5 ms·

He appears to be trying to build a fairly silent machine as well, so the liquid cooling will help. Does he need that much power, though? I certainly wouldn't,

He appears to be trying to build a fairly silent machine as well, so the liquid cooling will help. Does he need that much power, though? I certainly wouldn't, but for what he is doing I can see it. He's running 12 containers in VirtualBox. Avoiding VirtualBox would help a lot, but depending on what he's doing, he may not be able to (and on Mac, I think you have no choice -- he may not realise that he'll get tons better performance without it). On top of that he's doing Closure (presumably with power hungry development toys) and lots of video conferencing. I often pair program remotely with video conferencing and it can eat half of your CPU(s). Mumble and Tmux is a much better way to go, but again setting up and getting used to the tooling is not trivial. $2K and building your own machine vs doing some pretty serious work trying to lighten the development environment -- I can see an argument for it, even if it's not the way I would choose to go.

ferongr 10y ago
All-in-one watercooling systems are not more silent. The pump is audible and the lack of radiator surface means you'll hear the fans when they ramp up.
- egeozcan 10y ago
  My motherboard has a liquid cooling setting for managing fans. I can rarely hear the pump and fans are very silent. It's an AIO system from corsair with 2 fans (I'm outside & can't remember the name now).
  - glenneroo 10y ago
    Is it anecdotal evidence time? I have NOCTUA CPU coolers in multiple Fractal R4/R5 cases and all 4 of these machines run at 100% CPU for weeks on end and you also can't hear anything. I considered going the water cooling route, but from what I could gather from various reviewers, is that like the parent you replied to, the pump makes noise as well as the fans when going overtime (not to mention a lot more expensive and time-consuming to install). Maybe it has something to do with the case? What case do you have? Did you do anything extra to silence it?
    - egeozcan 10y ago
      I have a mid-range Cooler Master case, don't have the model name in mind but I don't remember it having anything specific for sound isolation. When it comes to these things, I can't find anything but anecdotal evidence. Even the most respected reviewers usually have a sample size of one.
  - floatboth 10y ago
    Yep I have the NZXT Kraken X61 and I can only hear the pump when I put my ear very very close to the tower.
sb057 10y ago
>He appears to be trying to build a fairly silent machine as well, so the liquid cooling will help. One fan is a lot quieter than 2-3 fans + pump.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Given enough money and a big enough radiator (Not to be confused with a heatsink) you can skip the fans. That said, such a radiator is about as big and expensive as a car radiator. Something like Watercool MO-RA3. This can dissipate about 500W heat fanless. (4x that with full fans) Of course the room might get hot after hours of constant use. Combine with fanless (or watercooled) PSUs and very quiet pumps for maximum silence.
  - clarry 10y ago
    I'm always concerned about VRM, RAM, and other circuitry surrounding the CPU in watercooled setups. A good fan will provide some airflow across all of these.
  - alva 10y ago
    You should check out the new Calyos case http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/ http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/
dom0 10y ago
For desktop hardware with mid-range GPUs liquid cooling doesn't really make sense. Good air coolers and airflow which is not "in your face" bad will already be inaudible at 1m.
paulmd 10y ago
It's counterintuitive, but AIO liquid cooling is often louder than a comparable fan cooler. It takes a lot of static pressure to force air through a radiator, and such radiators are definitionally mounted near some kind of air intake/outlet so there is usually very little noise dampening available. Also, AIOs usually have the cheapest parts available (pumps/fans) and are lower quality than you would get from a (much more expensive) custom setup.

ferongr 10y ago

All-in-one watercooling systems are not more silent. The pump is audible and the lack of radiator surface means you'll hear the fans when they ramp up.

egeozcan 10y ago
My motherboard has a liquid cooling setting for managing fans. I can rarely hear the pump and fans are very silent. It's an AIO system from corsair with 2 fans (I'm outside & can't remember the name now).
- glenneroo 10y ago
  Is it anecdotal evidence time? I have NOCTUA CPU coolers in multiple Fractal R4/R5 cases and all 4 of these machines run at 100% CPU for weeks on end and you also can't hear anything. I considered going the water cooling route, but from what I could gather from various reviewers, is that like the parent you replied to, the pump makes noise as well as the fans when going overtime (not to mention a lot more expensive and time-consuming to install). Maybe it has something to do with the case? What case do you have? Did you do anything extra to silence it?
  - egeozcan 10y ago
    I have a mid-range Cooler Master case, don't have the model name in mind but I don't remember it having anything specific for sound isolation. When it comes to these things, I can't find anything but anecdotal evidence. Even the most respected reviewers usually have a sample size of one.
- floatboth 10y ago
  Yep I have the NZXT Kraken X61 and I can only hear the pump when I put my ear very very close to the tower.

sb057 10y ago

>He appears to be trying to build a fairly silent machine as well, so the liquid cooling will help. One fan is a lot quieter than 2-3 fans + pump.

AstralStorm 10y ago
Given enough money and a big enough radiator (Not to be confused with a heatsink) you can skip the fans. That said, such a radiator is about as big and expensive as a car radiator. Something like Watercool MO-RA3. This can dissipate about 500W heat fanless. (4x that with full fans) Of course the room might get hot after hours of constant use. Combine with fanless (or watercooled) PSUs and very quiet pumps for maximum silence.
- clarry 10y ago
  I'm always concerned about VRM, RAM, and other circuitry surrounding the CPU in watercooled setups. A good fan will provide some airflow across all of these.
- alva 10y ago
  You should check out the new Calyos case http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/ http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/

dom0 10y ago

For desktop hardware with mid-range GPUs liquid cooling doesn't really make sense. Good air coolers and airflow which is not "in your face" bad will already be inaudible at 1m.

paulmd 10y ago

It's counterintuitive, but AIO liquid cooling is often louder than a comparable fan cooler. It takes a lot of static pressure to force air through a radiator, and such radiators are definitionally mounted near some kind of air intake/outlet so there is usually very little noise dampening available. Also, AIOs usually have the cheapest parts available (pumps/fans) and are lower quality than you would get from a (much more expensive) custom setup.