What is your opinion on the fan noise?

[Macro Device]

I guess the title and the poll are self-explanatory.

 

[Onasi]

Quiet, but not silent is fine for me. In fact, what annoys me more than just the noise is the change to it during ups and downs. It’s fine on a CPU and GPU coolers, usually inaudible anyway, but my case fans I would alway run at a static RPM. Something that’s a decent compromise between airflow and noise. Having a well ventilated case helps quite a bit with that.

 

[rusty caterpillar]

Second option for me. I heavily modified my case Lian Li OD 11 Dynamic XL ROG nullified which has a very silly design for example glass side panel is only 3cm away from GPU heatsink(GPU recirculating hot air, a narrow GPU with only 12.5 cm width) complemented by very bad grills. My Mod reduced noise from 43dB to 37dB and lowered temps 2 C for VRAM , GPU core, CPU and 10 C for MBO chipset. I will upload a video at some point.

 

[damric]

My pc fans on full blast are not even close to the loudest thing in the lab.

 

[Athlonite]

I heavily modified my case Lian Li OD 11 Dynamic XL ROG nullified which has a very silly design for example glass side panel is only 3cm away from GPU heatsink(GPU recirculating hot air, a narrow GPU with only 12.5 cm width) complemented by very bad grills. My Mod reduced noise from 43dB to 37dB and lowered temps 2 C for VRAM , GPU core, CPU and 10 C for MBO chipset. I will upload a video at some point.

Are you using a vertical mount then for you GPU
I have the same case I just chucked 3x 120mm fans on the bottom of my case as intakes I did turn the rear exhaust fan around so it to was an intake for positive pressure in the case I found it help with temps alot both GPU and ram temps dropped by 3~4 degrees

 

[Hyderz]

my system is all stock i didn’t set any fan speeds
For the past 7 years my system had one temp issue which the thermal paste dried and replaced..
my pc is barely audible during gaming, I’m not very diligent in setting fan speeds, OC etc

though that said I got 6 fans in my system… 9 if you include the ones on the 360mm radiator

 

[rusty caterpillar]

Are you using a vertical mount then for you GPU
I have the same case I just chucked 3x 120mm fans on the bottom of my case as intakes I did turn the rear exhaust fan around so it to was an intake for positive pressure in the case I found it help with temps alot both GPU and ram temps dropped by 3~4 degrees

Horizontal mount, with no bottom fans.
Thanks for the tip but, I'm very much against fans on the bottom of the case, dust and extra noise, yes I know those fans can get rid of the trapped hot air in between side panel and GPU but, that shouldn't exist in a XL case with marketing for good cooling in the first place. The fault is in the PSU chamber pushing MBO too much towards side panel while the width of the case becomes mediocre. I really don't care if they rectified that on EVO cause they added a 50-60£ premium. Looks like they pushed ppl into buying their expensive Riser cables brackets.
Vertical mount for me is a no, I need the rest of my motherboard usable. Also vertical mount might bring GPU fans too lose to the side panel.

I cut the case grill of the rear fan and that dropped my GPU temps with 5-7 C, those grills if we are lucky, have at least 46-48 % gaps, which we can agree is very bad for airflow.
Now GN has some experimental tests Porosity of the Grills, however are other test like the one made by Puget Systems in 2011 showing how grills are hindering airflow and add noise.
Lian Li has no excuse in adding such grills in 2022 for an expensive case with cooling in mind.

 

[freeagent]

I run quiet fans at full speed right now.

 

[Timbaloo]

It definitely has to be quiet, I always looked for quiet components, especially GPUs. But since I stopped gaming, and therefore have no use for a higher end system, I'm looking to get a passive mini PC, so I'll finally get rid of fan noise as well.

 

[Fokker]

I like quiet, but the fan noise isn't all that distracting since I game exclusively with headphones. I'll have to see how things balance out now that I'll have 9 fans, but they're Silent Wings Pro 4 which are supposed to be 37 dB at 100%.

 

[Frick]

To me Not really, At least and Of course are the same.

 

[vbq7qK68eyYAH4iR]

The spice CFM must flow. I forget what card i had, but i think it was one of the early ATI cards that came with GDDR4, or maybe one of the X2 cards that had twin GPUs. It was around the 2010 era. I put an aftermarket cooler and a 90mm fan on it and the fan had an insane CFM and dB rating. It was as loud as a lawn mower or maybe a baby crying next to you, but as a high pitch squeal, like 40mm server/networking fans. The fan came with intergrated guards as part of the plastic, so you couldn't get your fingers cut off. Once you've had that as a base line for months, even having 3x140mm Vardar fans going flat out on my current radiator is pleasant by comparison. Set the fans to 11 and start overclocking.

 

[Shrek]

No option for

• Just enough noise to know the system is running

Quiet, but not silent is fine for me. In fact, what annoys me more than just the noise is the change to it during ups and downs.

I agree, it's the changes that can be annoying.

I had a CPU cooler that had no copper core, and it was annoying how it would keep 'hunting'

 

[Dristun]

Absolutely hate it and don't ever want to hear it. By far the worst part of Palit's 4080 is hearing it spin up fans under heavy load, considering I never hear the rest of my system unless I kneel down to the case under the table. I'll definitely try to save and spend more on a higher-end card within any chosen tier next time, preferably something with a selectable quiet bios so I wouldn't have to tinker with curves.

 

[INSTG8R]

2K Noctua Industrials... I play in 5.1 and still only a simple 2 fan intake/exhaust setup.

 

[JulLe]

When playing games I use hotkey to make my GPU fans spin at 100%. It is loud but can't hear it through the headphones anyway

 

[cvaldes]

I value quiet however for computing it really depends on the situation.

I loved my departed MacBook Air which was fanless. It was replaced by an inexpensive Acer Swift with a whiny fan (during high workloads). It's cheap and it sure sounds it. For couch surfing I use my iPad mini which is fanless of course. It also has a better (albeit smaller) screen and better thermals.

Silence is particular important in the bedroom. I am using a Beelink mini PC (Intel N95 CPU) as a home theater PC and it's pretty quiet, especially because video playback isn't CPU intensive. There's a backup gaming computer that's far more powerful but I don't use it for media consumption. It's just on during gaming sessions. The GPU (Asus TUF RTX 3080 Ti) is certainly audible during gameplay.

The main gaming PC is in the living room connected to a 55" LG C2 OLED TV and a conventional A/V receiver with speakers. That PC's GPU (RTX 4080 Super Founders Edition) is also audible but gameplay at normal volumes mostly covers that up. It's in a good chassis (Lian Li Lancool II Mesh Performance) so the airflow is really good and the internals stay pretty cool at lower fan speeds.

For my normal desktop productivity tasks, I use an Mac mini M2 Pro (very, very quiet even when the single fan is running at its typical 1700 rpm). There's another Beelink mini PC (Intel N100 CPU) that's used for Windows apps. That cheap PC's cheap fan is noisier than the Mac's but I'd placed it under the desk so most of the sound is being blocked.

For my custom build Wintel boxes, I spent a little more on premium fans (Noctua, Arctic, be quiet!) because I value quiet in the long run way more than saving a nominal amount on fans.

If I didn't play the occasional game, I'd toss out almost all of my Windows PCs and stick with the Mac mini, the Beelink mini PC (for desktop productivity tasks that require Windows), and the cheapo Acer Swift. At some point for sure I will whittle down the number of Wintel desktop boxes. That would reduce not just fan noise but system administration load as well.

One key step is to be thoughtful and deliberate about how you program fan curves. I do this on the hottest days of the year so the other 360 days I know the systems will run quieter. Like someone mentioned before I'm also sensitive to fan speed changes so I configure the curves to allow for some minor load spikes without fan speed changes. There are a couple of GPUs running their fans at minimum speed at idle just so I don't need to hear them clicking on.

 

[eidairaman1]

My pc fans on full blast are not even close to the loudest thing in the lab.

Laws of physics prevent fans from being silent, all airfoils make noise, if they want silent, they need a huge heatsink or a external water pump going outside of their home with 2 long hoses attached.

 

[iameatingjam]

I keep my fans rather high rpm all the time just because I don't like hearing changes in sound level, so moderate-loud is fine for me as long as its steady, cause I get used to it, and its also adequate for most situations,

The only time fans change rpm is if components start getting into 70s, then they go to 100% (but doesn't really happen except stress tests). And intake fans are always 100% to maintain that positive pressure.

 

[Jetster]

In other news, noise canceling headphones are amazing

 

[eidairaman1]

I keep my fans rather high rpm all the time just because I don't like hearing changes in sound level, so moderate-loud is fine for me as long as its steady, cause I get used to it, and its also adequate for most situations,

The only time fans change rpm is if components start getting into 70s, then they go to 100% (but doesn't really happen except stress tests). And intake fans are always 100% to maintain that positive pressure.

My case fans are on rheostats, set and forget, there is no fluttering from them that can be caused by sensors or too low of volts being applied.

 

[theFOoL]

My 775 Build isn't that Loud. The Acemagic S1 is so silent...

 

[iameatingjam]

You know I actually used to like the fan ramp up sound.

I grew up on macs which were always made to be so quiet (Well in most cases cough G5 cough).

So when I was a kid and I saw windows machines playing games I couldn't, or playing them faster or with better graphics settings, and I heard fans ramp up ( which I didn't hear on my computer), it kinda made me associate it with power.

I switched to windows in mid 00s. Had some old POS at first, then a walmart machine that I added a low profile amd card to, that I think might have been passively cooled, but either way it was quiet. But then in ~2011 I believe it was I finally got a real windows gaming machine with a real full size gtx 560 and the fan ramp up was so satisfying. Like yeah, POWER! I finally have it!

But over time the novelty went away haha and now I find changes in noise levels aggravating.

 

[cvaldes]

In other news, noise canceling headphones are amazing

And in other news, not everyone adores wearing headphones 24x7 even if they have a great pair of noise cancelling ones.

I despise wearing headphones, they all make my head hurt after about 45 minutes. I've probably owned close to ten pairs of cans over the past thirty years and I can honestly say I will never buy another pair of headphones. Even my highly effective Bose QuietComfort QC25s sit unused in the closet. When I want noise cancellation I turn on my Apple AirPods Pro 2 earbuds but again, I don't want to wear them all the time.

And the fan noise is still there to affect others (humans, pets, whatever).

Noise cancellation is a workaround, not a solution. Well calibrated, quieter fans are a partial solution. Fanless computers (like some notebook PCs, tablets, etc.) are solutions.

 

[Sithaer]

Quiet, but not silent is fine for me. In fact, what annoys me more than just the noise is the change to it during ups and downs. It’s fine on a CPU and GPU coolers, usually inaudible anyway, but my case fans I would alway run at a static RPM. Something that’s a decent compromise between airflow and noise. Having a well ventilated case helps quite a bit with that.

Pretty much the same here, I can tolerate some noise but the up and downs annoy the heck out of me so I've spent a fair bit of time in the BIOS after moving my PC to my current Be Quiet! case since it does have a built in controller and I've connected all of my case+CPU fan there and the default setting was just bad for me.
Luckily I've managed to find the right balance where nothing heats up too much and the fans won't do that sudden ramp up either.

Tho in some rare cases the noise can be helpful like its how I've noticed that my 3060 Ti's factory paste was literally gone, while I do use MSI Afterburner+RTSS I turn the overlay off once I'm done tweaking the game I'm playing or benching cause it gets in my way of immersion.
I've always had the card's switch on the silent BIOS and one day I've noticed that the card is loud as heck even tho I was wearing a headset and playing a horror game yet I could hear the GPU fans.
Turned on the overlay only to see that its at borderline 90 celsius which is NOT normal for this card + it was undervolted too, took it apart on the next day only to find out that the factory paste was turned into literal dust so I've repasted it and its been fine ever since.