[SOLVED] Recommendations for a silent or very quiet CPU fan for i5-8400, please?

[Arcade Dreams]

Hello Tom's hardware forum,

I recently bought a new desktop with the below spec:

Case	PCS GENESIS G1B CASE + SD CARD READER
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i5 Six Core Processor i5-8400 (2.8GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard	ASUS® TUF H310M-PLUS GAMING: Micro-ATX, DDR4, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)	4GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card	INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st Storage Drive	500GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 2.5" SSD, (upto 560MB/sR | 535MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply	CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling	STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste	STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card	ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking	WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options	MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

The stock Master Cooler CPU fan is running permanently at 2500+rpm (processor temp only 25 degrees on average at this fan speed) and it will not slow down via Bios. It is plugged into a four pin CPU fan slot on my motherboard. I wonder if it is not a fan I can slow down via Bios?

In which case could some of you please recommend some silent or very quiet cooling fans, compatible with my build and which can be controlled via Bios?

I should add that I already had 2x4gb compatible DDR4 2666mhz Corsair Vengeance memory which I have installed after removing the 4gb which came with my new computer. I also intend to buy and install a passively cooled 4GB Palit Geforce GTX 1050Ti KalmX graphics card.

As you can probably guess by now, a near silent PC is very important to me!

Thanks.

 

[LORDPrometheus]

ok well to reduce the noise as much as possible you absolutely need to replace the CPU cooler. Going for a 120mm liquid cooling AIO kit is highly recommended. Something like a Corsair H-60 would work well. You should then replace the stock radiator and case fans with quiet fans such as Noctua NF-F12s

 

[tennis2]

Not sure what "stock cooler" you currently have, so it could be as simple as buying a new fan for your CPU cooler. Or a ~$30-$40 120mm tower style air cooler would be PLENTY.

 

[logainofhades]

Deepcool Gammax 400 or GT is enough for a locked i5.

 

[mdd1963]

Mugen 5 is about $43? (Intel should have known better than to ship a cooler known to not even be adequate for gaming loads with the i5-8400, which has shown signs of throttling under gaming loads since it's release two years ago.)

 

[Arcade Dreams]

Thank you to LORDPrometheus, tennis2, logainofhades and mdd1963 for your replies. It is very much appreciated and there are a nice array of suggestions for a CPU cooler.

Of all the suggestions, the Deepcool Gammax 400 or GT is the type of CPU cooler I am more familiar with and the sort of price that I had in mind, so I will start from there.

Thank you all once again for taking the time to reply.

 

[Karadjgne]

When it comes to cpu cooling there's 3 ways to think. Budget: get the mimimum needed to just keep temps lower than stock. Performance: price isn't nearly as important as the absolute lowest temp. Silence: the quietest coolers.

You are in the un-named 4th bracket, a combination of all of the above. But here's the skinny. Cpu coolers are only silent when not used. Get a small cooler and it can be silent at first, but under heavier loads it gets louder. To beat that trend, use a far larger and more efficient cooler, which inevitably costs more but performs way better overall.

To that end, a Noctua NH-U14S or NH-U12A would be a good match, but since I cannot find any information whatsoever on the Genesis case, nobody has any idea just how much clearance you have for a cpu cooler.

Without knowing that, any cooler advise is fluff.

 

[Arcade Dreams]

Thank you, Karadjgne. That explains things even more. I certainly did not know about CPU cooling to that level of detail.

My case is made by the company I bought it from - PC Specialist, a British company. The Noctua NH-U14S was one of the CPU coolers I could have bought through them for my case and spec for extra money. In a bit of a hurry to buy and having had a crazily loud better CPU fan before and very quiet stock CPU fans before, I took a gamble on the latter this time but it was the wrong choice in the end. I will now also consider the Noctua NH-U14s given your post.

I should probably add that I am not an avid "gamer" as such but instead enjoy the odd game here and there. I still have some old games to play bought second-hand for my previous computer but just never got around to it. E.g Test Drive Unlimited 2, Mafia II, Assassins Creed (pirate one), GTA IV, F1 2017 and a couple more older car racing games. I even have the PC version of Lost that I know is going to be terrible and who knows if it will even run on Windows 10! (What can I say!? I want to chill with Hurley and try to flirt in-game with Kate haha!)

In short, I don't need to worry too much about taxing a processor or graphics card for all the latest titles but a quiet cooler is important as I play most of my music through my desktop and speakers nowadays.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply and even doing a google search for my case.

 

[Karadjgne]

Many of those older games run just fine in windows 10. I just replayed a couple of old AD&D titles from back in windows 98SE. You only have to do 1 thing. Install the direct-x 9.0C sdk. It's self installing and since it uses different filenames to DX10 or later, installs with windows and doesn't overwrite anything. Whether or not they have 1920x1080 resolutions in game settings is a whole different story.