Which radiator for semi-passive setup?

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sadbuttrue

Gawd
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Feb 16, 2008
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I'm considering a watercooled setup for my next PC. It would consist of one radiator/pump loop for the gpu and another for the cpu. However, silence is my biggest concern. The pumps will be placed inside a reservoir and then into a thick sound proof box with foam padding. This should eliminate all sound (if it doesn't I'll simply double/triple wall the box).

Now onto my question:

What radiators would be best for <50watts in passive mode with no fans spinning, but still work well with slow spinning fans at load (150-250watts)? They will be mounted externally. I'm not interested in world record temps.
 
I'd go for the lowest fin-density radiators.

To my knowledge, those would be the HW Labs SR-1 series (marketed to be optimized for sub-1000RPM fans), and the XSPC RX series (I think they are about 9 and 8 FPI, respectively).

One other option, though not of conventional size, is the watercool MORA-3 (which is significantly better than the MORA-2 at low-RPM). I think this would be an expensive option if running two loops.

There may be a few other options, but these are known to work quite well with low-RPM fans. I'd suggest the Scythe GT AP-13 fan. It spins at 1150RPM, but is less noisy than most ~1000RPM fans. The AP-12 spins at 800RPM, but at that speed, the differences between fans becomes negligible, and it makes less sense to purchase expensive fans (and the AP-13 could be put on a fan controller).

You could also consider running a single loop and single pump (less pump-heat).
 
You don't need two pumps and separate loops. It's been shown in Swiftec testing that it's a waste of time and money. You can confirm that with pretty much anyone on OCN who's since switched.
 
Go for pretty much any triple radiator with 3 fans spinning at their startup voltage. Even a yate loon @ 4.1v will be sub 18dba... 3 of them will barely hit 20dba.
From 3 feet that will be totally inaudible. In-fact, you'll likely hear your PSU whine louder than 3 1200rpm fans running at startup voltage.
At 5v they should be good enough to dump 200w from the loop.
Mount horizontally to encourage convection if you can.
 
Cheers for the info regarding single loop. Will save some cash and most likely noise. I'll have a look at various rads available here and check fin density.

I have a number of silent fans in my current air cooled setup. Although they are virtually silent at 4-5v, I would still prefer to have them not spinning when running at the desktop/idle with limited heat output. This is the reason for semi-passive. I plan to use a Seasonic X series PSU too, so the setup will be fanless at idle.
 
I would go with the XSPC RX 360 and some GT's. I'm going to have 2 rx360's in my new build and 6 gentel typhoon's. I got the 1850 models, but i'm going to under volt them as much as I can to hit my target temps. The gt's move alot of air and they do it very quietly. I am running them at full speed right now and there not bad. But if you want silent I would run there 1150 fans there only 16db.
 
MORA-3 can easily best any rad recommended so far without any fans mounted on it. Put some fans on it, sub-1,000 RPM if you like and enjoy a killer setup... :D
 
The MO-RA3 looks like the route I'll be going actually. It works out roughly the same cost as 2x360 rads plus the parts necessary to build a decent external enclosure. The benefit of not needing to use my rather limited DIY skills makes it a winner. With the feet and grill attached it does look far better than anything I'm likely to build :) I've read elsewhere someone quite happily running their MO-RA2 passively when idle, with more than acceptable temps. Thanks for the help guys.
 
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