Have Liquid Coolers Become as Quiet as Air Coolers?

Cooling Processors quietly

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
whispercat
Posts: 376
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:05 pm
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada

Have Liquid Coolers Become as Quiet as Air Coolers?

Post by whispercat » Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:02 am

Just saw the new CPU cooler test round up on Tech Buyer Guru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHw4_jiJQO8

Apparently the Arctic Liquid Freezer II beat the high end Noctuas and Fuma for temp and noise.

Japanese Capacitor
Posts: 360
Joined: Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:16 am
Location: Warszawa, Poland

Re: Have Liquid Coolers Become as Quiet as Air Coolers?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:51 am

If I remember well, on Gamers Nexus charts the differences between Freezer 360, D15 and Fuma 2 are even more spectacular and generally F360 is the quietest cooling solution on the market. But it all look most amazing on hot CPUs and during stress tests. I think the reality is more complicated and more about configurations and real-life usage. F360 can be the best option for hottest, heavily overclocked CPUs, but it wouldn't be quietest option for my computer. I would need to place it on top of my case, so use alternative perforated top instead of solid, sound-dampening one - just only this top is like silence breaker, with AiO under it would be even worse. I wouldn't like to mount AiO on the front of the case, because it means weaker GPU temps and GPU is the most noticeable component of my rig. On my non-overclocked yet 9700K sits much weaker and less efficient Ninja 5. Under mentioned solid top it keeps my CPU in harshest games under 70C with speed of both fans under 700 rpm. When sitting next to computer as I normally do, having my head 50 cm from it, 650 rpm is the speed, when I'm just able to notice Ninja's fans sound and it's when all of the components are inaudible - no load scenario. I checked it, because situation like this never happens. With quietest 360 and perforated top installed my pc would be just louder all the time.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Have Liquid Coolers Become as Quiet as Air Coolers?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 27, 2021 2:44 pm

Note his test system has a noise floor of 30dB. So, we really don't know what is happening noise-wise below 120W CPU load.

Japanese Capacitor
Posts: 360
Joined: Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:16 am
Location: Warszawa, Poland

Re: Have Liquid Coolers Become as Quiet as Air Coolers?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sat Feb 27, 2021 3:50 pm

Freezers are all about extraordinary thick radiator combined with amazingly performing P fans. Other AiOs tend to be thinner and don't have such good fans in terms of balance of performance and noise. It's worth to add, that producers of best performing radiator fans don't produce or now have in offer AiOs with them. Around May last year be quiet! worker told me about few new additions coming till the end of the year (2020) and only one left, so delayed is next iteration of Silent Loop. He told me, that first comes Pure Loop as new, budget friendly, but quality alternative to Freezer and after a while they'll attack with their flaghship. If they equip it with Silent Wings 3 fans, it will be damn good. But I suspect it in the end still won't beat Arctic's thickness and superior fans.

So my answer to the title question is - it depends ;) For me no. Example of my config was to show, that even going with quietest AiO, you can increase noise of whole computer, so possibly fail. But if we don't count bulky Freezer as exception, we can answer yes - the AiO(s) even give opportunity to outperform best aircoolers in terms of both lower noise and temps.

Post Reply