Looking for a quieter fan to fit the 120 x 120 x 25 space?
Looking for a quieter fan to fit the 120 x 120 x 25 space?
Noctua coolers cost more than $100 and perform poorly. Two fans are around $40, with prices varying slightly. My thermalright assassin SE is about $38 (the more expensive ARGB model), while $80 remains cheaper than a standard Noctua cooler.
Actually, it's not correct. So long as you remain under or within specification, there is literally no empirical evidence out there that suggests running at 35 degrees offers any longevity benefits over running at any higher temperature, so long as you are within thermal and voltage specifications.
Now, if you were riding the line hard, the majority of the time, right at or above 85°C, and especially if you're often hitting somewhat higher temps, then you are probably going to see premature effects of electromigration and VT-shift. In fact, a LOT of electronics work BETTER if they are above a specific temperature. Now, you certainly don't want to be seeing 83°C temperatures regularly if you are just doing normal things like gaming, running normal applications, etc. You shouldn't be seeing temperatures above 80°C, ever really, unless you are running something incredibly demanding like Prime95 or another steady state stress test, or some hard core encoding software. Something that REALLY pushes the CPU.
If you're getting those kind of temps just running normal applications, browsing, gaming, etc., then something is definitely not installed or configured correctly. Yes, there is an agreed upon number. It is anything below the specified maximum safe operating temperature.
I don't even let me CPU cooler fans go above 35% until the CPU temp hits about 65°C because there is no reason to. Often the loads are temporary and will drop quickly on their own and if they don't this is why your curve slopes upwards. Between 65°C and 85°C is where I want to see any drastic increases in CPU cooler fan RPM happen. I generally create a custom curve that very slowly increases from about 25% speed at minimum temperature to about 35 at around 55-65°C and then a sharper incline going from there to 100% at about 80-85°C.
This keeps the cooler very quiet the vast majority of the time but ensures that there is plenty of brute force happening when temps start nearing the high end of the thermal envelope.
I'm not disputing your point, but if that's the case then why not adjust the fans so they never activate until... a specific value? 75, 80? Similarly, why is there a "normal" mode when "Silent" already causes excessive fan activity?
Also, when I use FurkMark CPU Burner for two minutes, the temperature rises quickly to 78-79 then stabilizes.
That's actually fine.
Looking ahead, this suggested number is roughly 65?
Thanks. Clear explanation.
My main concern was more about noise than cooling concerns, but I value the insight you and others provided.
Since then, your fans would continuously accelerate from low to high speed every few seconds. If you're experiencing maximum temperatures of 79°C during Furmark CPU burner operation, it's likely acceptable, but the recommended action is to follow the instructions in this guide. Thermal compliance checks remain unchanged; simply disregard the sections related to stability testing and clock frequency adjustments.
A brief summary of the overclocking validation process:
Adjust CPU multiplier and voltage in BIOS to your desired values. Avoid presets or automatic tools, as they may cause instability. Manually set most core parameters and defer changes to advanced settings like cache frequency, system agent voltage, VCCIO, memory speeds, or timings once the overclock is stable.
Save your BIOS configuration (creating a new profile if supported) and exit.
Launch Windows and install Prime95 version 26.6. Install HWinfo or CoreTemp. Use HWinfo to view sensors only or open CoreTemp. Execute Prime95 with AVX and AVX2 disabled, selecting the "Small FFT test option," and run it for 15 minutes while monitoring core temperatures to ensure they stay within thermal limits (typically 80°C max, up to 85°C for Intel Gen 11 and above, 95°C for Intel 12th-14th Gen). For older AMD models, use a thermal monitor with "Distance to TJmax" settings and avoid drops below 10°C.
If the CPU passes thermal checks, proceed to stability testing. Download and install Realbench, selecting a stress test option. Use memory matching your installed capacity (e.g., 8GB RAM → 4GB). Run the stability test for 8 hours without using the system otherwise. If it completes successfully, consider extending the test with Prime95 Blend mode or Small FFT for additional assurance.
Monitor HWinfo periodically during extended tests to ensure no core threads fall below 100% utilization. Any such issue indicates a problem that requires adjusting the BIOS settings—either lowering the multiplier or increasing voltage, then retesting.
Also keep in mind, many individuals ignore the noise because they consistently use headphones during intense activities like gaming. For those cases, other profiles are usually fine since they don’t really mind the fans as long as performance remains stable. I aim for strong cooling during demanding tasks, but during quieter times I prefer to avoid the persistent hum from high-speed fans.
Yeah, we're in the same spot. I'm older now and finally have the funds to get a top gaming setup, but the truth is I've just played less lately. I don't like using headphones and it's annoying to hear loud fan noise when the PC isn't really under stress. Plus, being older means I don't hear as clearly. Lol.
I was checking this for my 120mm case fan:
Noctua NF-S12B redux 1200
And definitely, there are plenty of Noctuas, Arctics, Fractal Designs, or Arctic BioniX F12 and Fractal Aspect 12 fans I looked at. Mostly I’ll decide based on what’s available online, since they all seem decent. Noctua is likely to be the quietest option and I don’t need high performance—just a fan for the rear exhaust area (the case didn’t come with an exhaust fan).
And yes, you should definitely use PWM. PWM/PST could be useful when combining fans, but I’m not sure if they should all be from the same brand or if it helps at all. But getting PWM is straightforward.
Regarding the Gigabyte Control Center fan control settings, I experimented with Normal and Silent. I chose Silent because it was the default and Normal just made the fans more noticeable.
With Silent mode, the fans will still spin when temperatures increase under load. I don’t really see a benefit to using Normal unless you generally have low temperatures.
The most bothersome part about fans isn’t the noise from the blades or airflow, but the annoying humming they can produce at certain RPMs, case vibrations, and where they’re placed in the room.
This can be fixed with a new fan, but I’d try adjusting things a bit to see if it improves things. Or experiment with different RPM curves.
Even adding another fan might help them synchronize differently.
In essence, if you truly aim to attract strong audience reactions, it would be nearly unfeasible to locate an alternative that offers quieter operation or maintains the same level of noise normalization as these.