Good cooler that is not too loud

blatantrereg

I have a frio at the moment, which is very good at cooling, but also sounds a little like a jet engine. I think I will replace it with something quieter. Any recommendations? Dont want to spend a bomb or anything?

Other spec:

MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk - Graphics adapter - GF GTX 560 Ti - PCI Express 2.0 x16 - 1 GB GDDR5 - DVI,

Sony Optiarc DVD±RW burner AD-5260S Black 24x (DVD±R) - S-ATA - internal - 5.25"

Samsung Spinpoint F4EG 2TB SATA II, 5400RPM, 32MB Buffer

ASUS P8P67 LE B3 Revision - Motherboard - ATX - LGA1155 Socket - iP67 - USB 3.0, FireWire -

Corsair XMS3 - Memory - 8 GB : 2 x 4 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3 - 1333 MHz / PC3-10600 - CL9 - 1.5

Zalman PSU 600W Ultra Silent SLI

Antec Three Hundred - EU - Tower - ATX - no power supply - sleek black - USB/Audio

Processor - 1 x Intel Core i7 2600K / 3.4 GHz -

OCZ Agility SSD 120GB

Eboggles

If you want silent, you need water cooling.

Otherwise something like the Noctua NH-D14 which is around €75.

Brian

Scythe Mugen III: http://www1.hardwareversand.de/Intel+AMD/49134/Scythe+Mugen+3%2C+f%C3%BCr+alle+Sockel+geeignet.article

Dropped my CPU idle by 10-15C and inaudible even when loaded.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lga-1156-heatsink,2535-14.html

I actually bought mine from here, but hwvs would work out cheaper it seems, but I will say that QuietPC's customer care was great. http://www.quietpc.com/products/fm1-coolers/mugen3

blatantrereg

what about this? -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CWCH60-Water-Cooler/dp/B004MYFOE2/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

VenomIreland

Brian wrote: »

Scythe Mugen III: http://www1.hardwareversand.de/Intel+AMD/49134/Scythe+Mugen+3%2C+f%C3%BCr+alle+Sockel+geeignet.article

Dropped my CPU idle by 10-15C and inaudible even when loaded.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lga-1156-heatsink,2535-14.html

I actually bought mine from here, but hwvs would work out cheaper it seems, but I will say that QuietPC's customer care was great. http://www.quietpc.com/products/fm1-coolers/mugen3

+1 for the Mugen 3, I have one in mine and it's totally silent (shame the graphics cards aren't silent)

downwithpeace

I use the Corsair H50 with a single 1900rpm fan and it's quiet enough, bit on the costly side but well worth it. As posted above the H60, newer and possibly better model.

Tea_Bag

before spending any money, try to customize your fan profiles in your bios.

Im not sure how it works for Asus boards, but set a target temp of about 55C on the CPU and a target fan speed of 1 (goes up in steps of 1 through 9 probably, with 9 being max) do the same for the chassis fans.

I'm basing this on how it works for asrock boards, but I've managed to get even the cheapest 15e xigmatech Loki to behave itself.

run Intel burn test and furmark at the same time to get an idea of how toasty it'll ever get in games etc.

Monotype

Asus have always been fairly shoddy with fan controls. However, speed fan usually works but takes a bit of tweaking and figuring out which setting belongs to which fan.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

blatantrereg

The case fans are grand really. The Frio is particularly loud, and it has a manual controller (which is inside the case) - doesnt change speed automatically at all. It's still very loud even at a 50% or so setting. I think I'll get either the Mugen 3 or the corsair easy watercooling one. Surprised how unimpressive the tests for the Frio are in that link. In most things I've read it performs very well (just loudly).

edit: Probably the Corsair one, since the Mugen is a bit big in the small case it seems (does fit - but things are pretty crammed in already)

uncle_sam_ie

+1 for the Noctua NH-D14 it's a quality product and very quiet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKHRPJfZ5Y8

Sup08

As above, I went for the Corsair H60 (Waiting on delivery of mine) and is only €69 with komplett and free delivery.

blatantrereg

I stalled replacing the cooler because the noise levels generally quoted online seemed low for the frio in comparison to the noise of my own box. I realised what was happening to create the excessive noise. The fans of the frio were blowing directly behind a case fan, and through the same vent. Because the case fan and the cooler were blowing at significantly different speeds, it created a howling effect. By adjusting the frio to a certain level this howling noise was eliminated, and now the noise level is more normal, and no problem with the heat level as of yet.

I had already changed the speed of the frio without sufficient effect. However the controller is manual and is inside my case, so that was why I had not already discovered this.