What is the QUIETEST cpu cooler out there?

But why have a passive cooler and then case fans. The fans make the same noise no matter where they are placed but cooling would be better when on the cooler.

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Bigger fans are more efficient. Few coolers have 140mm fans. Much less 3 of them. You have to put the system at significant load to ever hear the fans at all. Now that I don't use it for gaming, 95% of the time you'd have to put your ears next to it to notice.

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FalseBuddha@reddit

How would a passively cooled computer "sound like a helicopter"? Even under load?

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Sol33t303@reddit

Case fans I guess?

OP specifically talked about CPU coolers, you can have a passive CPU cooler but still have case fans.

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FalseBuddha@reddit

Fans, even case fans, are active cooling.

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Vidimo_se@reddit

You can cool the entire PC passively. There are some crazy PC cases where the entire thing is a giant heatsink

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steevo15@reddit

I think you either misunderstood the comment, or don't know what passive cooling is.

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skyfishgoo@reddit

passive coolers depend on air flow thru the case which requires fans and more fans because you are not directly removing the heat.

and AIO directly removes the heat and exhausts it from the case with a minimum of fan noise... you only need to ramp up the case fans to maintain positive pressure.

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FalseBuddha@reddit

Fans are, by definition, active cooling.

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Original-Material301@reddit

I'm semi-passively cooling my 5600x in my media server desktop. It lives a fairly easy life.

Took the fan off my thermalright ARO M14 cooler and it's chilling at 34C idle. I do still have the bare minimum number of case fans for air flow though, but I'm pretty sure my hard drive noise is louder than the fans.

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bobsim1@reddit

My hard drives are also louder than my fans. Though it would be better to keep the coolers fan and no case fans.

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thepfy1@reddit

I can remember having a passively cooled Viglen Pentium Pro in our lab. It was always crashing. Swapping the passive heatsink to one with a fan solved the issue.

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2raysdiver@reddit

Came here to say this. Before Pentium, most CPUs just had a passive heatsink or none at all, and PC cases back then had really crappy airflow.

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DookieBowler@reddit

Sheet metal ovens you mean :P

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greggm2000@reddit

CPUs back then (and the other components) didn’t need heatsinks or fans bc they wouldn’t get hot, you didn’t need them!

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DookieBowler@reddit

They did but not near as hot as they would a few years later. They did have heatsinks and a small fan on 386+ on them. I'm pretty sure the trash 80 had a fan as well

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greggm2000@reddit

Either you or I are misremembering, I don’t remember a heatsink or fan on any computers I owned back in the 80s or 90s… but, that’s not to say that there weren’t some systems that may have used one. The Apple 2, IBM XT, Amiga, Atari ST, Mac all didn’t have them. It’s only this century that they’ve become commonplace and necessary on most modern consumer systems.

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DookieBowler@reddit

My 386sx had a heatsink and tiny fan and it was stock purchased at Sam's. I was a tech fixing 486dx2 and pentium 60s in the 90s that definitely took heatsinks and some had fans (dx4 all had hs+fan and gateway dx2's did). Used to be a super pain in the ass because some manufacturers epoxied them on.

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Hatta00@reddit

No fans on any TRS-80, or any other 8-bit that I'm aware of.

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DookieBowler@reddit

I only worked on 1 and it was so long ago. It was definitely a radio shack model but it was my uncles pc and he might have customized it before I got it. I really got into it when I had a 386sx and know it had a fan. It was a gold star model

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C0rona@reddit

My PC at work has some crappy 12 year old Intel CPU that's passively cooled. In fact, that PC's only fan is on its PSU, zero air circulation otherwise.

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mostrengo@reddit

The other answers are incomplete, and this is because the question itself is incomplete, because OP does not mention the application. For a power-hungry PC the answer would be the largest AIO you can fit inside the case (as shown many times by GN). If you just want a midrange CPU, the answer would be a large dual tower cooler.

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quackcow144@reddit (OP)

I will be using a 7 9800X3D

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Whomstevest@reddit

Noctua nh-p1 or other passive coolers, they aren't great at cooling though

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werther595@reddit

You could improve performance by strapping a couple of fans to that thing

/S

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quackcow144@reddit (OP)

r/FuckTheS

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werther595@reddit

Maybe.

But the level of experience is so varied in this sub, and the demographic skews toward literal-minded folks, that I thought for clarity it was best to add it here

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Pierre_1000@reddit

When I was younger I was convinced that a passive cooler with a low rpm fan would obviously be better than a normal cooler. Turns out, absolutely no! Those things are designed so differently that they don't benefit from the fan as much as classic coolers, and that makes me sooo sad!

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werther595@reddit

Right. I don't think you can really achieve passive cooling in a high-performance inside of a case. There needs to be some ambient airflow

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lichtspieler@reddit

At some point the higher amount of heat radiation will heat up other components and other hotspots like VRM, M.2, PCH etc. to critical levels and you need to ramp up case airflow so much, that the "passive" part of the CPU cooler is no longer relevant.

The elephant in the room with CPU passive / silent cooling in a gaming system, is the GPU and its up to 450/600W of heat dumped into a case, that overheats everything without propper airflow that moves, at least a part of the heat out of the case ASAP.

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BaronB@reddit

Genius!

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aVarangian@reddit

speculating from my experience, passive coolers should be fine up to 100-120w

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dabocx@reddit

Setting your fan curves correctly and not using super hot hardware is going to be a big part of it. But in general it’s probably noctua unless you get into the realm of watercooling with a huge radiator and 200rpm fans.

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quackcow144@reddit (OP)

What should I make my fan curves?

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kingeric2206@reddit

Any guides out there for recommended fan curves?

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My_Unbiased_Opinion@reddit

IMHO, you can never really get rid of pump noise. Even in my old DIY open loop, it annoyed me.

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dabocx@reddit

Look at the big mora radiator setups. People setup the rad and pump a few feet away. Not cheap to do however

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-_-RSlashFan-_-@reddit

Is this only a problem for larger coolers? i have a top-mounted corsair H100x and its been super quiet. Granted, however, i’ve never really pushed it to its limit as it’s running with a 12400F (bought in plans to upgrade the CPU soon)

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_-Hiro-_@reddit

It depends how loud the rest of your PC is and how sensitive you are to the noise, especially when idle. If your case fans are quiet enough you'll hear everything else inside.

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Scarabesque@reddit

100%

not using super hot hardware

To add to that, another thing is accepting temperatures closer to manufacturer spec instead of insisting on running unnecessarily low temps. You don't need your CPU to run at 70C all core; 90C is still well within (for example) AMD's spec (and it''ll perform up to 95C just fine).

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pm_something_u_love@reddit

I have a D15 with an i7 12700kf and I've got the fan curve set so the fan doesn't even run if it's a coolish day, for basic browsing and YouTube type usage anyway. The case fans do help but they are only running about 250 rpm in these instances.

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Popular-Analysis-127@reddit

This (adjusting fan curves).

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lcirufe@reddit

Passive cooling, but performance sucks.

Next best thing is a custom loop with multiple radiators and slow ass fans.

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Pierre_1000@reddit

But you add a pump's noise. Custom loop allow to buy a good pump that won't make too much noise but still.

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NickCharlesYT@reddit

Pump noise is frankly not a factor unless you get a badly designed one or orient it improperly so there's air trapped in the loop. I have an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 and when properly oriented you cannot hear the pump at all over the fans at low idle. But my AIO before that was some Corsair piece of crap that was indeed very noisy no matter how I oriented it. That comes down to bad pump design though. That said obviously you're going to have fan noise to deal with, and more fans than an air cooler if you go 360mm...

One benefit of water over air cooling is it takes a lot longer to saturate a radiator compared to a heatsink. This means that those bursty CPU loads won't cause the fans to spike to keep temps under control.

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UnfetteredThoughts@reddit

They're not talking about AIOs though, they're talking about custom loops.

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bagaget@reddit

https://i.imgur.com/RFFA07M.jpeg

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My_Unbiased_Opinion@reddit

Yeah. Don't go WC. You can't turn off pump noise. Air cooling is the best way if you want quiet.

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SODIUMC_@reddit

I know it’s without using one

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Abject-Difference767@reddit

Drill a hole in the wall and run your cables from the next room.

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bryan4368@reddit

That’s what I do . I run 80ft fiber optic display port cables

I play at 4K 240hz no issues

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amaROenuZ@reddit

The old server closet solution.

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Semyonov@reddit

Unironically a great answer lol

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danuser8@reddit

PC cooler fan is PWM meaning it runs at slower speeds when CPU is not under load

PC cooler fan is inside a case, which further attenuates the noise.

I would worry more about selecting the right case with right case fans than anything else

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sojojo@reddit

depends on how far you want to go, but there are a few cases out there that are entirely passively cooled i.e. with no fans at all. Here's one LTT built in. Other than possible coil whine it is completely silent.

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Slurpeddit@reddit

This was so cool to watch thanks for sharing

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sojojo@reddit

I thought so too! Happy to share it

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ZeOs-x-PUNCAKE@reddit

I’m sure it’s not the quietest thing out there, but my thermalright peerless assassin is basically inaudible and never caused me any issues. For $35 I’m extremely impressed, though it is my first build so I don’t have much to compare it to.

My case fans are 120mm be quiet!’s, which are also super quiet imo.

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kylegallas69@reddit

Triple 360mm fan AIO with Noctua fans.

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Sjcolian27@reddit

I have the NH-D15 in my rig. I have no side panels or top panels on, and I can't hear it at all.

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kwadratto@reddit

Very broad question that depends on a number of factors. I aim for silent operation and what worked for me is going overkill.

7800x3d cooled with a 360 aio. As a result pump is set to 50% (inaudible) and fans to 40%(inaudible). Set the curves to go up at 75C which never happens when gaming.

Can't hear it sittining under the desk

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Hey_man_Im_FRIENDLY@reddit

Room acoustics matter too, js.

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beirch@reddit

Excluding passive coolers, probably a 420mm AiO with Noctua fans.

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CaptMcMooney@reddit

get you a nice big aio, more surface area the better. study the reviews, get one with a super quiet pump.

I have an intel265k with a lian li aio, can only hear it run when the pc is intially booted and the fans are running full tilt

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ConsistencyWelder@reddit

Water cooling really only makes sense with Intel CPUs imho. They're not necessary with AMDs CPUs.

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AugmentedKing@reddit

Yet, because “it’s unnecessary” means that you can run the AIO at even lower pump & fans speeds at idle AND can get 3-9C cooler when noise normalized.

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CaptMcMooney@reddit

my real point was the aio is silent, not that it's overly necessary.

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Mopar_63@reddit

There is no right answer anymore as some coolers do better with AMD and some with intel. The key to quiet is running cooler so the fan does not need to ramp.

I have a $25 SI-100 that on my open air build with a 7800X3D is silent for all practical purposes at gaming loads.

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flarept1@reddit

I have a peerless assassin set as 30% at idle and I barely hear it

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Pajer0king@reddit

My Pentium 1 has a passive cooling. It s silent.

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UnCommonSense99@reddit

Passive cooler called Thors Hammer. IDK if you can still buy them new

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Piotr_Barcz@reddit

Unless you go passive (you'll make up for cooler noise with case fan noise trying to move enough air through the case to keep the thing from frying) then the Noctua DH-15 I think is generally regarded as the world's quietest cooler.

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planes01@reddit

I'll chime in with a response you intended. Be Quiet fans are the quietest fans I've found hands down. Anything with silent wings will be great

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godmademelikethis@reddit

I have the Noctua NH-U12A and I've never heard it once.

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ConsistencyWelder@reddit

My advice: just get a dual heatsink Thermalright cooler, like the Peerless Assasin 120. It's much cheaper than Noctua but does nearly as good a job at keeping quiet. It's close enough that you're not going to notice.

You might want to focus on getting a phase changing thermal pad instead. Like a PTM 7950 (expensive) or Thermal Grizzly Phasesheet PTM. (cheaper but nearly as good). They're going to lower your CPUs temps by 10-15C and the fans won't have to spin as fast so they'll be quieter.

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theralph_224@reddit

Ngl, the quitest aio I've "heard" is from Cooler master. Something like an masterliquid ml360xxxx (idk what comes behind it). I've set the fans at a fixed 1200rpm and pump speed at 85% and it's still quiet (tho quiet is a relative and personal term)

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EishLekker@reddit

My system is completely fanless, and even without any moving parts.

I hear a faint click when I turn it on. After that I can’t even tell by listening if it’s on or off, even when putting my head next to the case Abe’s the room is silent.

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lxs0713@reddit

That's the dream for me, but at that point I'd be paranoid of getting any coil whine. It's all luck of the draw at that point and I've had GPUs, mobos, and PSUs with coil whine before

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EishLekker@reddit

I get what you mean. I bought my PC from a company that specialises on quiet systems. They test the system themselves. I don’t they would have shipped it with coil whine.

The only downside with my setup is that is has no proper graphics card, and I would love to play around with AI and maybe some games.

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argote@reddit

280mm can sometimes be quieter because of the larger fans.

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theralph_224@reddit

True, but when they do go at a higher rpm, they make more noise, and in my experience, bigger fans have higher chances of coil whine

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senpaisai@reddit

BeQuiet.

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lichtspieler@reddit

Oversized AIR coolers a la Noctua D15 work with semi-passive mode for <65W CPU's and you can sustain REASONABLE CPU temperatures with MIN_FAN_RPM even with a high end GPU in your system.

This would turn the CPU cooler quiter as your ATX fan, quiter as case fans and much quiter as any GPU fan.

This also works for "\~65W" gaming CPUs like the 7800x3D / 9800x3D, despite their \~90W / \~150W max-all-core-wattage. Later can be one-click adjusted with PBO-Enhancement to keep peak gaming performance available, while limiting the all-core heat enough, to not cause overheating issues with a CPU cooler with just idle fan speeds.

While AIO's and custom loop in-case radiators can be used with a 65W CPU wattage using low fan rpm (despite the high fin density), the elephant in the room in a "gaming systems" with a GPU is the airflow requirement during gaming. Using radiators that block/restrict intake or exhaust cause the need to use higher case fan rpm for the required airflow and will make your system overall noisier.

I use a D15 (S) for my 9800x3D CPU with just MIN_FAN_RPM (fixed fan curve) and this works well for sustained gaming, despite the heat from my 4090-FE (450W) and its flow-through exhaust blasting hot air into the CPU cooler.

=> https://imgur.com/xdhvGWC

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Cerebral_Zero@reddit

From either the SFFPC or MFFPC I read that the Be Quiet Silent Wings and Light Wings both do exceptional as a fan replacement to a popular low profile cooler. I picked one up nd it really does great. It's all about the fan on it for noise, and the heatsink is the actual cooler.

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danny12beje@reddit

Can confirm.

I've had silent wings 140mm on my case and a pure rock on my CPU. I could never hear any of the fans (albeit on a 5600x that wasn't too heavily utilized)

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My_Unbiased_Opinion@reddit

Yep, I also run BQ stuff. Once a week, I end up shutting the PC off thinking it was off in the first place lmao. It's so quiet, I literally can't hear it at idle.

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My_Unbiased_Opinion@reddit

Noctua or BeQuiet!

I'm partial to BeQuiet! Stuff personally. BeQuiet stuff gets quieter than Noctua but Noctua has a more pleasant noise profile. This might be important to you. I run a Noctua CPU cooler and BQ case fans. At idle, I have turned off my PC thinking it was off, but it was in fact on lol. When under CPU load, the more pleasant sound of the Noctua makes it tolerable when at max fan speed. Ideal setup IMHO

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Luckyirishdevil@reddit

Depends on the use case and system. On a 65w cpu, a cheap air cooler with fans set low would be enough. An AIO might not even need the fans to down to cool it.

On something like a 14900k, you are looking at a large custom loop with the radiator in another room or many rads with low rpm fans

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