Silent CPU cooling unit

Hello folks!
I am on the hunt for a really quiet cpu cooler, and was wondering if you guys & gals have any tips? :)


The most important things is for it to be silent, but of course I want decent cooling as well. Don't care too much about the budget.


I'm running an intel i7 930 2,80 GHz on a Asus Sabertooth x58, and right now I only have the included fan which is loud as a gouse and the temp is about 70 degrees when I'm not doing any heavy stuff.

Thank you :)

I think there is no question that a damn good option would be the corsair h80 or the corsai h100i, these things are incredibly quiet and to be honest the only noise they generate is from the fans you mount on them (just pick up some silent fans). They also keep your cpu very cool and are great for the price.

Would you want to overclock?

If you can fit it into your case I would suggest to go for a tripple rad or more custom watercooling loop and either not have anyfans on the rad or only a couple that are downvolted. for fans I would suggest the noctua nf-f12's, they are extremely good downvolters and are prctically silent.

If however you cannot fit that in  your case I would suggest a watercooling unit if you can, they will be the quietest. you could get a H100 (i or non i it makes so little diference it doesn't matter) and put downvolted noctua nf-f12's onto it. when these fans are downvolted they litteraly make no noise.

That would be my suggestion, but if you can find one you could go for the NZXT kraken x60 only problem is that your case may not support it (its always fun to do some modding). if you do tthis buy the pressure optimised 140mm noctua fans which i forget the name of right now.

If you have more questions email me at [email protected]

I do not overclock, and I'm not a fan of modding too much. I don't like cutting suff by hand if they are going into my computer ;)


My case is a Fractal Design Define R2, so I've got some room but hardly unlimited (think it's about 16 cm from the motherboard to the other side). 

That sounds like an interesting idea :)

You know what? I think I will go with this one :) I'll just figure out if it is the 80 or 100 I want :)

Thank you sir! :) 

Nofan CR-95C IcePipe 95W Fanless (it wont work for the i7 930) but you want the largest heatsink with noctua fans and low noise adapters also if your not overclocking try to under volt you gpu it will cut your heat.

Corsair Hydro series have really obnoxious pumps, sure they can be quieter than a lot of air cooling but they are still annoying, they don't make a wushy air noise, more of a pump noise so it's even more annoying

get a massive noctua heatsync and dont use the fans, have some passive airflow going over it or use some quiet pressure fans and undervolt them

 

lol after typing this I thought I better check the comments first and some guy already said it, but oh well  =/

Any heatsink/radiator with Noctua fans will do.

I'm using a smal Noctua NH-U9B SE2 on my 2500K which is not audible and cools good.

If you want the performance of a Corsair h100i get a Noctua HN-D14 (it's cheaper), but check if it will fit with your heatspreader an the ram and your case.

If you want something inexpensice get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo.

@einsteinchen i second that! Corsair h100i pretty senseless alternative if you are not going to oc imo. If you don't see yourself oc at all in any forseable future i would definitely go for hyoer 212 EVO.

 

I have a noctua c-14 on my i7-920(3,8ghz) with fans running at 600 rpm. hardly audible. (sound being drowned by PSU and GPU). and if my almost 50% oc 920 can go that inaudible with c-14 you will definitely be satisfied with 212 evo. I would rather save the money and go for a better gpu cooler/more silent case fans/fan control etc.

Any good CPU cooler which can fit some new silent fans like those noctua ones will be the quietest you can get on air.