Question What fan curves should I set up for this system?

[dennisresevfan]

I have a Corsair 4000D Airflow case containing a 4090 Strix OC, and an i7 14700.

The CPU heatsink is a Frost Spirit, the V3 version with 140mm fans.

The front two case fans are Silent Wings Pro 4. The rear exhaust fans are whatever default fans the Corsair 4000D Airflow came with.

I think the CPU fan is having more effect on sound than the case fans but basically everything is a bit louder than I'd hoped for. I tried using MSI Center to auto tune the fan curves but it hasn't made much difference.

EDIT: Never mind that, The CPU fans are in fact super quiet even at 100%. I used manual fan control to check. For some reason they default to about 20% speed at the lower end of the curve while the case fans all start off at higher speeds. I can change that to 60% speed without it being noisy.

Any tips? It's pretty quiet in Windows but when I have a game running things get a fair bit louder. Not a huge problem as I use sound cancelling headphones.

I'm unclear to what extent sound production might be due to the 4090. Has a hell of a heatsink on there so I doubt it would be making the fans go fast most of the time.

 

[dennisresevfan]

I just tried setting it such that the case fans stay at about 50% speed up until the CPU hits 60 Centigrade then they ramp up rapidly. The CPU fan is set to start at 60% rather than 20%.

MUCH improved in terms of sound but is this a bad idea?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

your fan speed profiles should be based on the temperatures you are hitting.

if everything is idling at good temperatures; lower fan speeds at that lower temperature range until they start to rise, then raise the fan speeds a bit.
if everything is also staying at good temperatures during heavy use; do the same.

your goal should be to have the fans running at lowest RPMs possible while still having good temperatures system-wide.

 

[dennisresevfan]

What would you consider to be good temperatures with this processor? I'm sitting at around 42 Centigrade right now. In Windows with Metro Exodus running in the background and a youtube video playing. That's with the 60% CPU fan setting.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

What would you consider to be good temperatures with this processor?

i usually shoot for ~35°C max at idle,
~65° max for both CPU and/or GPU with heavy processing like gaming.

 

[dennisresevfan]

i usually shoot for ~35°C max at idle,
~65° max for both CPU and/or GPU with heavy processing like gaming.

Hmm. I think I'm getting low 40s doing windows tasks/having games in the background and mid 50s when playing games.

 

[dennisresevfan]

Update: So it's around 33 to 34 Centigrade TRUE idle just sitting in Windows doing nothing. I guess that's OK.