Which of these coolers?

[steffeeh]

I'm finalizing a PC build which I'll order tomorrow on Black Friday. The PC is aimed at regular home usage (browsing, Netflix, etc) with a Pentium G4620, so very little heat will be generated from the CPU.
However the PC is aimed to be very silent, so I've decided to go with an aftermarket cooler.
As there will be barely any heavy load on the system, I'm trying to find the CPU coolers with the lowest noise level at minimum RPM within my price range. What I'll do is setup a fan curve letting it run at idle/minimum until it reaches a given critical temperature where it will ramp up quickly in case of "ermergency", so it will run at this low RPM probably 99% of the time.
I've found a couple of interesting coolers, and my plan is to keep track on all of them and then buy the one that gets the best price on BF. So my intent with this thread is to sort out any cooler not suitable for me.

Here are those that I'm considering:
 - Deepcool GamMAXX 300
 - Deepcool GamMAXX S40
 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
 - Arctic Freezer i32
 - Be-Quiet! Pure Rock

Note that I'm in Sweden, so if you have suggestions on other coolers, be aware that we may not have them here. My PC case have roughly 160mm of clearance for the cooler (Fractal Design Define Nano S).
Here's the full build list

 

[Aeacus]

With G4560 CPU, you don't need aftermarket CPU cooler since you can't OC your CPU. Also, it already comes with a Intel's stock CPU cooler which is more than enough to cool your CPU.

Rather than wasting your money on aftermarket CPU cooler, get a better PSU. Corsair CXM series PSUs, at best, are mediocre quality units.
I'd suggest getting a good quality unit, in 500W rage. Anything from Seasonic lineup will do just fine. E.g M12II-520 EVO,
pcpp: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/TgW9TW/seasonic-power-supply-m12ii520bronze
specs: https://seasonic.com/product/m12ii-520-evo/

Seasonic M12II EVO series PSUs are fully-modular to ease the cable management and they come with 5 years of OEM warranty.

All my 3 PCs: Skylake, Haswell and AMD are also powered by Seasonic. And i too have M12II EVO series PSU in use in my Haswell build but mine is 850W. Full specs with pics in my sig.

Oh, all semi- and fully-modular Seasonic PSUs are also compatible with CableMod SE-series custom sleeved power cables. To match my Skylake's black & red theme and Haswell's black & blue theme, i have replaced the stock black power cables with CableMod SE-series custom sleeved power cables (red colored for Skylake and blue colored for Haswell).
cablemod: https://cablemod.com/products/?filter_series=se-series&show_products=48


But if you still want aftermarket CPU cooler then for silence, go with Arctic Freezer i32 since it comes with a semi-passive fan.
My i5-6600K in my Skylake build is also cooled by Arctic Freezer i32. And for me, the semi-passive fan didn't turn at all until my CPU reached 52°C, perfect for silent builds. Freezer i32 is also one of the best mid-sized CPU coolers,
review: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/arctic-freezer-i32-cooler,5004.html

 

[steffeeh]

How does this semi-passive function work? Wouldn't the BIOS shut the PC down as a safety measure if it notices that it's not spinning (unless you disable it manually)?

Also, how does this function behave in the real world? I can only imagine that the CPU would pretty quickly reach such temperature where the fan kicks in, and then toggle on and off regurarly as it alternates above and below the threshold.

 

[mtucci]

For quiet i would go for a Noctua cpu cooler, or be quiet!. I do like Fractal for a case. I own a Seasonic 520 Psu, M12II-520 EVO, mentioned above , go for that one , its a good PSU with a quiet fan.

I own a Deepcool cpu cooler, and dont recommend it, its not the best quality and those models you pointed are not quiet.

i like very much Be quiet Pure Rock. Arctic is quiet, but if you are around the same price, i ´ll choose Be quiet! definitely.

Cooler Master Evo its not quiet. Another brand with good quiet cpu coolers is Thermalright.

 

[Aeacus]

How does this semi-passive function work? Wouldn't the BIOS shut the PC down as a safety measure if it notices that it's not spinning (unless you disable it manually)?

Also, how does this function behave in the real world? I can only imagine that the CPU would pretty quickly reach such temperature where the fan kicks in, and then toggle on and off regurarly as it alternates above and below the threshold.

Since the stock semi-passive fan is a 4-pin PWM fan, it will receive constant 12V while the RPM is controlled via the PWM regulator inside the fan. Hence the reason why PC won't shut down when connecting Freezer i32 semi-passive fan in CPU_FAN1 header. This wouldn't work with 3-pin fan though since when voltage regulated 3-pin fan stops, it doesn't receive any power and MoBo would think that the CPU fan has died, kicking in the MoBo's fail-safe.

Also, CPU won't reach the fan's target temp that fast since Freezer i32 has quite a big heatsink (150mm tall). On normal web browsing and light gaming, my i5-6600K stays nicely under 50°C. Only heavy gaming or CPU intensive tasks made the CPU hot enough for semi-passive fan to kick in. Though, i also have more than enough case fans in use (to reduce the noise coming out of case fans) that may have prevented the CPU reaching the fan's target temp after hours of PC usage.

Oh, Freezer i32 comes with 6 years of warranty too. Other CPU air coolers usually have 2 or so years of warranty.

 

[steffeeh]

I've never thought about that before with PWM... How does this work with setting up your own fan curve for the CPU fan?

 

[Aeacus]

I haven't tested the stock semi-passive fan with custom fan curve though since i had it running with the SMART fan profile enabled from BIOS and it worked flawlessly.