Post your gaming setup!

[Lemmiwink]

Ok, point taken. At idle, air cooling can be as quiet as watercooling. Not gonna argue. But I wasn't talking about idle. Crank up a game to it's highest settings, do some benchmarking etc. The air cooled PC will make noise, the watercooled one stays pretty much the same. Is it worth the extra cost? HELL NO! I think that is more the question we need to ask, not if air is quieter/better or not.

[BicycleMafioso]

Ok, point taken. At idle, air cooling can be as quiet as watercooling. Not gonna argue. But I wasn't talking about idle. Crank up a game to it's highest settings, do some benchmarking etc. The air cooled PC will make noise, the watercooled one stays pretty much the same. Is it worth the extra cost? HELL NO! I think that is more the question we need to ask, not if air is quieter/better or not.

Define R3, Noctua NH-D14, NF-F12's throughout the build, reference GTX 680 (will soon be modded), and let me tell you that when playing Diablo III, LA Noire (et c), my system makes no discernable noise difference between turned off and gaming. These are not the most demanding games, no. But given how awful the reference cooler on the GPU is, and when it will be replaced, I can't see me ever hearing my computer.
The only things I can actually hear are my hard disk drives. While they are mounted in rubber dampening cages. Anything else is even quieter. I have an SSD incomming that will handle games though, so even that would be a non-issue for things other than media consumption.

Silent? Never. Quiet, yes.
As for water-cooling.. the pump alone would have made more noise than my current rig does.

[Deleted]

You are not going to be able to keep any high end graphics card quiet when you use it fully on air.

Also pump noise is all about decoupling. My DC260 is inaudible (decoupled and undervolted from >2000 to 1300rpm). In fact my whole system is (almost) inaudible on water since my fans are only running on 370rpm (3 pushing Noctuas) and 600rpm (3 pulling Akasas).

[Cyanotical]

it really depends on alot of factors, case, rads, heatsink, pump, all make noise, but having built multiple water and air systems, air is quieter, almost without exception, sure, you can build a quieter water system, with 18FI rads and low speed pressure fans, but the amount of rad area you will need means you are now stuck buying a very big case, and you are still not getting past the fact that a heatsink is internal, and a rad is on the case edge, which makes a huge difference in noise

[Deleted]

Will post picture of my screens later
Waterblocks for Titan soon.




i7 3930k 4.965 GHz | 3x GTX Titan @ 1245Mhz | 6x Vertex 4 256GB RAID 0 | 4x Vertex 4 RAID 1 | 3xWD Green 3TB extern RAID BOX | MSI Big Bang-XPower II | Case 900D | 3x BenQ XL2720T 120Hz | Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3 2400MHz@ 2495 4x8GB (32GB) | Corsair AX 1200i | Asus Xonar Essence STX | DT990 250Ω | Ducky G2Pro Tenkeyless MX Red PBT White engraved | Corepad XXXL | Watercooling 480+360+250mm-RES

[Deleted]

air is quieter, almost without exception

How is a high end GPU @100% load supposed to be even remotely quiet(er) on air?

[lordsphinx]

First off, let me know if pic is huge. I can't see my own pic behind firewall at work =(

Case: Coolermaster HAF 932 Advanced
CPU: Intel i7 3770K
Mobo: Asus P8Z77-V LX
Cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo
GPU: EVGA 660TI Superclocked
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16Gb @ 1600MHz

[Deleted]

Tvelander, just saw your build on Facebook actually - looks sweet!

[Ghâzh]

How is a high end GPU @100% load supposed to be even remotely quiet(er) on air?

Because the newest high end GPU's don't need to ramp the fan all the way up at 100% load and the cooler acustics have improved greatly. The cooling design on 780 for example is extraordinarily fine and it's barely audible at full load.

@Tvelander; Nice! Doesn't even need waterblocks on the GPU's in my opinion. With the all black interior those green geforce gtx tags just stand out better.

[Deleted]

Tvelander, just saw your build on Facebook actually - looks sweet!

Thx
To bad i dont have any good picture i need to take a picture with nightshot or something.

[Hellravager]

Heres my setup XD
i5 3570k @ 3.8
GTX 770
650 PSU
23" Acer
some crappy $20 key board and mouse


http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1376408350

Mod Edit: Thumbnails please!

[Fluorescent0]

i5 4670k currently at stock clocks (sadface)
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H (asus z87-a was out of stock, sigh at no 3pin fan control)
Thermalright Silver Arrow Extreme (that thing is huge!)
Gigabyte 760 (windforce cooler is awesome)
Samsung 830 256GB
WD caviar blue 500GB
XFX 550W
8GB patriot 1600 CL9 (yay for the only <30mm RAM available)
CM HAF 912 advanced with an extra 140mm scythe glider fan on the side

Cable management could be done better but I couldn't be arsed to. On the image it looks pretty messy on the right, but that's because I removed the HDD cage usually standing there.

http://i.imgur.com/mW4Vk2S.jpg linking because the image turns out huge as well.

Will report back as soon as I'm done downloading Windows (lol at me for losing the disk) with overclocking results.

- - - Updated - - -

Managed to get 4.5 with 1.25V, going 4.6 requires 1.3V and on air it pushes high 80's/low 90's on AIDA64, so decided not to go for it. Temps are high 70's/low 80's and cache got 1:1 after I settled down for 4.5 with no voltage change.

Overclocking GPU here I come, then I'll fine tune the CPU by lowering voltage.

[Deleted]

http://i.imgur.com/mW4Vk2S.jpg linking because the image turns out huge as well.

Add the letter "L" at the end of the image name, like this: http://i.imgur.com/mW4Vk2Sl.jpg

[Xuvial]

650 PSU

That's a 750w :P
Nice build, plenty of expansion and OC room. But I'd probably start saving for better peripherals (audio/mouse/kb/etc), if you do a ton of gaming then having great peripherals can make a difference :P

<snip>

Will post picture of my screens later
Waterblocks for Titan soon.

i7 3930k 4.965 GHz | 3x GTX Titan @ 1245Mhz | 6x Vertex 4 256GB RAID 0 | 4x Vertex 4 RAID 1 | 3xWD Green 3TB extern RAID BOX | MSI Big Bang-XPower II | Case 900D | 3x BenQ XL2720T 120Hz | Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3 2400MHz@ 2495 4x8GB (32GB) | Corsair AX 1200i | Asus Xonar Essence STX | DT990 250Ω | Ducky G2Pro Tenkeyless MX Red PBT White engraved | Corepad XXXL | Watercooling 480+360+250mm-RES

Pfffft we don't have time for low-end budget builds like these.

But in all seriousness whoaaaaaaaa yeah I think this is our most extreme build so far. Especially the peripherals, good god, 3x27" 120hz? Would LOVE to see what your desk looks like

[Fluorescent0]

Managed to get 4.5 with 1.25V, going 4.6 requires 1.3V and on air it pushes high 80's/low 90's on AIDA64, so decided not to go for it. Temps are high 70's/low 80's and cache got 1:1 after I settled down for 4.5 with no voltage change.

Overclocking GPU here I come, then I'll fine tune the CPU by lowering voltage.

Fine tuning only brought down voltage to 1.24, aww.

On the upper side, I did a 50mhz core 600mhz memory GPU overclock with the card sitting on 74°C. Planning to leave it like that.

Oh, and thanks Marest for that. <3

[Shyzhi]

My current PC setup (no pictures as i hate it so much atm...) overheating and just being a bastard... gonna order a new PC agian in a month or so.. (this one was made in june THIS year.. lol)


CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
CPU Cooler - Akasa Venom CPU Cooler
Mobo - MSI B75A-G43
Ram - 8GB DDR3 Mushkin
GPU - XFX 7870 DD Twin Fan (Overheats like FUCK!)
PSU - 650W XFX Pro XXX Edition
Case - Zalman Z5

already saving for a new PC.. think i might go nvidia this time. no idea why the card is over heating, had one break after like 3 weeks, this one gets so hot it forces my PC to restart... (like 87degrees in sleeping dogs) play for 5mins and poof, PC goes off. Refunding it and probs getting a 660TI or SC or somthing...

Give me till the end of september and i will probs post a white and black (and some red..) themed PC im working on now lol

[jmt]

My current PC setup (no pictures as i hate it so much atm...) overheating and just being a bastard... gonna order a new PC agian in a month or so.. (this one was made in june THIS year.. lol)


CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
CPU Cooler - Akasa Venom CPU Cooler
Mobo - MSI B75A-G43
Ram - 8GB DDR3 Mushkin
GPU - XFX 7870 DD Twin Fan (Overheats like FUCK!)
PSU - 650W XFX Pro XXX Edition
Case - Zalman Z5

already saving for a new PC.. think i might go nvidia this time. no idea why the card is over heating, had one break after like 3 weeks, this one gets so hot it forces my PC to restart... (like 87degrees in sleeping dogs) play for 5mins and poof, PC goes off. Refunding it and probs getting a 660TI or SC or somthing...

Give me till the end of september and i will probs post a white and black (and some red..) themed PC im working on now lol

I hate to hear that about your card. You could download MSI Afterburner and under volt/clock it. It will decease the performance, but it should remain cool enough to allow you to play games.

[Shyzhi]

Decent gaming rig. Overheating? That can be fixed. You probably have bad airflow or something, parts just don't overheat.

i got 2 front fans pulling air in, a back fan pulling air in what is hitting my CPU cooler so i turned my CPU fan aroundf to blow air ONTO my GPU, and 2 fans at top to get rid of hot air. ofc the air coming from my CPU is probs kinda warm. but.. thought it might help. might get a house fan on it tomorrow wanna finish sleeping dogs before i get rid of it :P

[Fluorescent0]

i got 2 front fans pulling air in, a back fan pulling air in what is hitting my CPU cooler so i turned my CPU fan aroundf to blow air ONTO my GPU, and 2 fans at top to get rid of hot air. ofc the air coming from my CPU is probs kinda warm. but.. thought it might help. might get a house fan on it tomorrow wanna finish sleeping dogs before i get rid of it :P

The problem in that configuration is that you're creating turbulences right onto your graphics card. Get the rear case fan to blow air out and the CPU fans back to normal (blowing air from the front to the back of the case). Try and see if there's any dust buildup inside your GPU heatsink.

[Xuvial]

Decent gaming rig. Overheating? That can be fixed. You probably have bad airflow or something, parts just don't overheat.

The problem in that configuration is that you're creating turbulences right onto your graphics card. Get the rear case fan to blow air out and the CPU fans back to normal (blowing air from the front to the back of the case). Try and see if there's any dust buildup inside your GPU heatsink.

Guys none of that really explains/solves why an XFX Double-D 7870 (2 fans) would hit 87c. Even if you unplugged all case fans it shouldn't hit that temp due to being a very low-power midrange GPU. There is something very wrong with his card. Maybe the temperature sensor has gone haywire and is giving wrong readings, maybe the heatsink has lost contact with the GPU, maybe the power delivery is borked, who knows.
I seriously doubt it's airflow or dust build-up, unless he lives in the middle of a desert :P

But anyway this is going off-topic

Give me till the end of september and i will probs post a white and black (and some red..) themed PC im working on now lol

Alaska Venom uses yellow fans doesn't it? :P