Air Cooling but Silent? is it possible.

Forums › Gaming › Air Cooling but Silent? is it possible.

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#22432 28-May-2008 12:06

Hi there, i tryied the water cooling way but i wasted money and time as i did not achieve much better temperatures and leak problems Grrr.
So i have gone back to air cooling but again i remember now why i was opting for water "fans = noise" i had originally four 80mm Antec fans running at full and still my system wast hot as, my 7950gx2 card was reading 75C 65Cat idde and at full throtle playing crysis 86C 78C wow thats hot. also my CPU was running at over 40C each core AMD on idde. this is my new set up but i still have too much noise, however better cooling. i installed Three 120mm Adaptec fans $15 each on trademe, this three 120mm fans are pumping air into the case and i have one lonely 80mm running on lowest speed taking hot air out plus the psu have exoust sort of cooling pumping hot air out too. now my 7950gx2 is running at 42C 50C on iddle and 62C 72C at full throtle running Crysis. CPU 26C 25C but full load 37C 40C. will this numbers should please me or i should shuck more fans?

If anyone here have any idea what brand or type of fan will be better for keeping noise levels down. i find this Adaptec fans noisy.

Lew

tonyhughes

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#133833 28-May-2008 13:25

SilenX among others.

$15 fans are never going to give silence and good airflow.

Make sure that you are not directly sucking out the incoming cool air without it going past the CPU etc. You may just be going straight through!

geekiegeek

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#133851 28-May-2008 14:16

check out silentpcreview.com

Adamal

544 posts

Ultimate Geek

#133996 28-May-2008 22:20

I wouldn't mind finding a solution for video card cooling as well. I've got an HD3870, and when you first turn my computer on, its silent as. THEN THAT THING KICKS IN!
It honestly resembles a jet engine winding up. I'd read reviews but my god, I had no idea!

I'll possibly be looking at getting an HD4870 when they come out, as the new fan design looks like it'll be quieter, but if not, I'm definatly looking for a quieter solution!

Oh, and probably one of the best air coolers out there is the Zalman series. I think its the 9700 or something like that. Very efficient and very quiet.

redjet

299 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#134001 28-May-2008 22:37

Arctic Cooling and Zalman are two of the better brands for fan performance and low noise. Stock video card fans are usually the biggest source of noise. Your intake and exhaust fans shouldn't be that noticable - especially if you by quality. Arctic Cooling have the 8L (80mm) and 12L (120mm) case fans priced at $18 and $23 and are very quiet.

You also may want to review your PSU as well (depending on it's age) as many newer PSU's have quiet fans these days.

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Adamal

544 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134003 28-May-2008 22:39

Also, you should check out Newegg.com. They've got lots of gear, and while you might not buy stuff from there, they've got lots of user reviews on stuff. Like this for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118037

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134159 29-May-2008 14:13

Thanks guys, i'm ordering some swift spacers kit for my 7950GX2 card so i can place two zalman heatpipe coolers on will be a tight fit. also i placed four castor wheelies on my pc to raise level of the ground and with my jigsaw i cutt two 120mm holes in the bottom of the case facing directly towards the videocards. I'm using industrial strength clear mounting tape to place fans so no acustic noise also filters included to keep dust away, i also made a cardboard exoust elbow for the PSU to redirect air away from wall minimizing noise. the noise is not to bad at the moment but after half and hour of playing Crysis it builds up. GRRR.

out of curiousity i was wondering if you guys are playing this game crysis, what frame rates are you getting?

The two 120mm blue led fans look wicked but the sound is competing with the sound made by fridge. :(
I have a case with a window and with all my fans and cabling uv blue reactive and cold cathode i want to place it on the table to enjoy looking at it and showing it off but it is just to loud at the moment, definately the cheap $15 fans are way to noisy.

there is a cool website named Xoxide but they don't post to NZ, they have a fan called Hiper 120MM uv reactive with good features for only $6.49US

Features:

White Color (Which Glows Blue Under UV Lights)

9 Blades (Designed to Minimize Noise / Ripple)

Anti-Vibration Pads Included

Nylon-Covered Fan Cable

Specifications:

Dimensions: 120mm x 120mm x 25mm / 4.7" x 4.7" x 1.0"

Rated Voltage: 12VDC

Operating Voltage: 10.8~13.2VDC

AirFlow: 49.7 CFM

Air Pressure: 1.91 mmH2O

Input Current: 0.20A (Max)

Speed: 1500 RPM (+/-10%)

Noise: 19dB(A)

Lew

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redjet

299 posts

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#134167 29-May-2008 14:29

Sounds like it's going to be a sweet setup there dude!

I've got a 512mb 8800GT and Crysis played ok on it, but only at medium settings. Was an ok game but got sick of it after a while. Am playing a lot of TF2 at the moment which is wicked!

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GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134295 29-May-2008 23:09

Thanks bro, i think it will look nice but i want nearly silent if possible.
Hey i'm curious you said that you have a 512 8800GT and could only play crysis on medium really? and what framerates you get with that card. I'm still using old technology with my 7950GX2 but this card still plays ok and have limited lifetime warranty with EVGA, so if any problems i get it fix replace or upgrade. with my 7950GX2 i can play on medium and on high settings at 1600x1200 resolution however at high settings when explotion and lots of enemies i experience a bit of lag at times. at medium settings i reach average 37-49 framerates but at high settings only 23 - 35 framerates. there are some drivers that work better than others though i find XtremeG drivers better than nvidia in performance but sometimes unstable tweaks and crash game.

when i finish my project i will get some pics on my blog, I will finish uni studies this semester so i will have some more spare time on the weekends, :)

Lew

redjet

299 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#134341 30-May-2008 08:33

I can't remember what frames or resolution I got but I think it dropped me down to 1024 x 768 with medium settings even though my 22" LCD can handle 1680 x 1050. TBH it would have been my CPU that was the bottleneck- it's an Athlon X2 4400 (stock 2.2ghz) overclocked to 2.8ghz.

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GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134439 30-May-2008 14:48

could it been the cpu but wow nice OC you achieved there with the cpu, what cooler did you use? nice overclock
my cpu only running at 2.6Ghz but can crank it up to 3.2Ghz stable.

lew

redjet

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Ultimate Geek
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#134476 30-May-2008 17:23

I've got a Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro and some extremely overclockable Corsair CL4 RAM can't remember the model as it was 2 ago). Will look to go with water cooling on my next PC though.

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Adamal

544 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134535 30-May-2008 22:39

I run Crysis at Very High for everything and get about 25 - 30 FPS at best, but drops to around 15FPS when theres some heavy action.
The biggest thing you'll find is that if you want to play it in the higher detail items, don't even bother with 2GB of RAM. I started off with that, then upgraded to 4GB, as there was a lot of disk swapping. Ran a LOT better with 4GB.

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134575 31-May-2008 11:14

Adamal, are you running it on XP or Vista? and what graphic card is running it at highest settings? nice
My card can run this game on high but because of 512ram memory on each card to a wooping 1Ghz but i'm using only 2G or DDR2 ram. Maybe i need faster CPU too. I was told that this game Crysis can only be run on highest if you have vista installed as in my xp machine the highest option is not available.

Lew

Adamal

544 posts

Ultimate Geek

#134974 2-Jun-2008 16:43

I've got an MSI HD3870 factory overclocked to 800mhz (from 775mhz).
Also running Vista x64 and using an Intel E8400.

There was a very noticable increase in performance after a driver upgrade in about April (I think). But definatly getting another 2GB of RAM was the biggest factor. The final battle on the ship went from a choppy 1FPS (If I was lucky) to about 15FPS