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I hate noise. I punched a small hole in my wall, and have my system in the adjacent room closet.
Through the hole, I run (6) displayport cables, (1) audio cable, (1) usb cable. On my desk is a powered USB hub which I can connect all my USB stuff to here.
But to more directly answer your question, I recently built a new system with a Corsair H100 and I like it very much. It's a closed system, no maintenance. Sure you can get better performance from a custom loop, but they also require routine maintenance, so it is a trade off.
With my i7-2700k, I am overclocking to 5.0ghz with the h100.
Now keep in mind, even water cooled solutions are not silent because the fans cooling the radiator are running. In my case I have four 120mm fans on the H100 in a push/pull config, because I didn't care about noise and wanted performance - since it is in the next room over I can't hear it.
If noise is your primary concern, build a system with a passive heatsink video card and don't worry about water cooling. Water is for performance, not sound. You can get a nice Noctua HSF CPU cooler, 120mm, that will be virtually silent. If using an SSD in your system then you don't need but one single system exhaust fan, which I would also use Noctua 120mm. The combination of the two fans should be near silent.
Mike, thanks for that info, I think I need to look into this some more as I'm totally new to this technology stuff lol...
It seems the graphics card it the main deal in terms of running the monitors and also noise. Do you have any recommendations where I could read more on basic pc building ? It's either that or I will have to try and copy one of the rigs on here as I don't want to get it messsed up! Thanks for your help!
I would build a new system and not re-use any parts. You can find some good deals on newegg.com and get a computer friend to help you put it together if you've never built your own system.
I am almost an expert in this^^ I have completely silent PCs and no, water cooling is very loud, the pump is loud, the fans on the radiator are loud. Water cooling is for overclocked PCs mostly.
I have three PCs, two i5 750 and one i7 2700K all are silent. You can only hear the harddisk and I am not yet willing to move to SSD.
Basically you need this:
Scythe Mugen 3
when you get it. go into bios, go to Hardware Health Monitor and turn on PWM cooling (depending on motherboard it can be different, on ones you would need to manually to type in the number, on others just put it on "silent").
or use EFI if you have it. The Mugen cooler makes NO sound.
ASUS graphics cards with large coolers are best. Completely silent. If you still hear something, download MSI afterburner, a free app, where you can lower the rpm of your graphics card fan. MAke it with open case, since you first want to find the threshhold from which % of max rpm the fan of the graphics card does not move at all.
be quiet! Straight Power E9 or E8 power supply. They are completely silent. I have the E8. Powersupply is the most important I think, since most of them are so freaking loud.
last, but not least, I use the MX3 thermal paste. Mugen comes with a little paste though. Cut off one tip of a Q tip and use the plastic stick to spread the paste over the CPU. If it is an Intel CPU, grab it with two fingers on North and South, not west and east. Don't damage (dont touch) the pins on the socket (grabbing it on north and east helps a lot)
If your mainboard has two 4-pin fan connectors, you can install an additional 120mm fan in the case, but it is only necessary if you live in southern california, texas or florida, otherwise, just skip it. The Mugen will do a great job cooling the CPU and the rest. Dont use 80mm fans. Loud and useless.
Those are the cheapest options. Let me know, if you need help.
Don't buy any water cooling, it's a waste of money and you would only need it if you want to run your pc at 5+ghz all the time. My i7 2700K is not overclocked (yes!) haha, so, I am very comfortable with the speed it has. I just bought it for 60% the price, that's why I have that CPU. If you overclock, the PC will have to be louder (fans turned up or louder cooling system), the motherboard better has MOSFET cooling (the more expensive motherboards have it, google to see what it is) and you better have additional fans inside the chassis, but that's a different topic.
I also have a HTPC with the Scythe Big Shurriken 2, it is also completely silent.
