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Hey all you experts.

I have a an AMD 1090T and an XFX Radeon 7970 GPU, wrapped up in an Antec Sonata III case. I'm interested in making my PC quieter, possibly going down the liquid cooling route. But I have a few questions.

Briefly skimming through the NCIX website (and others) I see various all-in-one solutions for liquid cooling the CPU. These seem pretty simple and are probably the way I would like to go (as opposed to a full custom job), but how can I incorporate the GPU cooling into one of those systems? I'm guessing that I can't. Also, where do people put those radiators? They seem pretty big. Would I have to purchase a different case? Can you have the CPU+GPU on the same liquid system? If I had a budget of $400, could I get my system fully liquid cooled (CPU+GPU) or maybe up to $450 if I had to get a new case as well? Are there specialized cooling suppliers that you would recommend?

I'm looking for options. I'm not really interested in the overclocking part, just the quiet. Please help since I know very little about this process.

thanks,

dave

Get a new case like the corsair 330r
+ Corsair h100
+ Artic hybrid

Total at tiger direct $250 (less if you bother to do the rebates)

Keep front fan as intake , setup h100 and arttic as exaust.

Thanks for the info. So the GPU and CPU cooling systems would remain separate. I especially like that hybrid cooler idea for the GPU. Didn't know that exists. So it would go at the back, and the H100 would blow out the top. Not sure about that specific case. I'll have to look into it a bit more, but I'd need to have a spot for my DVD drive, and also for my memory card reader (3.5 inch) since I use the SD card from my camera all the time. Any other case suggestions out there?

I just found this case. Looks pretty skookum. Lots of places for radiators and cables. Anyone have experience with this. And it's only $80. Wow, have cases improved in the past few years!

Fractal Design Define R4 ATX Tower.

If your real goal is a quieter PC I think you'd be better replacing your nosiest case fan and getting a quality air CPU cooler. My experience with a Corsair H90 is that the pumps make more noise than a quality fan (the stock fan with the H90 isn't great, it cools fine but is louder than I'd like). If I had more room to work with (my desktop is a mini-ITX rig, CPU socket being right next to the PCIe slot and only 80mm~ of height means no good air cooler fits). Going the air route would be a lot cheaper too.

If you're not interested in overclocking or achieving max performance, I'd skip custom water cooling. Getting max performance and the quietest PC are at odds, even with water cooling.

The closed-loop liquid cooler for the CPU is a good idea to eliminate noise. Though not necessary. A large air cooler will cool the CPU adequately and still be very quiet as long as you choose the right fan(s).

I would suggest, however that you skip the Accelero hybrid. This is a more or less half-baked liquid cooling solution as you still have a small (ie noisy) fan to cool memory/vrms. What cooler do you currently have on the XFX 7970? It it's the blower style, getting a new cooler such as the triple fan Accelero Extreme IIIwill get you just as good cooling, and shouldn't be any noisier, at half the price.

If you really want a quiet PC, I'd suggest looking into a case with good noise dampening. The Antec sonata isn't bad, but there are quieter cases now. For example, the Fractal define R4. I just did a basic build with one and the thing is barely audible.

Not a fan of AIO liquid coolers. I would sooner get an air cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO.

If you're going to do water... do it for real.

Go to dazmode.com and build a custom loop, it's by far the best source for water cooling in Canada.

I have a Fractal Arc Midi R2 with a custom water loop. While it is not silent, it's plenty quiet for me. My GPU is not on water anymore, but I used to do an i5 750 @ 4GHz and GTX 295 2PCB in a water loop on a modded antec 900.

Thanks guys. Although I didn't write it in my original post, I was wondering about the noise of the pumps and fans. My loudest fan is definitely the 7970 when it ramps up under load. The Hyper 212 (I have that on my cpu already) is actually pretty quiet. I just thought if I went liquid for the gpu, I might was well tie it together with a cpu block. Maybe I should be aiming for better case airflow with some larger slower fans, and then something like the Accelero Extreme III. I'm going to take a better look at my system tonight (I haven't opened it up in 6 months...) and refresh my memory about its layout. Perhaps the R4 case and the Accelero will be my best bet, with a large exhaust fan for the case (it comes with some I think).

I've quickly looked into the ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme III, and it looks like it only fits up to a Radeon 7850 or 7870. No 7900's. Not sure if the list just hasn't been updated with newer cards or what. I've requested the info from their support email system... we'll see how long it takes to get a response.

Disco wrote:

I've quickly looked into the ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme III, and it looks like it only fits up to a Radeon 7850 or 7870. No 7900's. Not sure if the list just hasn't been updated with newer cards or what. I've requested the info from their support email system... we'll see how long it takes to get a response.

Due to a slightly raised border around the GPU die pacakge on the 7900 cards, the Xtreme III likely does not fit, at least not without an added shim.

Arctic did make a 7900 version, however it's been recently discontinued. A quick google search did not turn up any for sale in the usual US online stores. However, here's a used one going in ebay

If you can't track one down, there is the GELID cooler, which should be adequate, but you may need to use a fan controller or attach power the fans by a motherboard header if have a spare that has PWM or variable speed options in the bios/software as the fans run at 100% by default and may be a bit noisy at that speed.

Interesting link to the GELID cooler. Looks good, and I do have a zalman fan mate kicking around somewhere in my junk pile...

.... found it!!