@tautech - Both of this famiy were rated at 300W cooling.
@mnem, how can that be a silent copper cooler with a stonking great fan pushing and pulling air between the 2 cores? To my mind silent means running completely fanless as any fan will contribute some level of noise.
That tentacle monster is rather cool, not that I like to bling my PC's up with lights and colour coordination cables etc, to me, they are a workhorse and no more, that said my case has a big window side panel but not from choice, its below desk/bench and so is out of sight anyway.
Any excess cables should be able to be hidden behind the motherboard mounting plate anyway so that they do not impede the cooling airflow in anyway past the cpu and graphics coolers, I'd be perfectly happy to have that PSU in my desktops provided it kicks enough power. My PSU on my daily driver is a Corsair 750W modular unit so if the system requires it, there is something in reserve.
BIGGER IS BETTER for quiet; you should know that. The bigger they are, the slower they can run and still move the required air.
A couple ways they could call it that... first, these coolers were made in the days of screaming 60mm tower CPU fans. While today's standard for a quiet PC is 20-30dB, back then anything less than 40-50 dB was considered good. Secondly, the fan CAN be adjusted so that its maximum speed is very slow and very quiet... easily less than 10dB. A 120mm fan doesn't need to be turning very fast to move a usable amount of air.
Back then, nobody even considered the idea of a truly "Silent" PC... hard drives were noisy, all passive cooling wasn't reasonable and there wasn't a demand. If you wanted quiet, you bought a laptop. The older model Silent Copper with no fan was specifically made to leverage the popular case designs that had a 120mm fan in front/back of the MB cavity and a cold air duct in the side of the case right above the CPU. Technically, it was absolutely silent, even if you put a fan right there.
This one has a big fan with tach, so more modern boards with noise profiles in the BIOS can control the fan for better thermal regulation than passive designs can offer.
And finally... even "Quiet PC" standards are variable today. A PC can meet "Silent" standards under idle and office tasking and still have the ability to ramp up when under heavy load, like rendering video and gaming. It is expected.
True, I have those fans fitted and I can still hear them but nowhere near as bad as stock fans and they certainly cannot be described as silent unless the person has a hearing problem and cannot hear noises below a certain level?
Are you running them full blast? It depends on the ambient noise the location of the PC and some other factors, but it's definitely possible to have fans that are for all intents and purposes inaudible without having hearing problems.
No, I have 5 x 140mm fans on my PC, 2 at the front, 1 at the rear and 2 at the top on the double radiator all of them are automatically controlled by the PC.
Have you adjusted the cooling profile in the BIOS? Many modern machines have "Silent" and "Quiet" profiles that relies on passive cooling effect and underclocking for idle and low-load work, while still ramping up when demand requires.
mnem
*Back to my cave*