Question Intel i9-11900k - - - most quiet AiO Liquid Cooler to replace my Noctua ?

[pwrreset]

As the title says, I want to replace my Noctua (don't know exact model, same one everyone has) with a AiO, my main criteria is that it must be as silent as possible (less than the Noctua evidently). Let say 250 $ budget limit.

What would you suggest?

 

[Phaaze88]

As the title says, I want to replace my Noctua (don't know exact model, same one everyone has) with a AiO, my main criteria is that it must be as silent as possible (less than the Noctua evidently).

They're all potentially audible and inaudible, and you're going to tune the fans to your comfort zone... with that in mind, they all could qualify or disqualify.
So, what do you mean? Could you provide more details?

 

[pwrreset]

They're all potentially audible and inaudible, and you're going to tune the fans to your comfort zone... with that in mind, they all could qualify or disqualify.
So, what do you mean? Could you provide more details?

I think I'm pretty clear, I want a more silent option. Is there a AiO that is performant enough to not require to have fans blasting 100% while playing games or during medium usage. That specific CPU runs really hot, doesn't take a lot go get the fans full blast on it and reducing the speed of the fans will hinder performance. I found that to keep the best performances, it needs to stay around 60 degree celcius. Are there AiO that are good enough or are they just slightly better than air? Is my only solution to build a custom loop?

 

[punkncat]

I have a Deepcool Castle 240EX on my 11900K and it works commendably. I had it on a 2700X previously and it was VERY quiet on that application after performing the fan tuning option for that mobo. This instance, on the i9, it keeps the CPU at around 50-55C during gaming, slightly higher and noisier when converting docs to pdf and editing, etc. I am using the 011D Mini outfitted with (6) other fans so it is audible but couldn't specifically put that just on the pump.

 

[geofelt]

What is the model of the noctua cooler you have?
What is the make/model of your case?
What are the parts inside that you need to cool?
As a rule, Noctua coolers are quieter than any comparable aio that you can buy.
They even come with low noise adapters to make them all but inaudible.

 

[pwrreset]

I have a Deepcool Castle 240EX on my 11900K and it works commendably. I had it on a 2700X previously and it was VERY quiet on that application after performing the fan tuning option for that mobo. This instance, on the i9, it keeps the CPU at around 50-55C during gaming, slightly higher and noisier when converting docs to pdf and editing, etc. I am using the 011D Mini outfitted with (6) other fans so it is audible but couldn't specifically put that just on the pump.

I saw DeepCool Liquid Cooler LT520 also from Tom's Hardware's reviews, the fans are faster (3100 tr/min compared to 2550 tr/min for the Castle 240EX). Are faster fans noisier?

 

[geofelt]

Yes, faster spinning fans are noisier.
Larger fans move more air at lower rpm.

 

[pwrreset]

What is the model of the noctua cooler you have?
What is the make/model of your case?
What are the parts inside that you need to cool?
As a rule, Noctua coolers are quieter than any comparable aio that you can buy.
They even come with low noise adapters to make them all but inaudible.

Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black, Dual-Tower CPU Cooler (140mm, Black)
Corsair 4000D
I have a 3080 TI as well but I'm not ready to touch any of it as I paid an arm and a leg for it... I know I'd get a better one for about half the price these days but I don't want to touch it...
and no overclocking.. all default

 

[geofelt]

You now have the best air cooler around.
And, a very good case for air cooling.
Under load, the fan can spin up to 1500 rpm.
Using the included low noise adapter, the max is 1200 rpm.
In your motherboard fan control bios section, you can tune it even lower.

Tell me more about why you want to replace it.

 

[pwrreset]

You now have the best air cooler around.
And, a very good case for air cooling.
Under load, the fan can spin up to 1500 rpm.
Using the included low noise adapter, the max is 1200 rpm.
In your motherboard fan control bios section, you can tune it even lower.

Tell me more about why you want to replace it.

Just want to know if there's a better AiO liquid cooling option. I bought the Noctua because I was tight for money at the time (I put everything on my GPU). Now I've got a little bit of budget and summer is coming... Also, are there options like AC where you have longer pipes and can put the radiator outside (or in a bucket of water oO).

 

[Lafong]

It sounds like your primary complaint is noise.

You have not mentioned temperatures.

What temp level would be unacceptable? 75? 95?

Maybe your Noctua fans are spinning at 1500 most or all the time. We don't know.

Most fans will be noticeable above 1000 rpm. Some ears are more sensitive than others.

You are somewhere on the noise/temperature continuum. It's hard for others to evaluate where since it's your ears that matter.

You can certainly drive temps lower with an AIO than with a Noctua, but you'd have to speculate on how noisy that might be.

 

[Phaaze88]

I think I'm pretty clear, I want a more silent option.

Well, you weren't, IMO.
Didn't know what the application(s) was, or what other hardware you were working with.
The 11900K has a feature called Thermal Velocity Boost. If that's enabled, the cpu will purposely overclock itself. The feature turns off at 80C.
Removing TVB from the equation, 11900K give max performance except at the thermal limit of 100C. Now, if there's motherboard VRM throttling, which will reduce cpu performance, that's a different story.
There's another feature, Adaptive Boost Technology. That's a no holds barred overclock.
Don't know how many cores are actually running high.
Don't know how far you sit from the PC, as that also affects how audible/inaudible fans will sound to you.
Yes, faster and smaller fans = louder, but that's a given. You're going to turn them down regardless of the cooler.


TL;DR: D15 is a good cooler. You're not going to get an AIO with some 2000rpm or higher fans and run them at that - no, you're going to turn it down to what you can tolerate, which won't be too audibly different from what were tolerating from the D15.
11900K performance isn't tied to temperature, except for the thermal limit, and if TVB is enabled, it's just going to boost the cpu up to 80C again. Even higher for ABT.

 

[pwrreset]

Well, you weren't, IMO.
Didn't know what the application(s) was, or what other hardware you were working with.
The 11900K has a feature called Thermal Velocity Boost. If that's enabled, the cpu will purposely overclock itself. The feature turns off at 80C.
Removing TVB from the equation, 11900K give max performance except at the thermal limit of 100C. Now, if there's motherboard VRM throttling, which will reduce cpu performance, that's a different story.
There's another feature, Adaptive Boost Technology. That's a no holds barred overclock.
Don't know how many cores are actually running high.
Don't know how far you sit from the PC, as that also affects how audible/inaudible fans will sound to you.
Yes, faster and smaller fans = louder, but that's a given. You're going to turn them down regardless of the cooler.


TL;DR: D15 is a good cooler. You're not going to get an AIO with some 2000rpm or higher fans and run them at that - no, you're going to turn it down to what you can tolerate, which won't be too audibly different from what were tolerating from the D15.
11900K performance isn't tied to temperature, except for the thermal limit, and if TVB is enabled, it's just going to boost the cpu up to 80C again. Even higher for ABT.

I think you're unto something. It must be that TVB kicking in and off as it goes above 80, bellow 80 in a loop (default settings would have the fans kick in only around that temp). Right now it is configured really aggressively to have the fans to max at 60 degree prevents that which makes sense but it is noisy. Most of the games I play are mostly CPU intensive.

 

[geofelt]

Modern Intel processors and motherboards are happy to run at 100c.
If your cooler fan gets a bit noisy, set the max fan speed to closer to 100c.
At 100c. the cpu will throttle or slow down a bit, but will keep going.
If you used the low noise adapter, the max would be 1200 rpm which is not so noisy.

Try an experiment and in windows power management, try setting the max cpu% down from 100% to 99%

 

[pwrreset]

Modern Intel processors and motherboards are happy to run at 100c.
If your cooler fan gets a bit noisy, set the max fan speed to closer to 100c.
At 100c. the cpu will throttle or slow down a bit, but will keep going.
If you used the low noise adapter, the max would be 1200 rpm which is not so noisy.

Try an experiment and in windows power management, try setting the max cpu% down from 100% to 99%

ok I'll try playing with that later tonight and see if it works. Also that would mean turning off TVB right?

I have ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WiFi 6 LGA 1200 and I have AI suite 3 (with AI overclock off, that thing doesn't work) so I'm not sure how to do that, it might override windows power management settings, I'll have to do some research.

 

[klavs]

I want to replace my Noctua D15 with a AiO, my main criteria is that it must be more silent than the Noctua.

I don't think any water Colling system will run less quiet than the D15, provided that your system doesn't overheat, causing the fans to speed up.
Also, the D15 requires almost no maintainance compared to watercooling.

To get less noise you can:

• lower the maximum speed of the fans for your cooler.
• undervolt the CPU to make it produce less heat

Here is an example of undervolting an Intel CPU to make it more efficient:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Bm0Wr6OEQ

 

[Phaaze88]

I think you're unto something. It must be that TVB kicking in and off as it goes above 80, bellow 80 in a loop (default settings would have the fans kick in only around that temp). Right now it is configured really aggressively to have the fans to max at 60 degree prevents that which makes sense but it is noisy. Most of the games I play are mostly CPU intensive.

Then you can turn off TVB. It pushes 100-200mhz more on the cores' max frequency until 80C.
That's something you could do yourself if desired, but with the default 100C limit instead.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

As the title says, I want to replace my Noctua (don't know exact model, same one everyone has) with a AiO, my main criteria is that it must be as silent as possible (less than the Noctua evidently). Let say 250 $ budget limit.

What would you suggest?

NZXT Z73. Amazing cooler and I've never had heat issues with a 10900k/11900k.

Are there AiO that are good enough or are they just slightly better than air? Is my only solution to build a custom loop?

Not unless you want to. I'd personally never use an air cooler. Those days are long gone IMO with today's processors.

 

[bniknafs9]

it entirely depends on your configuration .
as for me i've got a 240 mm corsair AIO ,
my case is super compact and it's chinese
so i removed the original 120 mm radiator fans
and connected the 200 mm fans in front of the case to the plugs provided by AIO
the radiator is installed on the front and not on the top where it messes with the motherboard.
the radiator is cool all the time and no problem whatsoever even in most demanding games
sorry for the non-native English .

 

[mangosaurus]

Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black, Dual-Tower CPU Cooler (140mm, Black)
Corsair 4000D
I have a 3080 TI as well but I'm not ready to touch any of it as I paid an arm and a leg for it... I know I'd get a better one for about half the price these days but I don't want to touch it...
and no overclocking.. all default

Alright, I actually have nearly direct experience with an almost identical setup, and know exactly what's going on here. That system had an i9-9900K, NH-D15S, a 3080 Ti (EVGA FTW3 Ultra) > 3090 (EVGA Kingpin Hybrid) > 3090 FE, all in a Corsair iCUE 4000X RGB.

The problem is simply this: you're dumping upwards of 400-500W of heat directly into the compact interior volume of that midtower. More specifically, the 3080 Ti is sitting right under that big air cooler and feeding it significantly pre-heated air, causing the heat dissipation efficiency to drop and the fan to spool up to 100% to try and compensate.

First and foremost though, I would strongly advise against a CLC in the 4000D. No room for a top mount, so you're left with front-mount 240/280/360 intaking and feeding CPU-preheated air to the GPU instead. Unless you've got one of the Strix 3080 Ti variants that GPU is almost certainly making more noise than anything else in your system under gaming loads.

The 4000D comes with just a pair of basic 120mm fans. To get this case capable of properly ventilating that much heat you're going to want to fill every available slot with a suitable (with maybe the exception of the top rear slot, as it gets choked by the sheer volume of the D15. If keeping the 4000D is your plan, you'll want to pick up the replacement airflow front panel for it ($15 from Corsair).

Next step is planning airflow properly. For the front what you want is 3x 120mm high flow fans. If you want to make a bit of an investment, you'd be hard pressed to find a better all-around option than Noctua's own A12x25 PWM, though it can be tough to stomach the sheer cost there. Corsair's new AF120 Elites are another great option here, in particular because the airguides in the frame help maintain a strong windtunnel effect pushing front-to-back. Both have enough pressure to give you adequate airflow through the magnetic filter screen, however removing that will certainly increase airflow at the cost of quick dust buildup. For the opposite end of the price spectrum, a pair of 3-packs of Thermalright's TL-C12C-S 120mm fans can be had for literally less than a one of the above mentioned options. If used on intake I'd definitely remove the front filter and use the airflow front to minimize flow losses due to the filter restriction.

For the rest - a 120/140mm fan mounted to the front-most top slot as an intake (blowing down in front of the CPU cooler) will increase turbulence to better ensure the D15 is getting cool fresh air rather than the GPU's air coming up from below. I used an NF-P14 Redux here. And finally a 120mm exhaust on the rear - I used an NF-S12B Redux).

After that, it's really just down to digging into fan curve tuning to optimize for silence. What often happens is that the reactivity of tower coolers means broader fluctuations and short-term spikes in core temps under regular use, but most mobo default CPU curves will end up either cranking it to 100% as soon as the chip is doing basically anything, or that unpleasant roller coaster ramping up and down constantly with each change. I prefer a curve that integrates a large flat temp range at 40-50% for anything from idle temps up to around 60C. Then a ramp up to 80% for 80C. If your fan control solution has the ability to set the temperature hysteresis or ramp delay, use that to add some delay time to smooth out sudden short temp spikes that drop back down right away.