Hi!

What's more important to you, that your components run cooler or that your environment is warmer, but still at a safe temp gaining silence?

- LodeHacker

I bet most people here have their computers cooler and quieter than random users.

Myself, I've reached both goals by putting the computer in a walk-in closet using 5 meter long Dual Link DVI cable, and a bunch of PS/2 and usb extension cables.

However, the closet is just 1m^2, and even though it has a forced air circulation vent in it, the closet does heat up somewhat when the door is closed. So I guess quiet is more important to me. Although another benefit is that my office room's floor is very tidy because the computer is out of the way.

Silence is the #1 priority for me. I don't think I've scarified temps or performance, though. Only money and time.

Especially for my non-SSD hard drive, I'm not really keen on having a high temperature. My last build went up to nearly 50° C under load, and that is too much for a HDD IMO. Right now, I get 35° C idle, a little under 40° C at load on the harddrive. My CPU seems to hoover around 40° C idle (by lm-sensors, Real Temp gives me about 5° C lower) and the Geforce 6600 is at 60° C idle.

Both.

Or should I be happy with loud stock oem pc's, with poor airflow over the hdd? (gee why does my hard drive always fail right after the pc's warranty expires?)

Silence is more important, but generally i wont accept silence if the temps are higher than with the stock cooler (which will usually be just enough to keep the componant within safe ranges to keep costs down). My CPU runs 10c cooler with a passive ninja compared to the stock cooler, and my GPU runs a satisfying 40c cooler with a S1 and a 500rpm slipstream while being effectively silent.

These days its relatively easy to cool the main parts very quietly or passively at much cooler temps than stock coolers offer, if you know what your looking for.

Both are important. Nowadays though, it isn't hard to get the proper coolers to ensure silence as well as good temps, but it usually means shifting away from using stock coolers.

Hi,

As others have said, this is not an either/or question -- you can have completely "safe" temperatures in a very quiet or near silent computer.

iMac's are extremely quiet and perfectly safe, as well.

I really don't care what my temps are, as long as it's inaudible and stable. So what if it shortens the lifespan of the components? Even if it were to do it by half, I upgrade everything on a 2 year cycle anyway. I usually just hand down the components to family members where they will have a very easy retirement.

The only thing that worries my is loosing my Antec 500 because I love it , it's been faultless and it's quite expensive to replace. Loosing the hard drive would be a pain but I have a decent back-up system anyway. And besides, I've seen various reports saying that running a hard drive at a warm temp might be better for it.

Bring on fast, reasonably sized SSDs at reasonable prices and my system won't have any moving parts

I agree with Neil, it is not one or the other, this or that. While the majority of us strive for 'silent' computing, I believe that sensible users will keep an eye on temperatures and keep them low as necessary without being obsessive about it.

This does not mean that lower necessarily means better, or lower for the sake of it. For instance, the argument has already been put forth on the forums that desktop hard drives operate better at 30º C +.

Just as a car engine does not do so well at cold temperatures, it perhaps does even worse at high temperatures. An overheated car spells trouble and expensive repairs.

So while silence is always the goal and priority, cool(er) temperatures are a must for stability, longevity and user comfort, especially in places with warmer climates and high ambient temperatures. Those who care not for cool(er) temps either place a lot of faith in their componentry to withstand the heat or they don't bother about longevity because their upgrade cycles are short.

I think it is possible to have both silence and cool, if components are chosen and set up wisely. The main culprits for heat these days are video card GPUs, feature crammed motherboard chipsets and CPUs (when stressed or overclocked). If heat output on these can be minimized, it would go further to aid silencing.

I think it is more of a Silent vs Performance. More Performance = More Power = More Heat which usually means a louder cooling solution. People chose the 4850e 45w because it is very easy to cool silently. You don't see many going out and buying a i7 965 for a quiet PC.

What I aim for is the best performance while keeping it barely audible in my HTPC.

There is no real impediment to combining quiet and cool - except many cases force you to hack them to realize a good combination.

I remember one tower case review with a possible combination of 7 120mm fans. If all fans were used, it would have to sound like a helicopter.

The last time I hacked a case for cool and quiet, I found that the major impediment to efficient front-to-back air flow was that the HD drive cage was basically an air dam. Removing the drive cage (suspending the HD) was the single most effective hack for improved air flow. Is the convenience of snap-in drive cages worth the penalty?

Multiple intake air paths seems to be a hot item in case design also, usually with only one intake filtered, usually with a high flow impedance filter. These usually provide a short-circuit air flow path to further assure that your hard drive runs hotter than necessary in hot pocket.

I still occasionally visit case reviews, but I still see the same problems that need to be resolved for best combination of cool and quiet:
- Relieve unnecessary air flow impedance, so you can;
- Run fewer or lower-speed fans.

Hope this helps!

My sig PC is below ambient unless folding across both GPUs and two instances on the CPU simultaneously. Then I start to hear the PSU fan a bit (it's the stocker, but mounted inside the p180 instead of out at the back).

The only noise that happens during "normal" usage is a very soft HDD seek click from my Samsung drive. This is only noticeable because the PC is situated 2 feet from my head at chest level.

lesson? Quiet and performance are NOT mutually exclusive.

I disagree with the posters who say there's no tradeoff between silence and temperature.
You can have a quiet and cool system, but even then there is a tradeoff. Running fans at a lower speed will reduce noise and increase temperatures. There are discontinuous things that have the same effect: turning off a fan, putting the machine/hard drive in a box, and others.
Measured in a qualitative way (quiet OR noisy, hot OR cool) there is no tradeoff but these things are quantitave.

That's one stealthy chopper!

Seven Noctua NF-S12-800 @ 200rpm (3.0V) makes a combined noise of ~0dBA, same as one such fan running at 295rpm.

Cheers
Olle

If it overheats then it shuts down and then it will be silent.
no good if it's silent, but slows down from high heat levels.

Hi Bruce,

Nobody here would consider a computer that can't keep itself safely cool, and be relatively quiet at the same time. We have figured out a few things about building computers, and having a run away thermal failure is on the list of "bad" things!

Please check out a couple of articles:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article672-page1.html

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article293-page1.html

If you want silence with super cooling the best thing you can do is get a wireless mouse and keyboard and put the tower in another room.

...and a long video cable, too, right?