[Pharmaboy]

Thanks !
Well I ment compared to the systems some people have in this thread and besides most of it was bought second hand.

My 4 best/most costly headphones were purchased used; so were my 2 most powerful amps. Many here go the second hand route...

 

[SeEnCreaTive]

Well, thread said in its current state.... Sooooo.....

Beer cozy and rootbeer and all

He-4xx, Schiit Stack, older school Intel stock heatsink sitting on the amp. Cheap Edifier 12u speakers ($19.99).

 

[Deftone]

He-4xx, Schiit Stack, older school Intel stock heatsink sitting on the amp. Cheap Edifier 12u speakers ($19.99).

Step your game up and stick an AIO on it.

 

[Pharmaboy]

AIO?

 

[Ralf Hutter]

AIO?

Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/CORSAIR-HYDRO-Liquid-Cooler-Radiator/dp/B00A0HZMGA

 

[SeEnCreaTive]

Step your game up and stick an AIO on it.

I used to have an AIO on my old 3570k, it permeated out, lost all thermal performance, blew the chip. (Besides you'd be surprised what a good air tower can do. A D15 (the one up from my U14) can easily match, if not beat a typical 240mm Closed Loop (H100i from Corsair for example). My 1600x at 1.435v 4ghz (yes I know I really lost the silicon lottery on my chip to need voltages that high, especially on a Taichi board), under AIDA-64, reaches maybe 65 degrees in a 24C ambient. That's full synthetic load. 55 on big Lightroom exports. Gaming; the fan doesn't even change RPM. Premier Pro, a bit more then gaming, since Cuda acceleration takes a huge load off the CPU.

I wouldn't recommend AIOs unless you are constrained by space, that being said now a days they are much better than they used to be, I will admit. But unless you get a 280mm or above, towers are cheaper, better, last longer. (when compared to 240mm and below). Even with my airflow focused case (MasterCase 5) I can't hear it with my open cans, and you can see how close it is. Mind you, I did spend the money on a 100% Noctua set up.

@Pharmaboy AIO: "All-In-One". A more appropriate name would be a "Close loop liquid cooler". Basically a plug and play water cooling set up for your components. Supposed to give you the advantages of a custom liquid cooler, but with out any hassle.

 

[Errymoose]

Hah yeah, I can second a decent tower cooler setup is definitely quieter unless you have the space for a 280mm rad.
I switched down from a standard atx tower with a tonne of undervolted noctua and noiseblocker fans to an itx case with only space for a 120mm rad AIO and two case fans, so not enough cooling to run them all at low rpm and it's so much louder. I do love the form factor though.

 

[Deftone]

I used to have an AIO on my old 3570k, it permeated out, lost all thermal performance, blew the chip. (Besides you'd be surprised what a good air tower can do. A D15 (the one up from my U14) can easily match, if not beat a typical 240mm Closed Loop (H100i from Corsair for example). My 1600x at 1.435v 4ghz (yes I know I really lost the silicon lottery on my chip to need voltages that high, especially on a Taichi board), under AIDA-64, reaches maybe 65 degrees in a 24C ambient. That's full synthetic load. 55 on big Lightroom exports. Gaming; the fan doesn't even change RPM. Premier Pro, a bit more then gaming, since Cuda acceleration takes a huge load off the CPU.

I wouldn't recommend AIOs unless you are constrained by space, that being said now a days they are much better than they used to be, I will admit. But unless you get a 280mm or above, towers are cheaper, better, last longer. (when compared to 240mm and below). Even with my airflow focused case (MasterCase 5) I can't hear it with my open cans, and you can see how close it is. Mind you, I did spend the money on a 100% Noctua set up.

@Pharmaboy AIO: "All-In-One". A more appropriate name would be a "Close loop liquid cooler". Basically a plug and play water cooling set up for your components. Supposed to give you the advantages of a custom liquid cooler, but with out any hassle.

I use a 280mm on my delidded 8700k to keep it at 68c 5.1Ghz and its great with quiet fans its just the bloody pump buzz that annoys me.

 

[Deftone]

AIO?

Bit of jest but yeah its a closed loop liquid cooler used in PCs

 

[Zhanming057]

At the

I used to have an AIO on my old 3570k, it permeated out, lost all thermal performance, blew the chip. (Besides you'd be surprised what a good air tower can do. A D15 (the one up from my U14) can easily match, if not beat a typical 240mm Closed Loop (H100i from Corsair for example). My 1600x at 1.435v 4ghz (yes I know I really lost the silicon lottery on my chip to need voltages that high, especially on a Taichi board), under AIDA-64, reaches maybe 65 degrees in a 24C ambient. That's full synthetic load. 55 on big Lightroom exports. Gaming; the fan doesn't even change RPM. Premier Pro, a bit more then gaming, since Cuda acceleration takes a huge load off the CPU.

I wouldn't recommend AIOs unless you are constrained by space, that being said now a days they are much better than they used to be, I will admit. But unless you get a 280mm or above, towers are cheaper, better, last longer. (when compared to 240mm and below). Even with my airflow focused case (MasterCase 5) I can't hear it with my open cans, and you can see how close it is. Mind you, I did spend the money on a 100% Noctua set up.

@Pharmaboy AIO: "All-In-One". A more appropriate name would be a "Close loop liquid cooler". Basically a plug and play water cooling set up for your components. Supposed to give you the advantages of a custom liquid cooler, but with out any hassle.

At the high end IMO there's not a lot of different these days. AIO's are sufficiently good (I ran a Corsair one for many year across a couple systems and it's still pulling strong) and regular coolers are also much better than they used to be. Here's what my general recommendation is:

- If your chassis has at least 130-150mm of tolerance above the CPU, the most massive heatsinks can pull even with with 280mm coolers (D15, Dark Rock Pro, etc.) They will require a lot less maintenance. Depending on how fast you run the fans the heatsink cooler might be a tad quieter as well.
- If your chassis can't fit a dual 140mm heatsink (and something like the C14 works great) or has poor airflow over the CPU area, I'd go with a 240mm (and up) AIO. Pump noise might be an issue, but you can usually get away with lower fan speeds
- Finally, most CPU cooling is way too robust for what a CPU actually needs. I run my system (two 145W Xeon's and two 1080/1080ti's) on only 600mm of radiator space. That's only 150mm per component and temps are great. Modern hardware also doesn't run as hot as chips used to, and you can get away with very little cooling if you don't overclock anything. I remember I saw this Inwin 301 build with a mini 1080 and a 7700k all on 240mm of slim radiator space, and even under synthetic loads the system was only in the low 80's, perfectly acceptable for long-term use.

Here's a 140W Xeon on a Noctua C14 in a 12 liter case. On all synthetic loads I get mid 50's on the CPU and low 70's on the Titan XP. Not spectacular but pretty quiet until I really load up the GPU.

 

[Pharmaboy]

I used to have an AIO on my old 3570k, it permeated out, lost all thermal performance, blew the chip. (Besides you'd be surprised what a good air tower can do. A D15 (the one up from my U14) can easily match, if not beat a typical 240mm Closed Loop (H100i from Corsair for example). My 1600x at 1.435v 4ghz (yes I know I really lost the silicon lottery on my chip to need voltages that high, especially on a Taichi board), under AIDA-64, reaches maybe 65 degrees in a 24C ambient. That's full synthetic load. 55 on big Lightroom exports. Gaming; the fan doesn't even change RPM. Premier Pro, a bit more then gaming, since Cuda acceleration takes a huge load off the CPU.

I wouldn't recommend AIOs unless you are constrained by space, that being said now a days they are much better than they used to be, I will admit. But unless you get a 280mm or above, towers are cheaper, better, last longer. (when compared to 240mm and below). Even with my airflow focused case (MasterCase 5) I can't hear it with my open cans, and you can see how close it is. Mind you, I did spend the money on a 100% Noctua set up.

@Pharmaboy AIO: "All-In-One". A more appropriate name would be a "Close loop liquid cooler". Basically a plug and play water cooling set up for your components. Supposed to give you the advantages of a custom liquid cooler, but with out any hassle.

Thanks for explaining.

I have a liquid cooler in current tower; had one in previous tower, too. I wasn't familiar with this acronym.

 

[Pharmaboy]

You guys know way more than I do about liquid cooling. But I have to bring this topic back to audio systems with an odd but true point about my large tower computer (w/liquid cooling): I have so much audio gear in such close proximity on a crowded desktop that the wide/deep top of the tower is essential for my system. On it I have a Marchand electronic crossover (a great fit for the top of the tower); and on top of that, a Woo WA3 amp. Before the Marchand was in the system, my Audio GD NOS 18 was on top of the tower (another good fit).

I'd actually be quite inconvenienced by a smaller/narrower case than this tower (Fractal Design "Define R4").

 

[waveSounds]

Noctua NH-L9i on CPU cooling duties

The loudest thing in here is the damn coil-whine from the 970. Thankfully it's not audible when I'm wearing the NightOwl, which is most of the time when gaming.

 

[Pharmaboy]

what is "coil whine"?

 

[waveSounds]

@Pharmaboy "Coil whine, also known as electromagnetically excited acoustic noise and vibration or audible magnetic noise, is one of the most frustrating phenomena in modern technology. As its name suggests, this high-pitched noise is caused by electromagnetic coils that act as inductors or transformers."

I.e. When my GPU spins up it emits a high-pitched noise for the duration that it's in use. Pretty annoying.