I am thinking of a new build, not quite sure of components yet but I do have a question about noise.  My last build 8700K overclocked with Corsair H115 water cooling is really noisy.  I was really expecting water cooling to be quiet.  So is a quiet build possible today?  Do you even need to overclock the CPU anymore?  Interested in the comments here.

Yep - you are trading fans that cool the CPU heat sink for fans that cool the liquid radiator - you still need to move air in either case, which can be noisy.

Your best bet for a quiet build would be a CPU with a lower power draw since, in general, power = heat = higher fan RPMs. The AMD 5800x3d is the current reigning champ (by far, according to most benchmarks) for MSFS due to the large amount of L3 cache, and it also has the lowest power consumption vs. most other "flagship" CPUs:

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/amds-ryzen-7-5800x3d-draws-less-than-half-as-much-power-than-the-intel-core-i9-12900ks-and-yet-faster-in-gaming-workloads/

This CPU can't be effectively overclocked - which I don't think gets you much these days anyway - so there's no need to waste time tinkering with it to get the best performance.  Combine this with a solid case and low noise fans and you'd probably have something fairly quiet.

However, you might want to wait 30 days to see what both Intel and AMD have in their next gen CPUs, both of which should be announced in early September. If nothing else, the announcements might result in some price drops on existing inventory.

Thanks for the insight. 

2 hours ago, MarkW said:

  So is a quiet build possible today? 

Whatever component choices you make, give some thought to the case. If you have the space, a wider case allows better airflow and larger case fans. Most mid tower ATX cases will take 120mm fans back and front, but the wider cases will take 140mm fans. These are more efficient and noticeably quieter. The same applies to water cooling, where some radiators fit the larger fans. GPUs can get noisy when they are hot, so having more space around them and effective air circulation will help reduce their fan speed.  Finally, some cases have a sound damping lining, which I can confirm, does have some effect, but the other points have more effect.

I would check out GamerNexus on YouTube he test CPU`s for heat the coolers and noise and lot more in his tests. PS the top AMD CPU under heavy load runs hotter than the 12900k.

Water can be very quiet, but that's generally not the case with the AIO coolers. 

The idea is to increase your radiator surface area so you can run with reduced air velocity to keep the noise level way down.  I use a custom cooling loop with two 360mm radiators on my primary sim rig (overclocked 10-core 10900K), and a custom loop with two 240mm rads on another (overclocked 6-core 8086K)--both allow me to keep the fans at low speed regardless of CPU load, and as a result they're whisper-quiet.  My daily driver PC has a Corsair H100i AIO unit, and it gets dustbuster-level noisy if I run a game or other high-demand load on it.

4 hours ago, MarkW said:

I am thinking of a new build, not quite sure of components yet but I do have a question about noise.  My last build 8700K overclocked with Corsair H115 water cooling is really noisy.  I was really expecting water cooling to be quiet.  So is a quiet build possible today?  Do you even need to overclock the CPU anymore?  Interested in the comments here.

Hey Mark,

I just built the PC in my signature this weekend after selling another PC I built about a month ago. As I was upgrading to a 3090 I went with the Fractal Design Torrent and I have to say I’m really impressed. It comes stock with 2 x 180mm fans on the front and 3 x 140mm fans on the bottom underneath the GPU. The power supply is in the top which is a genius design. I got everything installed yesterday and did a quick and dirty undervolt on the 3090 and after a 1.5 hour flight in the PMDG 737-600 I was seeing CPU temps around 45 degrees (I went with the Noctua NH D-15S) and the GPU was sitting around 65 degrees but more impressively it was only drawing around 330W. On idle the fans sit around 400 rpm which is silent and while flying I can barely hear them. I’ll continue to dial the fans in over the next few days.

I used a Corsair 4000D Airflow on my last build which is a nice case but the Fractal being bigger allows for much better thermals. 
Let me know if you have any questions 

 

3 hours ago, Biggles2010 said:

Whatever component choices you make, give some thought to the case. If you have the space, a wider case allows better airflow and larger case fans

+1⁹⁹  The case is the foundation of my systems for just that stated reason.

I will add that given my system specs that show in my message footer, I earlier this year upgraded from an RTX 3070 8gb to an RTX 3070 12gb.  My system, with no other changes, got significantly louder. I assume that it is the 3080 and it's system of fans.  Either that or extra fan activity is caused by a shift in load between the CPU and GPU due to the hardware change.  Also contributing could be a change created by a sim update.  But the switch to the 3080 did not come at the time of any of the SUs.  It caused me to move my case from under my desk to about four feet away beyond a tier of desk drawers.

The system when the 3070 was installed was almost whisper quiet.  The 3070 during MSFS ran in the low 80°C range and the CPU in the mid 50°C range.  Now with the 3080 12gb the GPU runs in the mid 70°C range and the CPU has settled into the low 50°C range.  I am not dissatisfied at the noise level now, given the system relocation.  And the other ergonomic/environmental factor to report is during this summer my "hanger", the room that houses my flight environment, is staying at the same slightly elevated room temp during flights.  The room is the most distant from my HVAC central unit. So despite the noise level the system is not pouring considerably more heat out into the room.

Despite the cooling characteristics of my Coolermaster Mastercase Pro H500M case, I would not choose it again as it is an RGB rich case and all those extra thin wires really get in the way.  A real PITA!

Edited August 16, 20223 yr by fppilot

Thanks for the tip on the Fractal case.  The larger fans make sense and if I can get away with air cooling via a Noctua fan then even better.

42 minutes ago, MarkW said:

Thanks for the tip on the Fractal case.  The larger fans make sense and if I can get away with air cooling via a Noctua fan then even better.

I also had the original NH D-15S on my i5-9600K which was overclocked to 5Ghz on all cores. It ran faultlessly for 4 years while I owned the PC and is still going strong. I don’t think I’d ever go back to an AIO. I really like the power supply being at the top of this case as there’s tons of room to put excess cable. If you have the room a slightly bigger case will also be better for heat dissipation. Canada Computers carry these cases as do Memory Express  

Undervolting the GPU can also really help, stock the 3090 will easily pull 450W and I’m seeing roughly. 100W reduction. I plan on a 4090 once the release madness has settled so I’ll be interesting to see how they perform with MSFS

I am an audio engineer with very sensitive ears. My build has the  Noctua NH-D15S with a Fractal case. I am extremely happy with how quiet my machine is, even under load.

2 hours ago, Silicus said:

I am an audio engineer with very sensitive ears. My build has the  Noctua NH-D15S with a Fractal case. I am extremely happy with how quiet my machine is, even under load.

I have spent the morning dialing my fans in and the result is pretty impressive.

For the first time I have been able to consistently hit 60fps in the PMDG 737 with high to ultra settings at 4K . My Noctua fan is running around 800 rpm, Case fans 800 rpm and 3090 fans are at 1,400 rpm.

CPU temp - 46 degrees

GPU temp - 66 degrees

I actually had the case fans running unnecessarily high yesterday which was causing more noise. If I have the volume up high enough to just hear the aircraft sounds in the cockpit I can barely hear the fans in the PC. Overall I am very happy with this case and build.

I slightly undervolt my GPU and CPU, have a case with the same number of inlet as outlet fans (3 & 1 + 2 AIO), and set my CPU AIO fans to run around 1500 RPM when MSFS is running. This gives me 60-65C GPU, 50-60C CPU and a relatively silent system when running MSFS.

(1) Best CPU Coolers 2021: Air Coolers & Liquid Coolers for AMD and Intel CPUs - YouTube

ASUS AMD X670E Motherboards Start listing at $670 (guru3d.com)

Edited August 17, 20223 yr by G-RFRY

Buy a larger case if you have the space and add larger 140mm fans, adjust the speed in the bios so they are around 850rpm. Computer will be nice and quiet.

See my computer specs below, its barley louder then a modern laptop.