I think this is a very important question to ask as there are a lot of different air and water coolers that all perform differently, and have different noise levels.
Now I already know that custom water cooling is a trump card. It can't be beat because you can put radiators all over your case run the ten fans you have at 50% speed, and sit around the 40's at load. What I'm more looking for is what the best noise to performance cooler is that you can buy in one package without doing any DIY tube running or anything like that. I would rule out the new coolers from Fractal Design as in my eyes you might as well go full blown custom loop than mess around with putting extra radiators on an AIO.
I've heard a lot of great things from both the air and liquid side, and a lot of bad things as well. Air coolers are easy, cheap, and more reliable. AIO are not quite as easy, more expensive, and can suffer from pump failure. I've heard about air resistance causing noise (both for liquid and air), pumps making noise. I've heard that high end air coolers such as the NH-D14 and the be quiet Dark Rock Pro 3 performing similarly to 240mm AIOs, and being cheaper at the same time, and that 280mm rads, or 360mm rads have a significant performance increase. I would just like someone to help get this straight, from someone who has worked with a lot of coolers, and knows their quirks, and advantages over other products. I don't care if it's air or liquid I want to know what CPU cooler will offer the best performance/noise experience that is $120 US or less.
I'm not 100% sure if it's the very best cooler today in terms of noise to performance ratio as the article is over a year old, but you'd be hard pressed to find something better; if you factor in price as well on top of noise to performance, NH-D14 is unbeatable. Can't go wrong with it.
The very ultimate would be an impractically large fully passive air cooler and a PC with no mechanical drives at all.but you would need a case about 4 times the size of a regular case.
I have a NH-D14 and yes it is silent. I was running my case with no fans for a while and it was inaudible with a YouTube video on and silent with headphones on.
Really to do it right you need Noctua fans all round. Which would be a bit more expensive. But the reality for me is the case fans are louder than the CPU. They are not loud though so it is fine, just a low rumble.
Side note. The Noctua fans on the CPU cooler have never spun up to full speed regardless of heat. That is to say it never got hot enough.
This is really helpful. I have been putting a lot of consideration into the NH-D14 for my upcoming build, but the fact that everybody loses their sh*t over how cool and quiet water cooling is was a little disconcerting.
I'm not ready to fill a CaseLabs case with passive CPU cooling. I have been thinking a lot about the NH-D14. My brother has one and it is very quiet. I've just been wondering if the grass is greener on the other side of the water vs. air debate. A lot of people swear by AIOs, saying that their incredibly quiet, and cool, but the chart that Jerm1027 posted would state otherwise (at least about the quiet part).
I have been planning on decking out the whole case with the old tan and brown. That paired with a Define R4 should be pretty quiet.
I was planning on getting G.SKILL Sniper Series, so normal sized RAM. Also I plan to build on the ASUS Z97-WS which has the first x16 slot at the top so the GPU would conflict with the NH-D15. On top of that the D14 is $30 cheaper.
I have an NHD14 I am selling on my old rig and if i wasnt going to watercool my next pc I would get another one. Simply an amazing cooler (albiet HUGE) but worth every single penny, one of the very few products ive owned that i have been completely satisfied with
