Spec me a silent rig £1500-1750

Dear all,

It's time for me to have a new PC. I am going to try and reuse some hard drives but I would like your assistance to get a spec - and your reassurance that I (a novice) can build this PC myself!

Please spec me a moderately powerful, silent running tower desktop pc which will be capable of running the latest games at 1440p and operating two monitors.

Requirements (budget around £1500-£1750 inc monitor)

New silent operating and spacious PC case;
New silent operating power supply
Latest generation motherboard – i7 (must be easy to install and easy to upgrade BIOS for a novice)
CPU cooling
Upgraded silent operation fans for the case
New fast SSD for operating system (1TB?)
Windows 10 – full licence
New hard disc for storage (3TB?)
New top end graphics card NVIDIA prefered
DDR4 - at least 16GB
24 – 28” Monitor with a thin bezel – (either 1080p or 1440p) Would have 2 monitors possibly side by side.
Anything else critical for a self-build

Not needed:

Audio card
Keyboard
Mouse

Thanks in advance!

Check my sig!

First, off you want a rotated case like the Silverstone FT02 or FT05 and to remove or disable the fans.
Second, you want a CPU with a max TDP of 95W.
Third, you want the Nofan CR-95C CPU cooler. This has no fans and so is totally silent.
Fourth, you need to decide how many GPUs you are going to use. If only one, you can go for a fully silent fanless PSU from Silverstone. If more, Leadex do PSUs that turn off the fan at low current.
Fifth, you want a GPU with a blower cooler. The blower cooler is so that hot air is exhausted up and out of the case. The only fan in your PC should be the fan on the GPU.

I'll leave the other components to others.

Nvidia are rumoured to be launching their new GPU range at Computex in June, so now is really not a good time to be buying a high-end Nvidia GPU.

Hi - thanks a lot for the reply. I am thinking of a Be Quiet case and Be Quiet PSU.
That Nofan CR-95C CPU cooler looks amazing (and huge).
I'd be getting one GPU only. When I say top end, I'm probably talking about the 980ti.
Would anyone care to spec a basket?

colinchen70 said:

Hi - thanks a lot for the reply. I am thinking of a Be Quiet case and Be Quiet PSU.

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I'm biased, but those won't be silent.

That Nofan CR-95C CPU cooler looks amazing

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It is.

(and huge).

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It is that too. Do check Nofan's motherboard compatibility list - you need the first PCIe slot to be an x1 slot and even then it's a close fit.

I'd be getting one GPU only.

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In that case, you can put the GPU in the second x16 slot with almost zero performance loss.

• 1 x SilverStone NightJar 520W Zero dBA "80+ Plus Platinum" Fanless Power Supply (SST-NJ520)= £119.99
• 1 x Samsung 1.0TB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E1T0B/EU)= £249.95
• 1 x Silverstone SST-FT05B-W Fortress Tower ATX - Windowed Black= £121.99
• 1 x Kingston Savage Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C13 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (HX426C13SBK2/= £68.99
• 1 x BitFenix Alchemy 2.0 Magnetic Connect 15 LED-Strip 30cm - White= £14.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.99
• 1 x Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)= £8.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £172.99
• 1 x Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £289.99

I prefer the Silverstone FT02 to the FT05 for cabling, but the FT02 is seriously big.

Add in more SSDs as required. It's time to ditch HDDs in the client.

You'll need to get the CR-95C at one of OCUK's competitors (under £100). Add in your GPU of choice when the new ranges are released.

The Bequiet 800 is a silent case.

I reviewed one here and added some vids - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18701023&highlight=startername_stulid - all you can hear is the keyboard as I game.

Sound deadening material, super quiet fans and a double glazed side windowed panel.

Their Dark Power Pro 11 is a quiet PSU, again see vid here - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18700605&highlight=startername_stulid - once it is in a quiet case such as the Base800 all sound from it is gone.

There are Superflower and EVGA PSUs that have a feature called ECO mode, when turned ON via switch on the PSU the PSU fan will stop spinning under a certain temperature, if you are clever and overspec the PSU wattage then the fan may not need to ever spin up during use as the PSU will not be stressed at all thus not got hot to engage the fan.

if you can get away with a 512 gb windows drive, go m.2 pci-e. less cabling and cleaner finish. and faster in operation.

stulid said:

The Bequiet 800 is a silent case.

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If it's got fans, it's not silent. And an upright case has the problem that if you remove the fans, the hot air rises from one hot component to the next. This does not happen in a rotated case.

Their Dark Power Pro 11 is a quiet PSU

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The Silverstone is fanless and you can't get quieter than that.

The problem with these so-called silent systems is that in a quiet room they seem silent for the first 5-10 minutes and then you start to pick up the noise of the fans. And it becomes REALLY ANNOYING!

I've fallen foul of the problem of the TX not running cool with three monitors and it is truly annoying.

Thanks guys for all your support.

Quartz said:

If it's got fans, it's not silent. And an upright case has the problem that if you remove the fans, the hot air rises from one hot component to the next. This does not happen in a rotated case.



The Silverstone is fanless and you can't get quieter than that.

The problem with these so-called silent systems is that in a quiet room they seem silent for the first 5-10 minutes and then you start to pick up the noise of the fans. And it becomes REALLY ANNOYING!

I've fallen foul of the problem of the TX not running cool with three monitors and it is truly annoying.

Click to expand...

Sound a lot like you have not experienced a bequiet product

I'd make sure the GPU has semi-passive fans for silence at idle and low loads. It's also a terrible time to be buying new cards at the moment with new cards from AMD and Nvidea due soon.