[kitsunesoba]

I don't necessarily want fanless, but the system being inaudible under moderate load and not a banshee at high load is important. With proper engineering this is possible without too much of a performance hit but a lot of laptop manufacturers either don't put in the time to tune their offerings for this or do what Apple used to and chase thin-at-all-costs even in workstation machines (e.g. Dell Precision laptops being downgraded to close relatives of the XPS line).

Between my personal iMac Pro which is easily the second best-cooled Intel Mac desktop made in the past decade (after the cheesegrater tower) and the employer-provided 16" M1 Pro MPB I use for work I've been spoiled. My tolerance for fan noise has become very low, to the point that I'm debating replacing the case on my Ryzen 5000 gaming tower with something with big slow 200mm fans (like the Fractal Torrent) so its noise level can match that of my iMac and MBP.

[nevi-me]

I got a beefy Ryzen 3000 personal desktop in 2020 when my 2014 laptop started giving in (noisy even with new thermal paste, lid broken).

I can't stand the noise of the fans when it's next to me, it has a water cooler fan. I recently bought quieter fans to replace the existing ones with, however haven't fitted them due to calling issues.

Just wanted to say that your suggesting of getting big slow fans has intrigued me. Right now the desktop sits in the living room, and I only turn it on at night when I'm in the office and the family's in the bedroom, or out of necessity.

I remote into it, so things like games are out of the picture as it gets really loud when the GPU fans start going.

[kitsunesoba]

The size of the fans makes a huge difference, way more than you'd think.

One of my friends has a tower built with a i7 12700k in a Torrent Compact case (2x 200MM fans) which is very quiet on its own, and the giant hunk of metal NH-D15 cooler with a 140MM fan it uses adds almost nothing to that. Its PSU can also run with its fan off most of the time and even when it does spin up isn't too bad.

[formerly_proven]

The 180mm Fractal fans are ... not very good. They're the best 180mm fans (there is not much choice, just Silverstone and some cheap stuff), but pretty shitty compared to the available 120/140mm choices or the 200mm Noctuas (which will not fit cases designed for 180mm fans).

Semi-passive PSU is kinda table stakes nowadays.

[kitsunesoba]

Nice catch, I hadn’t noticed that Torrents came with 180mms instead of 200mms. Even if they’re not amazing they keep my friend’s temps reasonable without making much noise.

The number of cases that will fit 200mms is tiny and none of them are particularly great which is a bummer.

[formerly_proven]

I've really only seen people use them for external radiators like the MORA 420.