Building a quiet PC - any advice ?

digitaldr

I'm looking to build a quiet PC for use in my sitting room. Want something with reasonable performance ie will play some games but not too fancy in the graphics department but DVI is essential. We're going to be getting a bit of work done on the house soon and I want to get a built-in in the sitting room to house the PC and all my other AV stuff. I plan to vent this to the outside to keep everything nice and cool. My main concern is quietness not size as I should have plenty of space. In fact I'd probably like to avoid small form factor cases/HTPC sized ones as I'd like the option to expand in the future.


Anyway I'm looking for advice on quiet components, cases etc. I was looking at acousticases from quiet PC and Maplin - they're pretty pricey - are they any/much quieter than eg Antec SLK3700BQE which includes a PSU and fan and is a lot cheaper? Are those acoustipac sound proofing foams any good?

I was thinking about the Sonata but found this review on www.quietpcreview.com

Between the 3700BQE and the Sonata, which would I choose?

The 3700BQE, no matter what. It breathes better so it'll run cooler at the same noise levels, it's roomier inside and it costs less money than the Sonata. The one thing the Sonata has going for it is the front Firewire port, but that's not much of an obstacle to work around in order to start with a better case.

Also need advice re CPU, Graphics card cooling etc.
I don't want to spend a fortune as I'm also thinking of getting a 32 inch LCD and don't want to end up divorced!

Thanks

sionnach

get the 3700BQE if you're after a budget silent pc. As for the rest of the components giving me a rough price estimate for the whole pc would make it easier for me to make recommendations. Here's the quiet pc i'm making for just under €1000:

ThermalRight XP-120 cpu cooler
Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge Cooler
Athlon 64 3000+ S939 OEM
2gb ram
Gigabyte GV NX66T128VP graf card (passively cooled 6600gt)
S939 Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 mainboard
Silverstone Temjin 04 Case
Seasonic S12 430W PSU
NEC 3520 DVD writer
120mm Nexus Fan x 3
Samsung 200gb SATA spinpoint HDD

Some basic information to guide you:

Quiet Fans: Nexus, Globe, Panaflo, Papst
Nexus fans are the quietest but hard to find online

Quiet Heatsink+fans: Thermalright XP120 with one of the 120mm fans listed above and the Zalman 7700 are the standards atm. The XP120 performs better but is pricey at just over 50 euro.

Quiet Harddrives: Samsung spinpoints and Seagate Barracudas
Suspending your hard drives with some elastic rather than hardmounting them to the case will make your system a lot quieter. You can do this yourself or get a product like the sharkoon novibes that does it.

Quiet PSUs: Seasonic, Fortron, Enermax
there are also utterly silent fanless PSUs from Antec and Silverstone but they're very expensive. Seasonic PSUs are the quietest fan cooled PSUs you can get.

Acoustic foam packs do make an ok difference but whether that difference is worth the money is up to you.

If you want to run a quiet system, buy an Athlon 64 processor, A64's run much cooler than pentium 4s and thus you need less cooling and can run your case and cpu fans slower, meaning much less noise. With an XP120 you could probably passively cool the CPU with decent case airflow.
[edit]if the Athlon64 is a venice or winchester, which dont give out too much heat[/edit]


hope this helps,
sionnach

Jammer

2GB of RAM, for a HTPC, sure you might aswell splash out on a dual-core too

No need for 2GB IMO, 1GB is enough

Don't rule out SFF, they can take 2 HDD, DDR2, PCI-E etc. Shuttle are bringing out new ones as new chipsets become available, nothing they can't do that a normal pc can do (besides the obvious extra PCI slots).

sionnach

the only quiet shuttle is the shuttle zen and it's not enough for his needs.

[edit]don't worry, i'll be putting the extra gig of ram to good use :P[/edit]

Jammer

The Sb83G5 is silent. Its sitting about 1.5ft from me and i can't hear it.

sionnach

silent means "no noise". A truly silent pc would have no fans and a solid state hard drive. Your shuttle may seem quiet but with the tiny psu fan, restrictive fan grill for the cpu fan and aluminium case it's not quiet enough for my needs. Also running a passively cooled graphics card would most probably force the cpu fan to operate at a higher speed most of the time, or like me with my shuttle, your graphics card could just outright fry itself

Jammer

The 3.4GHZ 775 Prescott and X800XT were fine in there for the last 2 months, along with 2 hard drives in RAID0 and a DVDRW. Its quiet. Why does yours need to be absolutely silent, do you sit in a quiet room all the time?

sionnach

i'm kinda sensitive to sound

jozi

Arctic coolers on the gfx card will do a good job of keeping the gfx cool and quiet.
My Xp90 cools very well and im sure the xp120 does an even better job, big quiet fan on it and you 2 items well cooled and kept them quiet.
Fan controlers will help keep things quiet by turning the fans at a low rpm.

digitaldr

Thanks for all the advice. As I'm going for a sub €1,000 system I'll probably go with the antic case (as looks and size aren't important) and 512Gb Ram (too weedy??) The XP120 looks good not sure if I'd risk passive cooling though! I think I'll get the Gigabyte GV NX66T128VP too.
Anyway have an exam tomorrow so better do some study.

sionnach

you can get a gig of ram for under 80 euro, i think it's worth the extra few euro.

padraigf

You wouldnt get the XP120 and use it passively mate, youd just put on a very very slow and quiet fan on it.
www.kustompcs.co.uk do a decent range of quiet kit.

sionnach

yes, i know having a fan on it improves cooling a lot but i'm just saying it's entirely possible to safely run some lower speed winchesters and venices passively with an XP120 and good case airflow.