Scoring Central

So now that my own upgrades are finished, I'm helping a friend put together his first dedicated music PC. While planning the build I realized that I know very little about CPU coolers. I lucked out that the manufacturer of my PC shipped it with some sort of non-water based liquid cooler that keeps the thing running at near room temperature; but we probably won't have that available for his build. We were looking at those Cooler Master fans that you basically paste onto your CPU. Something like the[url=https://pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu-cooler/][/url] Cooler Master - Hyper 212 Black Edition 42 CFM CPU Cooler. He's currently looking to stick with Intel CPUs.

Obviously we'd like the whole rig to run rather quietly.

Any suggestions? A specific cooler brand or type? No cooler at all?

The main thing is to check the TDP of your CPU and make sure the cooler can handle it. If the cooler significantly exceeds the TDP of the CPU, then it should run very quietly.

There are also fan manufacturers who specialize in making quieter fans if you wish to replace the fan that comes with the cooler, or if the cooler does not come with a fan.

Most fans or coolers with fans have a dB (A) rating for noise level.

Last year I bought this fanless heat sink:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16835118141...BY76PZ6177

Looks like it is discontinued, but there are plenty others like it. I'm using it with an i5 that doesn't run very hot to begin with. I did some stress testing after I put it together, and found that the CPU temp didn't go much higher than 40C, which is well within the CPU's safety rating.

Good advice. Thanks, guys. Those heat sink units might be the place to start looking.