How quiet is water cooling?

[Diabolik]

Is it much more quiet tha traditional cooling, or does the radiator fan make a lot of noise?

 

[vk2amv]

Well with my Koolance K100 water cooling case running in quiet mode the loudest thing in my system is my single 5400rev hard drive. And in performance mode it is a massive amount quiter than a volcano 9. And it performs fantasticaly compared to even the loudest standard heat sink and fan. I say if you have the money you will never ever go back the the noise of standard cooling.
My 2 cents.
AREA_51

 

[mrwhipper]

This is a post that I had left about a month ago. I hope this helps. Oh yea, when I went to water cooling I swore that I would not go back to air cooling. Take care.



I have all the info that I think you need. I just got my Koolance 601 case today. I will tell you what I went from to what I have now. I had a standard case, Antec PS with duel fans, 1 80mm 30cfm intake fan, 1 80mm 30cfm exaust fan, Volcano 7+ HS& fan, 2200+XP (NOT over clocked) GeForce 4 Ti4600 with a thermaltake copper HS and fan, Audigy sound, Netgear NIC, 512 PC 2700 ram with a active Thermaltake HS and fan, 80GB 7200rpm WD HD (800BB).

THe new set up didnt change except I dont have the Volcano 7+ any more (of corse) and both 80mm fans are now exaust. The Koolance case does have 3 80mm fans at the top for cooling the radiator.

I will be able to give you both temp differences and sound differences.
all temps are with ambiant temp at 72F and MAX load for 0.5 hours using MBM5 and 3D Mark 2001


AIR COOLING WATER COOLING
temps with max settings 115F 82F
temps with med settings 117F 84F
temps with low settings 124F 84F

sound level Low setting 55db 50db
sound level Med setting 57db 52db
sound level High setting 64db 56db

Installation was pretty easy. The directions were good. It did take me a while though. I really took my time and checked real well for leaks and I made it look real nice inside. I will tell you this though. The 200 SILVER CPU water block is bigger than I thought. You do have to pay attention how you sit it on the CPU.

I hope this helps. If you ask me at this point I would say The Koolance 601 case is worth every penny. The case is constructed VERY well. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future. Take care. Good Luck. Oh yea, I did use Artic Silver 3 with no problems.


Hang in there. It can only get better!

 

[JAGedlion]

Could you make it even quiter by replacing the 80 mm with stealth 80 mm, or will there be too little air flow?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Radiator fans are usually large 92mm or 120mm fans and run slow... The thing that makes water cooling effective is its EFFICIENCY. So you dont need loud fans.

<b>My Idea of a DOS attack is to stop posting helpful information at Toms Hardware.</b>