Silent PC, mag3 or 1250, i need help :/

Well heres my problem, I don't like noise, and I don't want a hot cpu... physics sucks; and even worse I cna't make my mind up on anything, hah!

I'm going to need bigger pump and better radiator performance than my old system.. caprice/eheim1048.

Pump- mag3 or 1250.. first which is quieter? Do they make noticably more noise than a 1048? I'm afraid they do so question then is, is the water they pump enough to keep them cool? Can I put foam around the pump to block noise?

Rad- without stepping to using more fans(20CFM total for old system), I think my only option is 2 rads, however 2 caprices won't fit in my case, if i put a caprice and a jr120 in parallel after a whitewater (each out -> seperate rad) will they get similar water flow? I cna't see caprice having much more of a pressure drop, however is even a small pressure drop enough to throw off flow drastically?

Man my plans were going fine till I realized how much heat a [email protected]/1.8v makes, didn't think it'd make more heat than my old oced [email protected], oh well.

Have you tried the new chip with the "old" w/c system? or are you guessing it won't work?

I'd think 1 caprice rad is large enough. Maybe you will need some more airflow, but with a good shroud and 2x120mm fans running quietly, that should be OK. I wouldn't wrap foam around the pump with it running inline; it would probably overheat. It'd be better to run submerged in a resevoir. The 1048 would put much less heat into the water than the other choices. With noise elimination being your highest priority, the 1048 pump is probably a very good choice at the expense of somewhat higher cpu temps.

I'm guessing it won't work, I gave that system to my gf and don't want to pull her computer apart to test it.

I played with http://www.benchtest.com/calc.html and according to it my xp is at least 15watts hotter than my p4 was, assuming I don't have to go past 1.8v... with air its almost stable at 1.75, plus then I'll be cooling 3 harddrives as well (8watts each).

I gave up on 120mm fans, the panaflo's l1a version doens't start at 5v, I got some NMB that is supposed to be one of the best and I can still hear it fine. NoiseblockerUSA shutdown because the $ is worth nothing now, got a few 92mm fans order from them for cheap... they're 21db@12v and should work down to 5 fine, I'll try them at least.


Anyways I was thinking if a bigger pump wasn't noticably louder it would be worth it. I guess I'll just get another 1048 and hope for the best, although I have a feeling I'm going to have problems. I miss my old computer, it was perfect hehe.

Have you looked at Silent PC Review link ? I'm quite sure extremely quiet watercooling has been discussed. It's a quality, very serious site to discuss low/no noise PCs.

By noise standards, the 1048 is about as quiet as it gets and generates very little heat which is nice for submerged operation.

As far as 120mm fans being loud, you require some airflow or must get a large car radiator (or 2) and run external with little/no airflow (passive). Another option might be an external cooling box that is well insulated for sound but can still move some air.

You're definitely running into the reality of physical limits. I'm not sure you can have a compact, no-noise watercooling system with a seriously overclocked CPU and still keep the cpu temp close to ambient; which are you willing to sacrifice?

The benchtest website is useful, thanks for posting it. My w/c xp2500 at max overclock puts out 115-120 Watts; I didn't think it was quite that high.