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July 2nd, 2021 18:00
Noctua fans really better?
I know (nearly) everyone loves their coolers, and has measurements to prove it.
How about the fans by themselves? I don’t have a “K” CPU, but it still gets pretty warm and I see thermal throttling occasionally. More air movement might be all I need.
Will replacing the existing commodity fans with Noctua make a difference? (I’ve already replaced the case 80mm with a 92mm.). Will working in another fan on the lower case front make a difference?
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bertro514
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July 3rd, 2021 06:00
The CPU cooler is where you will definitely see a difference. And not just because of the fan itself, but upgrading from that tiny round heatsink to a proper tower cooler heatsink will have great impact on your temperatures. It doesn't have to be the $60 Noctua. The $25 Vetroo V5 does the job just as well (and is even easier to install into the Dell cooler mounts, you don't need to buy additional screws).
My i9-10900F came with the tiny "pancake" cooler. It ran at ~55 degrees at idle!! As soon as I put any load on it, it would hit 85-90 in a matter of seconds, then up to thermal throttling in under a minute. After I replaced the bad factory cooler with a Noctua, the idle went down to 30 deg and high all-core load (prime 95) rarely went above 80. All-core Cinebench is around 72-73 after 10 minutes. Gaming is under 55-60 with very rare exceptions.
Replacing the case fans didn't make that much of a dramatic effect on CPU temps (maybe -5 deg), but they helped the GPU and they definitely made an impact on noise. The Dell case fan is loud!!! Adding a bigger fan that can spin slower while pushing the same amount of air (or more) helped keep the machine quiet. I have a total of 5 fans now. (pic). CPU and GPU idle around 27-30, the CPU in games is under 60 like I said, and the GPU stays mostly under 70.
My next project is to improve GPU temps. I'll start by repasting the GPU heatsink (I've seen teardown videos which show that Dell's OEM did a poor job there). Then, I may also look at replacing the GPU fans themselves with some that are quieter, so I can run them at higher RPM without sounding like a hair dryer. I'm also looking at how I could maybe move the PSU out of the way so that it doesn't provide warm air to the GPU fans. Super poor design there...