Quiet fan that pushes air

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

Think I'll go with the Antec Kuhler 920 to overcome the tall RAM issue,add to that 2 of the Arctic F fans mentioned before in place of the stock Kuhler ones to help lower noise levels and I could be on to a winner.
Something still troubling me though is if it will fit into my Coolermaster CM 690 case,does anyone run anything similar if not the same set-up?

[wazza300]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

if you case has a 120mm or 12cm rear case fan then it should fit,it will tell you the dimensions of that cooler so you can measure your case

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

Yeah,I just looked at it again and the fan that fits against the case should push the rad into the case enough for it to overhang the 1st expansion bay so looks good.
Have to say though after 2 days of looking at coolers I'm starting to get brain fade.
Think I'll leave it till tomorrow to order in case I make a dumb mistake,wouldn't be the first time.

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

Scythe gentle typhoon for sale in the uk,Quiet PC UK - Quiet Computer Fans for a Virtually Silent PC

:)

[profJim]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

I'm not familiar with water cooling setups, but I think that they often recommend fans with high(er) static pressure with radiators. Higher airflow (CFM) is not necessarily the best indicator for a cooling fan. There is always a trade off where you need to balance cooling performance versus fan noise. I prefer to use a fan controller to manually dial in the the fan speed so that I can control the cooling performance and noise level based on what I'm doing. A PWM fan setup will auto adjust fan speeds but you don't have direct control.

Your best bet is to spend some time reading sealed water cooling reviews from the best web sites to see which systems provide the best value and performance. Let us know what you buy and how well it works. Hope you end up with a cool setup.

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

Thank you Jim,

I've spent a good few hours now researching the subject and as far as the all-in-one water cooling systems go you have the choice of Corsair or Antec Kuhler.
Both brands offer systems made by Asetek so the differences between them appear minimal.

You have entry level models with 1 fan and a 25mm approx radiator although you can add another fan if you want. I am tempted by these as this is my first non-stock cpu cooler and I'm sure the rad isn't too thick for there to be any issues with the fans having enough oompf to get the air through and do the job that's required. There's no active control over these units though.

You then have a thicker rad version with 2 fans in a push/pull set up,the Antec rad is a good 10mm thicker than the Corsair here.
Then Corsair offer a double fan unit with a side by side fan set-up and this is the one I would go for if I was 100% sure it would fit in my Coolermaster CM690 case but as I've had problems fitting fans in the top already I don't have confidence that it will fit so I'm going for the Antec Kuhler H2O 920 model because it has a software prog attached that allows you to change fan speed from inside windows,from what I've read it's slightly quieter than the Corsair models and I've seen one on sale for a good price.
I'm going to push the button on that before bed tonight so when it arrives and it's fitted I'll give you an update as to how it performs and what kind of noise it generates as well.
I have to say I'm kicking myself a bit for buying ram with huge great sinks on,if I'd gone for low profile instead I could have had a much cheaper,probably quieter and just as effective air cooler but there you go.

Thanks to all of you who posted,having this forum to refer to has helped keep my thinking on track regarding this.

[profJim]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

You've clearly done your homework.
I think people get suckered in to buying memory with aggressive names and fancy shmancy heat spread spreaders, and then find that fitting an aftermarket cpu cooler can be difficult or impossible.

Not too long ago, I upgraded to 8GB of HyperX T1 DDR2 memory with heat spreaders that are 61mm tall. Before I bought the memory, I modified one of my regular 30mm tall memory modules with a 1/8" thick piece of cardboard so that the overall height was ~60mm tall. I found that the new memory would be fine with my cpu cooler when I installed the cooler horizontally so that the exhaust air would be blown into the 140mm exhaust fan at top of my CM 690 computer case. You might be able to install a dual push/puss radiator in the top of your CM 690 case. If not, you shouldn't have any problems with the radiator and fans using the rear exhaust.

Glad to help out.
Please post some pictures of your new cooling setup and let us know how it works out.

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

I will do Jim,

this is my 1st self-built machine and I didn't really consider cpu coolers when I put it together in May. I did go for the intel-k chip to future proof myself a bit and hopefully I'll be able to keep this machine for a good few years and it'll still have respectable specs. I chose the RAM on specs and price and didn't think too much about the heatsinks as all the RAM I considered seemed to have something similar attached to it. I don't know about your 61mm tall ones though,do you keep them on a leash? :)
Overall I'm very happy as I know people who've spent twice what I did on components for a very similar rig and it's been a great learning curve for me too.

I'm not done with the homework yet though,just looking into fan upgrades now.

[ingeborgdot]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

I bought the corsair vengeance and man are they tall. I didn't buy them because they looked cool and I thought the heat spreaders would work greatly, I bought them because I got one hell of a deal and could not turn it down. Now, I wished I may have. I ended up buying a corsair H40 so I don't have to worry about any clerarance. Newegg took back my hyper 212 +.

[wazza300]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

i have huge ram heatsinks too,but no clearance issues with my heatsink,plus i have two 120mm fans attached to it,but ones hooked up to a fan controller and ones plugged into mb,i use a scythe ultra kaze fan which is loud if full speed so i slow it down so i cant hear it and other fans an akasa apache which is silent

i think your corsair h40 will be fine in cooling,those units have improved alot since they first came out,just be carefull when installing it,carefull not to twist/bend the cooling pipes from the rad to the cpu block,as for andrew m your chip wont run hot anyway unless at 4.5gh+,they have much more oc headroom on air than my chip does,so with your watercooler you should hit 5ghz+ without too much trouble

remember to order some good quality thermal paste to go with it,someething like tuniq mx2 or tx2 paste

[profJim]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

Glad to hear that both of you are now happy campers.
My comments about too tall memory modules was for the benefit of others reading this thread. Even experienced system builders can get tripped up with memory fitment issues, as the newer motherboards have the memory slots located closer to the cpu socket. I'd like to see memory manufacturers include prominent information about how much clearance is required with their taller than average memory kits. Most cpu heatsink manufacturers are guilty of not showing how much clearance there is with their cpu coolers. In http://forums.tweaktown.com/incompat...tml#post408693, post #2, I included a diagram that shows that there is 37mm of clearance from the top of the cpu to the bottom of the heatsink fins. With many manufacturers, this information is not available or difficult to find.

Noctua is he best site that I've found for providing this information for their products.
As an example, the following is from Noctua.at - sound-optimised premium components "Designed in Austria"!, in the Noctua NH-D14 FAQs page:

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

Hi guys,
I've just been recommended these sharkoon silent eagle fans, Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin [] over the scythe silent typhoon ones.
I spoke to the guy in the shop and he said at OCUK they use the silent eagle's in all their custom build machines and over here OCUK are about as good as you get I think so that's a worthy endorsement.
He also said that if I want to go to the 4.8 ghz level for overclocking my i5 I should go with the Antec Kuhler 920 but if I was happy with 4ghz the 620 would do so that's my mind just about made up now

[profJim]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

@Andrew M
How long do you think that you'll keep your current system? 2 years? 3 years? longer?
Maybe you will upgrade to a more powerful cpu in the future.
In and earlier post, you said:
Just a thought; Buy the 920 now and hold off on buying the dual push/pull fans for a while.
Chances are the 920 setup will be fairly quiet if you don't overclock to 4.5GHz or higher.
If you want to o/c higher or want a somewhat quieter fan setup, you can upgrade the fans later.
Don't be penny wire and pound foolish. (pun intended)

edit: Add a detailed hardware list to your forum signature, it is always easier for us to give you the best advice if we can quickly see your setup without having to search through the thread.

[Andrew M]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

words wisely spoken Jim,
hoping for 2 years minimum really,3 years better and you're right I'll only need to upgrade mobo and chip in the future

[profJim]

Re: Quiet fan that pushes air

My P35 system is going strong, and my N650SLI-DS4 backup system does great running my N460GTX SLI setup.
Both systems are vintage 2006 - 2007.
Now if I could only find a couple of Q9550's I wouldn't "need" to upgrade to Ivy Bridge next year. ;)

Reread my previous post for the request to add your hardware list to your forum signature.
You don't need to use gaudy colors like I did.