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Liquid cooling or air fan?

stigbn

stigbn

Member
5 years ago I bought a PC with a water/liquid cooler but I immediately changed it to a air fan cooler because I could always hear the liquid cooler doing something, like a (quiet) sound of water running through the pipes, even when I didn't use the PC. I can't hear the the air fan, it only makes noise when rendering stuff, but never when I work on music.

Was there something wrong in my setup, or what is the consensus today? Do you guys mostly use water/liquid cooling?

I'm asking because I need to upgrade to a new PC and the shop recommends water/liquid cooling.

*ps
I can see there was some talk i 2021 about this - sorry I didn't see it first, but still - has water cooling become better?

I think I'll stick with air cooling especially if I go with a intel processor.
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stigbn said:
Don't know - they think it's better, but I think they think about gamers - they don't know about music production.
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I wouldn't place any value on a recommendation that doesn't have any reasoning. I use a fanless system, fans and water cooling are both fine choices too. It really doesn't matter, just go with what you prefer.
 
stigbn said:
5 years ago I bought a PC with a water/liquid cooler but I immediately changed it to a air fan cooler because I could always hear the liquid cooler doing something, like a (quiet) sound of water running through the pipes, (...)
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Maybe the radiator was not in the right position


One of the best Water AIO for AMD/Intel probably is the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 A-RGB


The consensus is that the air cooler may be quieter at idle/low and water cooler at heavy duty.

The AMD 7950X with ECO Mode 105W enabled is very silent and work well with air cooler.

The best air cooler for AMD is Noctua NH-D15/D15s + Noctua Offset Mounting Bars


For Intel is the Corsair A115
Liquid cooling or air fan?
+ Thermalright Contact Frame (It is a must for Intel)


The best budget option for both AMD/Intel is the Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 series.

We also need a silent PSU
hwbusters.com

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Hardware Busters - Best ATX v3.x & PCIe 5.x Ready PSU Picks 2024 – Hardware Busters - Best Picks
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A case with good airflow like Montech Air 903 Max, Lian Li Lancool III, Fractal Torrent,
Phanteks Eclipse G500A or the be quiet! DARK BASE 901/701 that has Silent
Wings 4 140mm PWM fans!
If not satisfied with default 120/140mm fans, change to something more efficient/silent, for
120mm fans check here and for 140mm fans check here.

To control the fans (In the BIOS set the FANS to PWM, if they are PWM)

 
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stigbn said:
Don't know - they think it's better, but I think they think about gamers - they don't know about music production.
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They're trying to rip you off.

I've built custom water-cooled PCs in the past. When done right, they're silent. If you are hearing water flowing through the tubes, it's likely that there's oxygen bubbles stuck inside them and/or you don't have enough fluid running through the system.

The general rule of thumb is NOT to water-cool a PC that you rely on to make your living. The main reason for this is that you always run the risk of springing a leak that can damage/destroy your system.

The main purpose of water-cooling is to to provide additional cooling to the CPU for overclocking. You'll get a performance boost, but often at the cost of system stability. This is fine if you're just playing games for fun, but it can become an issue when running other CPU intensive programs (like music production).

For a cheaper compromise, you could go for an all-in-one (AIO) water-cooled CPU cooler. But that still isn't worth the hassle over an regular air-cooled system IMO, especially for music production.
 
I had a long talk on the phone with the shop (Aarhus, Denmark) , and he said that they could/would not make a new i7 or i9 system with air cooling as a system like that not go through their stress-test, so they could not sell it to me with guarantee. He said the new types like a i7 13700k (or a similar ryzen) generates so much heat that he would not advice air cooling and they simply will not sell it. But I could make a i5 system, or buy the parts my self and build it. But as I have some weak eye sight, and are not so good at that kind of stuff, I will not dare to do it myself.
 
Even if you guys says that it's ok with a i7 13700 or a Ryzen similar (I'm not quite into all the models, but their best models are Ryzen 7 7800), I simply can't buy a system like that with air cooling - they won't sell it to me. I have to build it myself.
 
Overpowered power supply. That way the computer won't get overheated as easily, and need less cooling from the fans. No water cooling, it's noisy.
 
I found a whole system with a Intel Core i7 i7-14700F and air cooling! This seems to be a very new processor. Would that be a good processor - it has 8 (or rather 20 ? - another site claims that) cores and 28 threads. I cant find anything about temperature.
 
My system is air-cooled: be quiet! Silent Base 802 (case), Ryzen 5950X, Radeon 7900XTX, 128GB RAM, 9 internal drives (3 HDD, 6 SSD), 6 BeQuiet SilentWings 120mm fans plus a BeQuiet Dark Rock Elite CPU cooler and most of the time the street noise is completely covering the noise from my PC. The only times that I hear it is when I render my projects or when I play around with AI models and both the CPU and GPU are full tilt. I haven't yet repasted the CPU and, after four years of using the case, there's only one fan that makes a bit of noise on startup. I got the replacement, I am just dragging my feet. In four years the only "maintenance" done was to change the GPU from nVidia to AMD, change the configuration of the internal storage and to add a 2.5GbE network card for faster back-ups to my file server.

Edit: number of drives.
 
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stigbn said:
He said the new types like a i7 13700k (or a similar ryzen) generates so much heat that he would not advice air cooling and they simply will not sell it.
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I think Intel does have one chip out that they explicitly say should be water-cooled, I thought it was the top-end i9 though. Probably overkill tbh.
 
stigbn said:
I have to build it myself.
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Something that's totally possible! There are so many guides about how to do this.

I have a 14700k with a Noctua D-12L and it's been working great. The PC is right next to me so I have to do a lot of fan tuning (Argus Monitor or FanControl are great tools) but at full gas it's cooled just enough. The D-15 or similar is better but I prefer a smaller case.
 
stigbn said:
I had a long talk on the phone with the shop (Aarhus, Denmark) , and he said that they could/would not make a new i7 or i9 system with air cooling as a system like that not go through their stress-test, so they could not sell it to me with guarantee. He said the new types like a i7 13700k (or a similar ryzen) generates so much heat that he would not advice air cooling and they simply will not sell it. But I could make a i5 system, or buy the parts my self and build it. But as I have some weak eye sight, and are not so good at that kind of stuff, I will not dare to do it myself.
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Most PC shops do not like to sell with air cooler because a heavy air cooler
may damage the CPU socket during the transportation, any big bump and bye bye.
Any heavy GPU is the same, a RTX 4090 can weight above 2.5KG!
They must sell with the GPU/cooler not installed...
Else if you are going to pick up the PC in person.

You can tweak the Intel CPU to limit the max voltage/amperage/wattage/temperature to fit
the cooler system capability, I would limit to 190W and 90ºC.


For AMD Ryzen you simple enable Eco Mode(105W for the 7950X)


For ASRock have to enter the values manually, but it is easy.
Liquid cooling or air fan?


ECO mode 105W
PPT = 142000
TDC = 110000
EDC = 170000
or
ECO mode 125W
PPT = 162000
TDC = 120000
EDC = 180000

IF you are going to buy Intel, the Thermalright Contact Frame is a must!
The CPU was poor engineered and have a tendency to bent, at some point
it will have a poor contact with the cooler, look!


Some Windows tweaks for a better audio/music production machine

Nvidia latency worse with more recent GPUs?

Thanks a lot! You are welcome! New AMD GPU driver. https://www.techpowerup.com/download/amd-radeon-graphics-drivers/ More tweaks: - Go to Settings>Personalization>Colors = Disable Transparency Effects - Go to Settings>System>Multitasking = Disable Snap Windows - Processor performance...
vi-control.net vi-control.net
 
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GtrString said:
Overpowered power supply. That way the computer won't get overheated as easily, and need less cooling from the fans. No water cooling, it's noisy.
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The system draws the power it needs, having a larger PSU will not help cooling - however each PSU has an efficiency curve and usually the most efficient level is a little above or below the mid point. So if your system draws 500 watts then you want to find a PSU with the sweet spot at around 500. But it doesn't matter that much.
 
There are systems possible that don't need any active cooling. Big enough heatsinks can suffice. If I was to get a Windows machine, that's what I would be gunning for.
I know of at least one dedicated business that builds such system to spec.
 
I run a Ryzen 9 5950x (which is purportedly said to run hot) and an RTX 3080 and my system has been doing just fine with the Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 air cooler.

You need to have at least a mid size tower case to make it fit (they are beefy), but it does run quiet and my CPU rarely gets over 65 degrees (and doesn't throttle until it hits 90 or so), even when I am gaming. There are two subsequent models out now which seem to be easier to install and should work even better, and they are all $100 USD or less.

Edit - I would also recommend having a case with good air flow (mesh front panel and a good overall fan configuration), as well.

https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler
 
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