Happy New Year Everyone!

I'm almost ready to begin my system upgrade (CPU/MOBO/RAM) and need to order a cooling fan. I'd like something reasonably quiet that would cool well enough to do moderate overclocking on an I7 7700K. I have an 800 Watt PS, and am using the Z270K prime motherboard from ASUS.
Not really wanting to pursue water cooling. I'm worried about the leak risk, and don't think it's that superior to air cooling to warrant the risk. If anyone has ideas to the contrary, or I am misinformed about this, please share.
I've been looking at the Noctua NH-D15 as a potential candidate.

 

I suggest...



Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

 

If money is not a problem, by all means buy Noctua or Cryorig R1. More or less same performance, but i would still rather stay with Noctua as is very proven and tested solution with excellent quality and brand behind and i think is even cheaper right now than Cryorig. Overall i think is still best air cooler on the market. If you want to save a bit of money Raijintek Tisis is right behind(like 2-3% worse in cooling efficiency). But i don't know of quality and how loud are the fans.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2018

Thanks, @thantrax and @kimikaze.
Money isn't really an issue as the pricing only seems to vary by around $50 or so and I've already gotten most of the expensive components out of the way during the black Friday and Christmas specials.
The Noctua seems the clear winner in terms of cooling and noise so far. I think it's a bit quieter then the R1. If money was an issue, I'd likely jump on the 212 EVO. It's very inexpensive.
I just wanted to throw this question out there in the event that there are better cooling options available for studios that you guys would know of.
Thanks for the responses!

 

Get 8700K & profit (you won't need to overclock).

 

Too late, already got the CPU last November. Got a pretty good deal on it so I jumped.
I don't really plan to overclock initially.
I'm coming from an AMD Phenom II. My hope is that I'll be able to work with at least 2 tracks unfrozen as well as my busses (reverbs, delays, drums, master) being live, not bounced. This will offer me a much better solution for being able to make adjustments while mixing than my current freeze and guess method. CPU (the Phenom) went to it's knees when I started using Acustica Gold. I run an instance of it on all busses and tracks.
I just want to plan ahead for the eventuality of my needing to overclock, or being able to do it in the event of a really heavy project.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2018

^Sorry, thought you were buying the whole thing now.

 

.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2018

Even the Noctua NH-U14S will cool the 7700k adequately and with moderate noise under oc. The Cooler Master Evo proposed which is significantly lower in price will do fine but not under oc and under heavy load it will be noisy. The NH-D15 is of course top of the line so nc here. I have one myself and it's a beast in performance and very low noise even under oc. But it's also a beast in size covering the ram slots which brings me to my next argument:

There is absolutely no risk with closed loop coolers. Installation can be even easier than a premium air cooler and you need not be an expert. I 've installed a whole bunch of them, mainly Corsair, NZXT and Thermaltake products, i 've been working with these for almost 5 yrs now. One of my studio comps has a 7700k with a Corsair H100i v2 (Gigabyte Z270 board,Corsair RMX1000i psu) for quite sometime now. It's been running at 4.7 ghz constantly with fan settings at slightly under medium speed. Noisewise, under normal operation, you can hear more the spinning disks than any fan in my sys, even under 99% load and oc'd i measured 40db @ 1 mtr. With no oc at all and silent setting i 've measured no more than 22-23 db. Practically this is the same acoustic performance as the Noctua NH-D15, with the exception that if you don't oc, the H100i v2 will be about 10 degrees Celcius cooler than the Noctua at full load. If you have the pc case to accomodate such a cooler by all means go for it.
Premium air coolers are typically huge taking up significant space inside a pc case, weigh a ton (the nh-d15 is 1.3 kilos with the fans) and their weight pressure is applied directly on your mobo. The smaller air coolers just don't provide an adequate cooling vs noise solution (for a studio environment always).
Closed loop liquid coolers' radiators can be mounted on the top, on the side or even on the bottom of a pc case and the better products usually come with a 5 year warranty, very low noise, good to excellent performance, smart software control and about the same price as a premium air cooler.
Seeing where you 're coming from (Phenom II) , i gotta say man, indulge yourself and don't hesitate
Cheers

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2018

@thantrax I'm bummed.
That Hyper 212 does not work well in my MacBook Pro.

 

@taskforce, thanks for the extensive reply.
Any closed loop coolers that you would recommend? Would these exceed the cooling capacity of the D15? What would the main advantages be?
Sorry for so many questions, first build in ages!

This is my case, currently:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MXVDKQ/?tag=pchound-20

Wimpy 500W PSU has been upgraded to an 800W Corsair.
I don't believe I'll have issues with room for the Noctua. I've seen many write-ups where they say you've got to watch the RAM chip height. I've got this RAM:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232476

So I hope it won't be too high.
I'm excited and can't hardly wait to get under way with this. I'll go from SATA2 to SATA3 so that's double the performance there. Projects currently take between 5 to 10 minutes just to load. I'm hoping that will get significantly reduced. The big tell for me will be how many live effects chains I'll be able to utilize.

 

@digitaldragon
I will start with your GSkill ram and Noctua NH-D15. Your build will look something like this:
http://antyweb.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DSC_3004.jpg
If you are fine with the second fan "kissing" the ram sticks, np by me
But before i continue i have to comment, this pc case is really old mate, about 12 yrs old model. For the time it was a fine mid price-mid size tower. Seeing your case doesn't take the psu in the bottom (very old design), most of the open space in your case will be overwhelmed with a NH-D15. A modern mid size tower (with the psu in the bottom) with a NH-D15 looks like this:
http://cdn.overclock.net/1/11/1167c231_nh-d15_450D.jpeg
Take a closer look at how the Corsair 450D in the pic (and the majority of good modern cases) "takes" the hd drives straight from the front and the wiring from the back, leaving enough room for airflow inside the case and keeping it all tidy with no mess, and you can mount a full dual radiator liquid AIO on the top of the case. What makes the old Raidmax case even worse is it has no place to mount a dual 120mm fan radiator (in case you went for a liquid AIO). You'd have to mount it outside the case vertically in the back and drill holes in your chassis to screw it in place lol.
So whatever your choice of cooling is at the end, i would humbly recommend to just leave the old case with the PhenomII as it is, it can be an internet machine or an additional effects processor in the studio maybe. All your other components are new or just about, it will be a shame really to put it all in a such an old case (with all the inconience it will bring due to old architecture).
A Corsair 450D case costs about 110-120 dlrs and will accomodate anything you like, be it a huge air cooler or a dual fan closed loop liquid cooler.
Personally i would couple it with a Corsair H100i v2 (5 years warranty) or a Thermaltake Water 3.0 (3 years warranty). A recent "sleeper" discovery for me, was the Deepcool Captain 240Ex which performs admirably at a 99 dlrs price.
These last 5 years or so, i prefer liquid AIO's when building pcs, because in modern cases they are typically mounted on the top of the case, leaving great room inside the case for airflow first and a tidy look second, which also makes for easy future additions/upgrades inside the case. Performance of a good dual fan liquid cooler at stock cpu clocks/low fan speeds is always better than even the best air cooler (5-10 degrees Celcius lower) and about equal at oc typically with slightly less noise (but not always, depends on amount of oc vs cooler model, correct placing/mounting etc). I also like the fact that the radiator fans can be controlled from both the UEFI bios or from within the windows os with their respective soft. Another factor i like is i don't have to deal with dusty fans in the middle of the pc case.
There you have it mate, i 'd be happy to answer any question really, i got too much time on my hands atm
PS: I generally prefer full tower cases like the Corsair 750D but most of my clients like their pcs smaller, so i come to understand most people favor mid towers eheheh.

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2018

the one I use

https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NH-D15-heatpipe-NF-A15-140mm/dp/B00L7UZMAK

 

I don't recommend any liquid coolers. I have the first Coarsair H100 240mm and it is very loud compared to my business computer next to it, even with the 4 fans at minimum speed. I have the BIOS control fans based on temp of CPU. The pump on the CPU is the worst culprit. If your case is in an enclosure I would say go for it, but not if it is in the open where you can hear the fans and pump. I wish they still made fanless coolers.

 

Many first gen H100s had a problematic pump just like yours, which is the source for the noise, to my knowledge they have all been rma'd. Just like in this video, check the "before" and "after" :

I may rave about liquid coolers etc (i also like good ol' air coolers), surely you don't have to take my word for it :
https://www.eteknix.com/corsair-h100i-v2-240mm-aio-cpu-cooler-review/5/
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_h150i_pro_review,11.html
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12150/the-deepcool-captain-240-ex-rgb-aio-cooler-review
Cheers

 

My suggestion would of course be to go fanless. Like completely silent.

You know, today it is possible to build high end gaming PCs with 0db(A). Even without coil whine from the graphics card on highest load. And they only cost about 200-300 more than the loud-fan version. And there is also no need to open/undust/clean your computer anymore.

I switched to silent PCs from SilentMaxx 10 years ago. Now my family, friends and office uses them. I will definitely never go back.

https://www.silentmaxx.de/pcs/kenko-der-lautlose-0db-pc/lautlose-performance-pc.html

 

This is the first I have heard of it. I am out of warranty by a couple years at least now.

 

@taskforce, thanks for the detailed explanation and options.

I suppose that if I should upgrade the case, I should entertain making the move to rackmount as well. This would benefit me greatly as I am usually moving this PC from the recording location back to the mixing location and could just rack the whole affair, MOTU HD192, 828, Preamps, and PC.
Have you ever used any rackmount server cases for an audio PC build? Curious as to how many rack units I should look for in a server case with that huge Noctua fan that I've already ordered.

 

https://www.alpenfoehn.de/en/products/cpu-cooler/brocken-3-en
best cooling performance and completely silent through mechanical uncoupling.

 

@digitaldragon
The Noctua is a great choice, well tested to be the industry's standard for air cooling and comes with a great 6 year warranty.
Rackmount cases are mainly geared towards server comps, so many of them can be stacked on large heavy duty rack stands. I tend not to typically use them because they offer less convenience than a typical tower case and worse air flow, less space and usually more noise. With that said, there are monstrous (usually very "deep") rack cases that take absurd amount of hd drives but these are very costly and i'm sure they wouldn't fit your Noctua. Given your nh-d15 noctua is 165mm with the fans and 1U height is about 44.5mm, you would be looking at a 4U case, but even then the nh-d15 most likely will not fit in the case. Peeps who go for rackmount cases usually go for a low profile cooler like the nh-c14s, here: https://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-c14s/specification
A typical pc case, imho, would be much better in terms of performance vs price and what it can fit inside.
If you are still interested in rack cases here's an example: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/4u-...-hdd-ssd-3x-525-bays-2x-usb-lockable-panel-12
Scan.co.uk have many rackmount pc cases so check em out if thats what you 're lookin' for.
Cheers