xfidelity

is water cooling that silent? isn't air cooling and water cooling about the same?? u see.. air cooling makes noise cuz of the fan.. water cooling does to.. isn't the fan cooling the radiator making noise too???

ThaWaxShop

i dunno my water setup was loud (2 120mm fans) but if you get low CFM fans it should be rather quiet

steveo42024

I had a loud pump and semi-loud fans but its very easy to have a great setup that will do a lot better than air temps and still be quiet

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Some_Idiot2

Watercooling can be louder thair air, it just all depends on the pump, and fans.
A good pump like the Swiftech MCP 650 and some low DBA fans will allow for a quiet setup.

ThaWaxShop

i know that my Mach II is near silent

Thumper

As have been said, you can MAKE water cooling loud, or it can be near silent.

Air cooling usually requires more fans than a standard water cooler, and they can be run at lower RPMs as the water is a MUCH better cooling medium than air.

Air cooling you will have the fan on the CPU heatsink, and about 4-6 other fans, all spinning rather fast to get really good temps, espeically when overclocking. With water, you will likely only have about 4 fans total, 2 on the radiator, 1 intake and 1 exhaust to keep air moving over the board and internals, and they are probably running at about 1000-1200 RPM, pretty quiet.

The more extreme your system, the more heat generated, the louder it will be. However, then the benifit of water becomes not so much the noise, but the performance.

Some people may find 60 total decibels of noise unacceptable with a 600Mhz overclock on air, but 60 decibels for a 1200Mhz overlock would likely be acceptable for most people.

soloz2

It all depends. When I put water in my X-navigator case I was able to reduce the noise my system made, and now that I have it in a stacker w/ all low db 120mm fans my system stays cooler and is much quieter.
I doubt I could keep my 165 at 2.8 and get a load temp of 35 like I am right now. (that's dual folding... not dual prime, but I doubt it would top 38-39 and my panaflos aren't even turned all the way up!)

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Goldenpi

Watercooling is not completely silent, no. But it is a lot quieter than air.

Typical air:
Small but fast (noisy) processor fan
two case fans - 80 or 120
very small and very noisy GPU fan.

Typical water:
*no* small and noisy processor fan
*no* GPU fan.
One or two 120mm, low-speed radiator fans.
One case fan - 80 or 120.

The water will perform better too.