solution, but the space-saving does make other cooling a lot easier to manage.

That's the way I'd go if I ever went back to liquid cooling. Looks like a nice clean setup.

I run a moderate overclock on my CPU, RAM, and GPU, but I'm not into anything that pushes thermal specifications anymore. Unless one seriously wants to test the limits of his/her hardware, I wouldn't recommend a custom-built liquid cooling solution.

 

[dragonbird]

I don't see it wouldn't be enough (that was answering slimgrin). It's a little harder to monitor, because the standard stuff for checking temperature doesn't work on it. You need to run their software, which I can't be bothered doing. But even though I don't as much CPU-intensive work as I used to, I still do some 3D rendering, which is 100% load for hours at a time.

Sorry about the picture quality, but this is inside the case, just after I bought it.

The other plus point is that it DOESN'T blow hot air right over the GPU, unlike my last heat sink.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

@slimgrin: If you aren't overclocking, water cooling isn't really necessary to get a decent high performance quiet build. It might be just fun to use, but not really needed. And I don't think you need overclocking for gaming at all. It's more useful for Bitcoin mining or other computing where maximum CPU performance is very critical. Like you said, well ventilated case with big fans is good enough.

 

[volsung]

I overclocked my Phenom II 1090T to 3.7 GHz on air and it never goes above 50º or 52º C on load. I have a Thermaltake Contac 30 aftermarket heatsink because they ran out of Hyper 212's when I went to the store. It's actually quite decent and quiet.

When I upgrade my CPU I might consider one of those prebuilt liquid cooling solutions, but many aftermarket traditional heatsinks are quite good at dissipating heat and they shouldn't be too noisy. The default heatsinks that usually come with CPU's tend to be much less efficient and their fans much, much louder. What I heard though is that good air cooling is better than cheap liquid cooling, but who knows?

Like Gilrond said overclocking is normally not relevant for games, since we're talking about pure sequential clock frequency. I did notice a slight performance gain by going from the factory 3.2 to 3.7 GHz though, in normal desktop use and in-games like TW2. But maybe it's just my own mind trying to justify the OC. Or maybe my slower CPU does benefit from a little push.

 

[GuyNwah]

Low-cost liquid cooling has much improved in the past few years. Closed-loop coolers like the Corsair H80 and H100 and the Antec 920 are the equal of quality air coolers and may be more convenient in installations that can't abide a large air cooler. You can get adapters like the NZXT "Kraken" G10 to mount a closed-loop CPU cooler to a GPU, if GPU cooling is your more important requirement.

 

[M4xw0lf]

The maintenance-free all in one liquid cooling systems are in most cases only equal to similarly priced air coolers in terms of cooling power, while offering worse acoustic performance (more noise). As guy said, the main advantage is the reduced need for space inside your case.
Judging from a performance/dollar perspective (both for cooling power and noise) quality air coolers are in general preferable.