Hello,

Since I'm new to this forum, I'll introduce myself first: I'm Miguel, 28 years old, I live in Portugal and I'm currently studying for a Master in Physics.

I have following system which was bought wanting already a silent system (within limited budget):

Case: Antec NSK 3480 with PSU EarthWatts 380W.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 720
Mobo: ASRock A790GXH/128M (1x PWM fan controller for CPU fan)
HDD: Samsung HD502HI EcoGreen
Cooling: 120mm Tricooler that came with case
AMD original cooler

I want to do some changes in order to make the system quieter, for now I was planning of:

1- getting a good cooler, probably with a 120mm fan. For the moment I'm not OCing and the temps go rather low (~40º core temp.). So I was wondering whether it was possible to have a passive cooler. Nevertheless I would always need a cooler that allowed for installing a fan, as I'm also planning to OC.

2- Replace case fan.

3- Replace PSU fan.

What would you recommend for 1 and 2?

I'm was also thinking to block lateral airways, and to put dust filters in all of them since it a gets a lot of it. Would this have major impact on the cooling (considering that the dust filters are cleaned frequently). Do you recommend any supplier of these?

Thanks in advance

Hi salparadise, Welcome to SPCR!
On a budget I would try Xigmatek S963 It’s low cost, light weight and, seems to me in my limited testing, very effective cooler. In UK its ~£15 and I don’t know of a more effective cooler for less! The larger S1283 isn’t much more money and maybe of interest if you want to overclock or have high ambient temps.
The minimum fan speed is 1200-1300rpm which is fairly quiet. If it’s not quiet enough for you I can recommend an Arctic Cooling F9 PWM fan. It’s cheap, has good noise signature and runs down to ~600rpm which is very quiet and up to ~1800rpm that should be enough for almost any CPU with the S963. Don’t know about the fan on the S1283, there is an F12 PWM too though.
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 is also reported to be good and inexpensive.
Scythe PWM fans are reported to be good, come in 120mm and 92mm sizes.

If the PSU fan bothers you could try a fan swap, I’ve had good results with Noctua R8 (expensive), Sharkoon “golfballâ€

Hi Seb,

Thanks for your input. I was looking at the Xigmatek S1283 and the Cooler Master Hyper 212 coolers, I could get either of them around the same price.

I was wondering these woud "comfortably" fit in my case. The processor in my mobo is placed not so far from the top compartiment of the case.

Also if I understood well, for both thes coolers you recommend to upgrade the fan, right?

I was looking at the Artic Cooling F12 PWM, and specially liked the feature to have two fans connected to a single PWM interface (and my mobo only has one). Does anyone knows whether this works well, isn't it an excessive overload to the single PWM port?

Between the Artic Cooling F12 and Scythe Kama 120mm, which one has the best performance quiet/air flow?

Thanks

Any other comments or recomendations are more than welcome.