Help needed to quieten my rig

[PitBullCH]

Greetings,

Firstly would just like to commend this site and the community around it - very impressive

Secondly, I need some help...

My under-desk Windows rig spec is below - I built this May/June this year and it's the first PC I've build since around early 2004.

• Case - Corsair Graphite Series 780-T (air filters on front grill and top grill removed)
  Case Fans
  • 2x Noctua NF-A14 PWM (intake - front)
    1x Noctua NF-S12A FLX (intake - bottom)
    2x Noctua NF-A14 FLX (exhaust - above radiator)
    1x Noctua NF-A14 PWM (exhaust - rear)
  PSU - Corsair AX1500i Titanium
  Mainboard - MSI X99A Gaming 9 ACK
  CPU - Intel Core i7-5960 8-core 3.0GHz (mild o/c to 3.4GHz as struggles with anything higher)
  CPU Cooler - Swiftech H240-X (mounted under top grill, stock fans replaced)
  RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws 8x8GB DDR4-DIMM 2800MHz
  GPU - 4x ASUS GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB (mildly overclocked)
  SSD - 1x Samsung M.2 XP941 512GB (on mainboard) + 2x Samsung 850 Pro 1GB
  Optical Disk - LG BH16NS40 Blu-Ray burner
  O/S - MS Windows 10 (up to date), with nVidia driver v358.91
  Sound - Weiss DAC202 (USB) + 2x Event Opal monitors or Sennheiser G4me PC360 Headset

This rig was built for gaming, performs fine for that and the noise level doesn't worry me when gaming using either speakers or the headset.

However, when I'm not gaming, I'm using my MacPro (for personal stuff) or company laptop (for work stuff) as my main computer and this rig is dedicated 100% to full power folding (i,e Folding@Home, churning out approx 1.5m ppd).

• When idle: CPU cores average 32C, GPUs 1-4 average 43/51/51/57C respectively with fans at approx 1050/1050/1050/1200 - not exactly quiet but tolerable enough.
  When fully folding: CPU cores average 61C, GPUs 1-4 average 84/84/84/96C respectively with fans at 2480/2600/2600/3175 - quite loud and barely tolerable.

As you can see, I have an AIO water cooler for the CPU, and there is minimal pump noise even when at full usage. There is of course some noise from the case and radiator fans, and some from the PSU, but the GPUs are by far the biggest source of noise, and in the future I might install water cooling for them which obviously would reduce the temps and noise considerably - however that's a project well over the 6+ month horizon. The Corsair case seems good from an airflow perspective (and I removed the HDD cages since they are not needed) but the sides are not at all well sealed and the huge window on one side does not help.

Options to consider:

• 1) Whether I would get less noise via a proper silence-focused case - options include Fractal Design Define XL R2 or Arc XL, Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 or 6, Phantecs Enthoo Luxe or Silverstone Fortress FT02. Would any of these cases provide same or better airflow whilst restricting the noise ?
  
  2) Any ideas on anything else to change or re-configure on the current set up ?
  
  • a) I did wonder about reversing the rear fan and making it an intake, so all air exhausted out of the top - though might then start sucking in all the hot exhausted GPU air ?
    b) Do I have the right fans in the right places ? Should I be running them differently ?
    c) Are there any significantly quieter fans on the market that still cool as well or better ?
    d) Is the PSU overkill for this rig and perhaps replaceable with something quieter that won't ever trip ?
    e) Anything else ?

Help and suggestions would be most appreciated...

Regards.

PitBullCH.

[Abula]

Welcome to SPCR!!!!

Folding is loading, so in essence you need more cooling if you want to keep that setup on quieter conditions, but your rig is a beast, the highest enthusiast CPU and 4x of the highest Nvidia gpus, this is the type of setup where water should be quieter than Air or mix of things. Go full water, with a bigger case, like Case Labs with low FPI 80mm rads, having bigger dissipation area should allow you lowering the rpms and sustaining the same temps.

[Quinnbeast]

Welcome mate. That's quite the setup you've got there.

A sound dampening case is a great addition if you're just aiming to take the edge off noises that tend to seep out of case; HHD seek noise, electronic noise/coil whine (HFEC), modest fan turbulence etc, but no amount of sound deadening is going to do much against those GPUs under load. By it's nature, a heavily noise-cancelling case tends to have more solid panels and a bit less airflow and is generally suited to a relatively modest component list; in your situation, such a case is likely to increase your fan RPM overall. You've already touched on the main issue with your setup - 4 GPUs with fans hitting 3000 RPM, which suggests that better cooling will be your main path to noise reduction.

Strictly speaking, your fan choices / direction of airflow look as good as they're going to be for the case and component list that you've got. If you're contemplating a case overhaul (I shall defer to Abula's suggestion for this) and/or a move to water cooling on the GPUs, then minor details such as fan types is perhaps irrelevant. You're unlikely to benefit from tweaking the details until the primary issue(s) are resolved.

[Bearmann]

Can you replace the side panel with a panel that has a fan cutout? Other than water cooling,and based on the testing at pugetsystems, I think you would benefit from a side fan blowing directly on the gpu's.

[baii]

Nothing can help if you are running 4 blower model gpu next to eachieve other. ,except maybe put it in the basement. Normal Displayport go up to 15ft, but you can get fiber optic ones which is much longer. All other cables mostly work fine over rather long distance.

If basement option is not viable:
If you are only 1 or 2 gpu with the swiftech, I will say water them in a heartbeat, but 4 gpu would probably need you to get another pump and more radiators (like one more, or more if really desired), hence a total new loop sort of speaking.