[Willox]

This is my experience too. Unless there's some sort of heavy workload going on you can have an "inaudible" computer fairly easily.

Something I've seen people fall for is the idea that water-cooled computers will be more quiet but that's definitely not the case. You'll struggle to find a water pump that is quieter than a decently air cooled PC (when not under heavy load.)

[PragmaticPulp]

> Unless there's some sort of heavy workload going on you can have an "inaudible" computer fairly easily.

The catch with these fanless setups is that they're mostly limited to low-TDP CPUs anyway. You can't use the most powerful CPUs with a passive heatsink unless you add fans to help when the workload peaks, which starts to defeat the purpose.

> Something I've seen people fall for is the idea that water-cooled computers will be more quiet but that's definitely not the case.

Water-cooled can be quieter for certain edge cases like cooling the CPU and GPU. You have to work hard to keep the pump quiet, though. I've tried several of the popular pumps (D5, DDC) with various PWM strategies, but they're never entirely silent.

For CPU-only workloads, air cooling with a big heatsink is the way to go. A lot of people are surprised when they look at benchmark charts and see the best heatsinks outperforming most water coolers on the market.

[Abishek_Muthian]

> This is my experience too. Unless there's some sort of heavy workload going on you can have an "inaudible" computer fairly easily.

I agree and it doesn't even need to be a custom built computer. Any laptop with 15W TDP CPU with a power saver governor would be completely silent for most day-to-day task.

Since they are usually entry level the cost saved can be invested in buying nVME storage, RAM and what not. Many have USB 3.1 with display port and if connected to a monitor you have easy access to the more ports than a >$1000 laptop.