I barely hear my PC, but I always wear headphones too (not noise cancelling).  

Heat is a real issue.  I don't have great air conditioning in the house, and in the warm parts of summer, I basically don't sim a lot.  We had a string of days over 90f with Florida type humidity, and my PC would sound like a helicopter if I flew too long in that.  

The big thing is, look at the airflow around the case.  Does the hot air have somewhere to go?  If the PC sits in an enclosed space, it will just keep warming up (if you ever have a game console or something in a closed entertainment system you know what that is like).  

I'll often have a fan nearby and sometimes I just aim a light fan towards the back where the heat vents, just to get the air moving.  I basically keep a small window open until we get deep into winter.  

My PC is set up in the basement which helps a ton too.  Most of the year, my PC is actually helping to heat the basement.  I used to have my setup in a small room in my house, and it would get super hot.  

Even now when the outside temps are comfortable (60s-70s), I can easily raise the temps around 5 degrees after a long flight.  

11 hours ago, VeryBumpy said:

You 4k 5090 superstars must be pumping out a steady 500 watts or more of heat. In short order, fans will spool up and computer make noise a plenty.

How do you enjoy the game's sounds with all the whirling fan noise? You all wear and use noise canceling headphones or something?

Then many minutes later, the room will continue to get rather warm, how is all that heat mitigated for you?

Runs smoother than 2020 did.

Simple trick: minimize the MSFS window when you are not doing anything on the flight deck. Within a few seconds, fans and heat generation will drop to fairly low levels.

I used GPU Tweak III to find the optimum combination of power limit for the GPU and GPU fan speeds.  I found a spot where the average FPS is only about 2 below the maximum available with unlimited GPU power and fan speed.  At the max allowed by the limiter, I can now just barely hear the GPU fans running.

I also installed two case fans; one blowing directly onto the GPU and one exhausting from directly above the GPU.

As the OP said - at max GPU fan speeds - the GPU whine is greater than the Lear 35A whine. 

I have a water cooler for the CPU and it has two virtually silent fans for the radiators.

Edited September 16, 2025Sep 16 by TacomaSailor

Interesting thread.  I'm lucky enough to be able to put my PC on the other side of a wall and run cables through to my desk.  That's how I accomplished not dealing with fan noise.  

With this 9900X3D and RTX4090, air-cooled, I chose a case that has intake fans on bottom & front so that an extra floor heater vent I installed in my playroom my PC case sits on the vent which sends air from the basement ducting of a central forced air HVAC system into the bottom case intake fan.  During winter that floor heater vent is disconnected from HVAC which is capped at the end with a 2' gap.  So that heater vent when disconnected from HVAC does brings up air from the basement which is around 10F cooler than 1st floor living space so that always helps some.  During warm to hot summer days (84-100F) I bridge the connection using a 3' section of aluminum sheeting between the metal floor vent piece and the normally butted end of the HVAC run towards that heater vent.  If it's not very hot out where our A/C does not turn on (we set ambient to 78F) then I may run the fan only option while simming, which circulates air thru house and basement ducting and drops peak temp from as high as 80C during warmest days with no A/C running down to around 72-73F on that same type of day.  And helps flush out heat under the desk everything sits on.  When the A/C kicks in that temp will drop down to 58-62F with the sim running wide open because of the refrigerated air coming into the box.  I don't think there is much risk of condensation because it's dehumidified air and the PC parts are very warm in general during summer.  So probably my average or typical summer CPU temp will be around 73C, and in winter 66C or so.

I use Sony monitor headphones which mask the fast running CPU fans in the air cooler.   

Edited September 16, 2025Sep 16 by Noel

Full custom watercooling and a properly set up smart thermostat with a room sensor on my desk, works just fine.

20 hours ago, VeryBumpy said:

You 4k 5090 superstars must be pumping out a steady 500 watts or more of heat. In short order, fans will spool up and computer make noise a plenty.

How do you enjoy the game's sounds with all the whirling fan noise? You all wear and use noise canceling headphones or something?

Then many minutes later, the room will continue to get rather warm, how is all that heat mitigated for you?

I recently upgraded because my old CPU gave out on me.

I now have a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and it runs at much colder tempereatures as my old Ryzen 5. 

My PC used to heat up my room about 2°C when I was having it run, now it's much better.

When you eat toast, how do you tolerate the ghastly crumbs?

I’m very sensitive to all the noise my PC can generate. As many, I have to fight again my PC cooling system, warming the room.

• Put the PC tower on the floor side off my desk, the farthest away possible, to minimize sound 
• Add a ceiling fan in my room (winter/summer)
• Replace my Intel 10700k by an AMD9800X3D. I’m still venturad user although another PC as a water cooling set.
• Replace my old 3080 OEM (Dell) with a Gigabyte 5070ti Windforce quite silent compared to my 3 or 4 Fan inside my PC tower.

Edited September 16, 2025Sep 16 by vbazillio

Feel proud about my build, so I'll chime in. Lian-Li case & Fans, 10 fans + the 3 GPU fans, case has 6 intake, 4 outflow..positive pressure to prevent dust. Highest temps (with a modest CPU OC) 56C on the CPU and 63C on the GPU. I genuinely can't hear my PC at all. Very pleased with how it all turned out. 

On 9/16/2025 at 2:25 AM, VeryBumpy said:

How do you enjoy the game's sounds with all the whirling fan noise? You all wear and use noise canceling headphones or something?

Then many minutes later, the room will continue to get rather warm, how is all that heat mitigated for you?

Simply: MSFS2024 is also a study level heat and noise simulation (as real aircraft produce tremendous amounts of heat and noise too 🙂 )!!

14 hours ago, Tony P said:

Interesting thread.  I'm lucky enough to be able to put my PC on the other side of a wall and run cables through to my desk.  That's how I accomplished not dealing with fan noise.  

The dream! I built mine in the Australian "winter", so it's been a nice little heater so far. Not looking forward to summer (which incidentally seems like has already started now). Evening breezes and if necessary a little AC will have to do.