Quietest cpu air cooler and quietest psu

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Lars01

Lars01

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Need the quietest cpu air cooler i can get for a i5 6600k / i7 6700k

I have looked at Noctua nh d15, noctua nh d14, and bequiet dark rock pro 3, but i dont know what is the quietest.

I also need the quietest psu i can get. I have been looking at Corsair rm850i and BeQuiet dark power p11 850w.

I will be using the pc for gaming.

The components:

Fractal design r5
Asus z170-a
Hyperx savage 2666 mhz ddr4
Samsung 850 evo 500gb
Msi gtx 970 4gb gaming
I5 6600k / i7 6700k (i dont know what to get for gaming)
Cpu cooler (dont know, i want the quietest one, i think it is Noctua nh d14 or BeQuiet dark rock pro 3 though.
Psu: I want the quietest one

Thanks:D
 
Solution
Epsilon_0EVP
There is no single GPU card in existence today that cannot run off a Seasonic 500W unit. Pascal is very unlikely to change that. The massive die shrink means that efficiency will go way up for next years graphics cards, so it is highly unlikely we'll see a 350W monster that will make 500W PSUs insufficient. If you want quiet, you need to go fanless; everything else is going to be a compromise.

For the CPU cooler, don't forget to consider CLC coolers. Some of them have pumps noticeably quieter than a fan, and although some may come with cheap fans that do make noise that is an easy problem to solve.
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Dark Lord of Tech

Dark Lord of Tech

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: CRYORIG R1 Universal 76.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $199.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-04 19:19 EST-0500

CRYORIG R1 Universal


CRYORIG R1 Universal CPU Cooler

6r12co.jpg


Unmatched Compatibility
Zero RAM Interference

Focusing on providing the widest range of compatibility, the R1 utilizes an asymmetric slanted heatpipe layout to move the front heatsink fin stack further away from the RAM zone. Also, fitted with a 13mm thin XT140 the CRYORIG R1 offers optimal compatibility for RAM with tall heat spreaders on both Intel (115X/1366/775) and AMD platforms.

http://www.cryorig.com/r1-universal.php
Home page for all the specs and info ^

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7039/cryorig-r1-universal-cpu-cooler-review/index7.html
Tweaktown Review
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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You can go with a fanless PSU for ultimate noise control. You need to plan the airflow well, but Seasonic makes several very good fanless units around 500W, which is more than enough for your system. Be prepared to pay a lot for it, though.

You probably don't want to go fanless for the CPU cooler; the 6600K makes too much heat for that. There are fanless CPU coolers that will physically fit, but they won't be able to keep thermals in check.
 
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Lars01

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'Sorry man, fanless psuis to much hassle. I am going to upgrade to a high end pascal card when it comes out too. So 500 watts is to scary. i want a QUIET psu, but i dont know what to get. I have been looking at Corsair rm 850i, and BeQuiet Dark Power p11.

For the cpu cooler i have came down to two coolers, the noctua nh d14 and the BeQuiet Dark rock pro 3. I think these coolers are the quietest you can get for a i5 6600k / i7 6700k, but i dont know. I just beed to know these things, so that i can build my pc!:)

Btw blackbird 71, that cyroig cooler is not the quietest, i think.
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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There is no single GPU card in existence today that cannot run off a Seasonic 500W unit. Pascal is very unlikely to change that. The massive die shrink means that efficiency will go way up for next years graphics cards, so it is highly unlikely we'll see a 350W monster that will make 500W PSUs insufficient. If you want quiet, you need to go fanless; everything else is going to be a compromise.

For the CPU cooler, don't forget to consider CLC coolers. Some of them have pumps noticeably quieter than a fan, and although some may come with cheap fans that do make noise that is an easy problem to solve.
 
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Solution
Lars01

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So a be quiet Dark power p11 is not "quiet"? Or a "Corsair rm850i"? I am scared to go with a fanless.. You said that you need to make the airflow in the case good, so i will need more fans and turn the speed up that will make it noisy. Btw, i am going to use a fractal design r5.
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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There will generally be enough airflow if you already have a few fans moving some air. The fanless Seasonic units are basically an 800W Platinum PSU that is limited to only run at around 500W. Because of this, it runs at a higher efficiency and produces much less heat. As long as your case doesn't let the air around the PSU stagnate, it should be just fine.

As for the quality of the Seasonic 520W, Seasonic makes some of the best PSU's you can buy. To get better stuff you pretty much have to go with some of the enterprise level units they use on servers. There are other fanless power supplies you can also get from other companies; Silverstone seems to also make a fanless unit, as well as Superflower (although Superflower doesn't sell their PSU's directly in the US).

I wasn't even aware of coil whine being an issue in PSU's, but it makes perfect sense now that I think about it. Some quick googling suggests that some of these PSU's have been reported to have some coil whine, but it seems to also relate to the power system of the motherboard. In the worst case, a quality PSU from the manufacturers I listed shouldn't normally be strained enough to make noises at idle, and when gaming the sounds should drown out what little noise might get made.
 
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Lars01

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I found out that the psu with coil whine was the Seasonic platinum 520w fanless:/

What psu should i go for? A BeQuiet Dark power p11 850w? Would i hear it? Is the BeQuiet Dark power p11 850 quieter Than a Corsair rm850i?
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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You know that the noise from a fan is likely to be much louder than any coil whine produced by the PSU, right? And again, since coil whine only happens when you push the hardware, it is unlikely you'd ever hear it over whatever else is going on in your computer. And finally, I already mentioned two other fanless PSU's you can also consider, which will again be quieter than any PSU that does have a fan.

If you do decide to go with either one of the two units you mentioned, based on these reviews (be quiet!, Corsair), the be quiet! unit is slightly quieter, but they are both below the threshold of importance. I did link to the 750W version of the RM850i, but they should be using a very similar fan. Any significantly powerful graphics card will usually output more than 30dB, drowning out both of these PSUs. Also remember that if you find results from another site to compare, there is no standard way of measuring noise levels, so you can't just use the results from another site.
 
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Lars01

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I am very thankful that you answer my question's, just as you know :)

Since the Seasonic 520w platinum fanless have buzzing sounds, i reasearched a little and found Silverstone Tek Nightjar Series 520W Completely Fanless 80PLUS Platinum.

Is this a good psu? It has good rewievs, but it has only four reviews on newegg though, and that scares me a little

I am scared If it has enough wattage though. Because i am going to upgrade my gtx 970 to a Pascal gpu that is on the same level as a gtx 980 ti. If i say that i have a i7 6700k and a gtx 980 ti could this psu run that build?


And btw dude. I can't choose between i5 6600k, i7 6700, and i7 6700k.
I am going to use a BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 Cooler, because that is the quietest cooler, i think. It is quieter Than the noctua nh d14 right?

I dont know If the Dark rock pro 3 could cool a i7 6700k though. Since the i5 6600k and i7 6700 have lower power consumption, would they run quieter with a Dark rock pro 3?

I really want the i7 6700k, but i am afraid that i need to have higher fan speed If i use that cpu, is that right?

.
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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The Silverstone Nightjar 520W is actually based on the Seasonic PSU. Silverstone might do additional quality control, but it should be a very similar PSU. Again, though, I would be extremely surprised if you were able to notice any noise being emitted by these PSU's, and both Seasonic and Silverstone are very well-regarded manufacturers with excellent quality and good support.

Let's do some quick math to figure out your power needs. We can use the TDP to approximate the power consumption of your system (it's not a precise approximation, but it's a good "worst case" number to go by). The 980 Ti has a 250W TDP, while the 6700K is 91W. Even if we add 100W for the motherboard, hard drive and fans (which is a lot), the total power consumption is still under 450W. So even at full load in an unrealistic test scenario the machine is unlikely to max out a 500W PSU. If you decide to ever put in another GPU for SLI, then we do need a bigger PSU, but otherwise 500W is more than enough.

Also take into account that the Pascal GPU's are going to be made on a much smaller processing node, as I've mentioned before. The power consumption of these cards is likely to go way down, so it is unlikely we will see a card with a higher power consumption than the 980 Ti.

I unfortunately do not have a lot of information about the be quiet! Dark Rock cooler, and it is hard to compare data from different sites because they all record their data differently and in different scenarios.

However, the be quiet! cooler should be more than sufficient for cooling even a 6700K. It is rated at a max TDP of 250W, so you won't have much trouble cooling the 90W 6700K. If you are still concerned, you can consider getting the 6700T instead. It is much less aggressively clocked, so you may notice it being a bit slower than a 6700K, and you cannot overclock, but the TDP is only 35W, which is easily handled by any decent cooler. It would even allow you to use a fanless CPU cooler, if you wanted to go to the extreme for silence.
 
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Lars01

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Okay, i think i have decided to get the silverstone fanless psu, but on their website they say it is a psu for htpc's? My pc is going to be a gaming pc.

They do not sell I7 6700t in norway:/ But what about a i7 6700 (non k) ? It is 65w tdp instead of the 91 watt tdp i7 6700k. I dont think that i am going to iverclock if i had a k version anyway though. It is a little bit slower, but i think that i want notice a difference, right?

Can a Nofan cr 95c cool a i7 6700? And which is better, the nofan cr95c black pearl or the kopper?

How would it go with a fanless cpu cooler and a fanless cpu in a fractal design r5 case? I probably need to open the vents on the top of the case, to let the airflow out from the cr95c? I am planning to use two fans in the front and one fan in the back.

Lars
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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They market it for HTPC's because that is one of the places where you want an extremely quiet PSU. But I already showed you that a 520W PSU is more than enough for a 980 Ti and 6700K. It still has 2 of the 8-pin PCI-E connectors, and it can power up to 4 SATA drives. Sure, it doesn't have as many connectors as other PSU's, but we don't even really need them, anyway.

That's too bad, the 6700T would have been interesting. The 6700 is not a bad alternative, though; I didn't know it had a 65W TDP, which is very good if you want to keep your machine quieter. They are able to do that because the CPU is clocked at 3.4GHz instead of 4.0GHz (with a turbo speed of 4.0GHz instead of 4.2GHz). So, as you guessed, it will be slightly slower than the 6700K, and you will not be able to overclock the difference. But it won't be a difference you'll be able to measure in most cases anyway, so I think the 6700 is still a good buy for you.

Going with a fanless CPU cooler can be a bit tricky; that's why I didn't suggest it at first. But we can still try to do it. Your hardware won't fry itself (they have a lot of protections to prevent that), but it will probably throttle more regularly, possibly losing some performance.

In theory, the CR-95C should be able to handle the 6700; it's rated for up to 95W, after all. However, you do need to help these fanless coolers as much as possible. You'll definitely want to open the top vents, as you said, to help get hot air out. The fans in the front and back are also good; two intake at the front and an exhaust at the back should produce a good amount of airflow, while maintaining positive pressure to avoid dust. Also, remember that this cooler is very large; you'll need to use a motherboard that lets you put the graphics card in the second slot, and make sure that your RAM is as short as possible. The FD R5 should have enough room for it, though, at least from what I can see. As for the finish, I believe it is purely aesthetical; the cooler is made of copper regardless of the version you buy, it's just the surface that gets nickel-plated.

If you really want to go through with the fanless cooler, it will have quite a few unique challenges. But if you make it through, it'll be one sweet, silent machine :)
 
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Lars01

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Lars01

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Thanks dude!

But instead of having to loose performance and good cooling, i have concluded that i am going to drill a hole through the wall, and set the pc on the other side of the wall, so that i get complete silence. I have never thought of this thought before, and that is wierd, haha.

I can then have a psu with a fan, and a cpu cooler with fans:) So i need a recomendation, which cpu cooler should i get, and which psu shpuld i get? I still want to make it to a silent pc though, but i dont need it to be a completely silent pc if you know what i mean:)

Should i get the Dark rock pro 3 cooler, noctua nh d14, or noctua nh d15? i want good cooling, and at the same time silence. I have heard that the noctua nh d15 can be noisy? i am going to use either a i5 6600k or a i7 6700k. btw, which cpu would you get for gaming? I can see that the i5 6600k can have like 30 fps less sometimes.

For the psu, i am thinking of getting a BeQuiet! dark power pro 11 850w, because it is the most silent high wattage psu out
there :D
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

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That's probably the easier solution if you want silence :) I should have thought of that as well; I'm planning on doing something like that eventually.

I have yet to see anyone say that a Noctua cooler is noisy. Sure, they make some noise, but hardly anything in comparison to the competition. The be quiet! coolers are in a similar situation. It's really hard to make a decision between those three coolers. I think the easiest way to decide might be which one is cheaper for you.

For gaming, the 6600k is usually more than enough. I have never seen a game that has a 30fps difference between the 6600K and the 6700K. I wouldn't mind if you showed me any link that does show that difference. Very few games can take advantage of the extra threading on the 6700K, so if you can see a big difference between the two CPU's it will usually be in a very contrived scenario made to exaggerate the difference between the CPU's. It's highly unlikely you'll see a lot of those in regular gaming.

The be quiet! unit is a great unit, so it is definitely a good choice. You don't really need 850W, though, so you could save a lot of money by going with a cheaper, lower power unit that is still very high quality. However, having more power does have two advantages: the unit is less likely to have to turn on its fan (so it's quieter), and it gives you headroom for overclocking and maybe adding a second card in the future.
 
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Lars01

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Here is the link:) ---> http://youtu.be/EhaB1dqYv_I

Especialy in Witcher 3 and far cry 4 it can get up to a 30 fps difference (mostly far cry 4) I guess games are slowly taking advantage of hyperthreading?

The Noctua nh d14 is the qheapest of the three coolers, but the differences is so minimal that i cant choose it from the price, which would you go for? I dont know if BeQuiet! dark rock pro 3 can cool the i7 6700k though.. I do not. know if i am right, but is the dark rock pro 3 the quietest cooler of those three coolers?

Yeah, i know, 850w is probably overkill. But why not right?:) I am going for the BeQuiet dark power p11 850w anyway, maybe i will sli some day, you never know :D

So now, it is just the cpu cooler and the cpu left, hmmm. The price dufference between the i5 and i7 is quite big actually. The i5 6600k is 2600 nok (norwegian kroner) and the i7 6700k is 3900 nok (norwegian kroner), you can concert the price from nok to usd on the internet, but you probably know that, haha :lol:

So, if i go with the i7 6700k, i dont see the need to overclock before in a couple of years, i would have it longer than if i bought the i5 6600k, more fps and more stable fps.

If i go with the i5 6600k, i would pay less, that is tje only upside why i should go with the i5 6600k though.

Greetings from Norway :lol:
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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That's a rather interesting video. Thanks for providing the link.

However, consider two things from the video: 1) The settings used were designed to exaggerate differences in CPU performance. So the difference in most scenarios will be smaller. 2) Even when the 6600K was 30fps slower in FC4, it was still well above 60fps, generally at about 80fps. If you have a high refresh-rate screen, then this can be important. But most people still have 60Hz, which makes these dips not nearly as problematic as the number might suggest.

The question of which CPU to go with then becomes very difficult to answer. It does seem like we are seeing more and more mutithreading support, so getting the i7 right now is not be a terrible idea. On the other hand, you can save with the i5, and since Intel will still make at least one more generation of CPU's for the Z170 platform, you have plenty of time to save up and upgrade to an i7 later.

As for the cooler, the Dark Rock Pro 3 should also have no issue cooling either of these CPU's, same as the Noctua coolers. They're all designed to be extreme cooling solutions, so they will be more than sufficient for this usage. According to this review, the Noctua performs slightly better, but the Dark Rock is in fact slightly quieter. Since either cooler should be able to keep temps under control and you want as silent a machine as possible, the Dark Rock is probably the better choice. Then again, since you did decide to move the computer to another room, maybe going for the cheaper Noctua cooler wouldn't be a bad idea; 33.6dB is still barely audible, anyway.
 
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Lars01

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Ok thanks, when Pascal comes out i am going to upgrade to a 1080p / 1440p 144hz gsync screen, so i may get the 6700k? Or should i buy a 6600k and upgrade when the "new" skylake chips comes out? It would be expensive and a bader option, wouldn't it? Should'nt i go right on the 6700k now? :)

You have convinced me, i am going with the Dark rock pro 3 because Hyperx Savage 2666 MHz ddr4 ram fits under the Cooler:)

I bought Hyperx savage 2666 MHz ddr4 XMP 2x8 gb on black friday for the same price as Corsair vengeance xlp 2x8 gb 2400mhz ddr4. I bought the Corsair ram also because i was going to go with a nh d15, until i desided now to go with th Dark rock pro 3. Which would you choose?
 
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Epsilon_0EVP

Epsilon_0EVP

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Sorry for the delay in response.

If you have the extra money right now, then going with a 6700k wouldn't be a bad idea, specially since you do plan to get a high-refresh rate screen later.

The difference between those two sets of RAM will be almost completely negligible. Even if the HyperX RAM is slightly faster, you'll rarely be able to tell the difference. Since you already have them, though, you can just keep the slightly faster RAM, just in case. Both manufacturers are very good, so the likelihood of a bad stick is low.
 
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