Questions about liquid cooling

[Zabatakis]

So basically I am going to build a new computer. I dislike the sound of fans especially when they ramp up. I am considering Liquid Cooling but I don't know anything at all about it. So I have some questions for people in the know;

I have read the liquid cooling has fans to push the water around and is just as loud. The article seemed dubious at best but I would like to know how loud liquid cooling really is.

I hear there are prebuilt cooling setups now. Is this the way to go for a noob like me? I built my computer I am using now without problems using a youtube vid as step by step, thats about the extent of my technical expertise.

Any other advice or heads up on the subject would be appreciated.

Thanks
-Zab

[Fascinate]

The truth is water cooling is louder than air cooling. You still need fans to push the heat out of your system, and the added noise of pumps (albeit small given you have a good pump) water will never be as quiet as air.

You just have bad fans or fan profiles in your current case, you can build an absolutely silent PC these days with air cooling (noctua NH-D 15 with low noise adapters in a fractal design R5 case). Just make sure to do your research on video cards (read full reviews) and check the noise graphs at full load. When buying power supplies buy more than what you need, if you buy a 650-750w psu and enable the hybrid switch (make sure it has this) the PSU fan will never even turn on in a normal gaming system with one video card.

[Idrinkwhiterussians]

I would say that there are plenty of reasons to go either way: noise is actually easy to figure out. Typically, AIO water coolers are just as loud as a big tower cooler, if not more so because of the added noise of the pump.

Here is a page with noise and performance charts. It is a bit older, but a lot of the coolers are still on the market: AnandTech charts

I personally have a NH-D14 in my tower and it is fantastic. Note that the Delta temp is quite similar to the best liquid coolers.

I hope this helps a bit!

[Cyanotical]

given how people typically build their computers, watercooling and AIO liquid coolers are louder than air cooling, the reason is that air coolers are located inside your computer, and radiators are located on the outer edge of the case, this means the sound generating source ( the fan) has less distance to the outside and then on to your ear

that said, you can get an extremely quiet water system, but not any quieter than a quiet air system, and parts just don't generate the same levels of heat that they used to so water doesn't really provide a performance advantage anymore either

[Sagain]

I would say that there are plenty of reasons to go either way: noise is actually easy to figure out. Typically, AIO water coolers are just as loud as a big tower cooler, if not more so because of the added noise of the pump.

Here is a page with noise and performance charts. It is a bit older, but a lot of the coolers are still on the market: AnandTech charts

I personally have a NH-D14 in my tower and it is fantastic. Note that the Delta temp is quite similar to the best liquid coolers.

I hope this helps a bit!

More or less this. AIO water pump and fan combos, even on high end AIOs still have more noise typically than their air counterparts. Noctua offers several very good, mostly quiet air solutions that work great. NH-D14 is one of those and with a couple of premium quality fans and some anti-vibration pads you should be good to go.

[Belize]

If you want a closed-loop (as in prebuilt) I use an H80i and it's about as quiet as it gets I think. My other fans on my case easily drown it out.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

that said, you can get an extremely quiet water system, but not any quieter than a quiet air system, and parts just don't generate the same levels of heat that they used to so water doesn't really provide a performance advantage anymore either

Yeah, right now water cooling is only really for aesthetics, or because you want to do it.

[Zabatakis]

Ah well thank you very much for these replys. Guess I will try to use fascinates advice to get rid of the noise.

[Fascinate]

Ah well thank you very much for these replys. Guess I will try to use fascinates advice to get rid of the noise.

Ya post here when you are ready to build as the board can give great suggestions for a silence optimized build.

[Lemmiwink]

The truth is water cooling is louder than air cooling. You still need fans to push the heat out of your system, and the added noise of pumps (albeit small given you have a good pump) water will never be as quiet as air.

You just have bad fans or fan profiles in your current case, you can build an absolutely silent PC these days with air cooling (noctua NH-D 15 with low noise adapters in a fractal design R5 case). Just make sure to do your research on video cards (read full reviews) and check the noise graphs at full load. When buying power supplies buy more than what you need, if you buy a 650-750w psu and enable the hybrid switch (make sure it has this) the PSU fan will never even turn on in a normal gaming system with one video card.

From my experience, the video card fans will always make more noise than a properly configured water cooling loop. Saying that water cooling is louder than air cooling is not really correct at all. My loop is inaudible (900D, D5 pump, Corsair silent fans set up with fan controller from corsair in corsair link) and I have never seen a cooling system that isn't passive that makes less noise than mine does.

The secret to silent water cooling is not cheaping out. That means you buy a big radiator, a large reservoir etc. to have enough water in your system for it to not get heated up to levels where you need to crank up the fans. I have a 5930K OC'ed to 4.6GHZ at 1.3V and my CPU never exceeds 75 degrees celcius. My GPU (GTX Titan) is also watercooled and OC'ed to max and it will not break 50 degrees celcius under any condition. That means my 3 radiator fans can run at 600 RPM and my case fans run at 600 RPM, they are virtually impossible to hear. The noise from the pump is also inaudible.

From my experience, a water cooled PC that is noisier than an air cooled system is crappily built tbh.

[Master Guns]

I'm liquid cooled on a H80i. I'll tell you, it's like 3x louder than my air fans ever were. Especially on boot up. My Lord. It's like a rocket taking off in my room. As well as gaming; unless you've got a really nice pair of noise cancelling headphones, the hum from this radiator is pretty loud lol.