£2500 *silent* DAW Workstation

[magick]

I'm building a silent audio workstation and these are the specs i'm thinking of :-

Dell UltraSharp U2711 27" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey - £659.99

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £244.99

Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) - £54.98

ATI Radeon HD 6450 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £43.99

MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - £149.98

Corsair Vengeance Arctic White 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz - £119.98

Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - £299.99

Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM - OEM £123.98

Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM £114.98

Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl - £84.98

Seasonic SS-460FL 460W Fanless Power Supply (PSU) - £119.35

Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1450 RPM - 3 Pin £11.99 (x3) - £35.97

Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate - Retail (GLC-00181) - £179.99

Logitech Performance MX Mouse with Darkfield Technology - £69.98

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard - £54.98

Pioneer 24x Internal S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £20.99

Startech PCIUSB7 7-Port PCI USB Card - £12.98

IC Diamond 24-Carat Thermal Compound (4.8g) IC Diamond 24-Carat Thermal Compound (4.8g) - £12.98

1) Will the ATI 6450 be ok for a resolution of 2560x1440? Remember i'm running audio software and although it's 2d it can sometimes be taxing on GPU if you have a lot going on. I want my desktop to run silky smooth.

2) Will having a fanless PSU & GFX affect my temps much as I wish to OC the CPU?

3) I'll have 3 fans installed 2x120mm intake and 1x120mm exhaust creating positive pressure. Could this be an issue for cooling?

4) Will 460w be enough to power the system bearing in mind its a good Seasonic PSU?

Also, anyone have any alternative suggestions for components?

 

[Domi]

Huge amount of money , do yourself a favour and buy an off the shelf true silent machine.

Have a google you can buy a 100% fanless system for about half your budget and then add your extras.

 

[Admetos]

RE the Seasonic.

I have the X-650 and even though it has a fan, I've never once noticed it activating. Every time I have checked with my hand there is no draft from it.

I know the X-660 is same price as the 460FL.

Have you considered putting machine in room next door and making hole in wall for cables.

 

[jak731]

The deskstar will hardly be silent, even in a smart drive. Off the shelf machine and computer in an adjacent room are both worth considering.

 

[mjones1]

1450 RPM fans are going to be far too loud, you will need sub 1000rpm fans.
Personally I would only have a SSD in the system then the rest of your storage on the network.

 

[tigerstyle]

Why the mix of HDDs?
Possibly go for a better case (more money generally means thicker/stronger/quieter) or a proper silent case, there are a few brands around that offer them. Or better than that put the whole PC inside a nicely acoustic foam dampened flight case. Or just the room next door

 

[magick]

Huge amount of money , do yourself a favour and buy an off the shelf true silent machine.

Have a google you can buy a 100% fanless system for about half your budget and then add your extras.

Just had a google and I can find are atom machines and servers?

 

[magick]

RE the Seasonic.I have the X-650 and even though it has a fan, I've never once noticed it activating. Every time I have checked with my hand there is no draft from it.

Have you considered putting machine in room next door and making hole in wall for cables.

To be honest i'm considering the X-650. Drilling holes isn't viable as I live in a rented flat.

1450 RPM fans are going to be far too loud, you will need sub 1000rpm fans.
Personally I would only have a SSD in the system then the rest of your storage on the network.

Was going to turn the fans down using the controller that comes with the case to 50-60%. Having faster fans means I can turn the speed up during summer if need be.

Wouldn't NAS be to slow for an audio workstation as audio is read from the drive in real time, not loaded into the memory?

Why the mix of HDDs?
Possibly go for a better case (more money generally means thicker/stronger/quieter) or a proper silent case, there are a few brands around that offer them. Or better than that put the whole PC inside a nicely acoustic foam dampened flight case. Or just the room next door

Any suggestions for a better case?

EDIT : Mix of hard drives. One will be used for sample banks the other for back-ups and flac/mp3 library.

 

[Admetos]

To be honest i'm considering the X-650.

Any suggestions for a better case?

RE The X-650 this is discontinued. The X-660 replaces it, it's meant to be improved over X-650 however.

Re Case. I have a Silverstone Evolution. It's one that mounts the board at 90 degrees. It has 3 x 180mm fans in bottom of case. I run the fans at 5v, it's provides good cooling as I have a low power graphics card, case is very very quiet.

Silverstone do a similar case to above, however it has sound proofing.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=ca-067-sv

do a google search to find above but without the window.

btw if you don't care about 3d but want to get power down more, consider these, there 23w peak! they can be picked up for around £20 clean pulls, again you will have to google search. i run the 4 monitor version, but if your only running 1-2 monitors the nvs 295 is fine.

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/product_quadro_nvs_295_uk.html

 

[magick]

Silverstone do a similar case to above, however it has sound proofing.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-067-SV

Do a google search to find this but without the window. If you picked up a window less soundproof case, then ran those 180mm fans at 5v you be in business, and still have enough cooling providing you don't go crazy on graphics.

I'm aware of the FT02 but i've read some people say the fans are quite noisey. When you say run the fans at 5v do you mean switch the fans to the low setting on the cases fan speed or do you have to get a fan controller and set it manually?

 

[Domi]

I would link but competitors

There is absolutely a solution with just a heatpipe cooler that will give you a 100% silent
midi tower with a 2600k for about £1500.

clocking such a machine may not be a great idea but im certain a modest OC to say the 4g mark would not make that much differance and still be viable.

This sort of thing can be done on the cheap I actually run an antec 900 full tower with Q6600 processor completely fanless in our living room as a media centre.

But as I say dont do it on the cheap or make compromises by having any fans at all.

Without a gaming graphics card keeping a sandybridge passively cooled is more than just possible.

 

[Admetos]

I'm aware of the FT02 but i've read some people say the fans are quite noisey. When you say run the fans at 5v do you mean switch the fans to the low setting on the cases fan speed or do you have to get a fan controller and set it manually?

The fans are noisy on the normal 12v and not really silent on 7.5v The switches on case switch between 12 and 7.5v.

On 5v the noise is less then my HDD's, and there is a big drop in sound. To switch to 5v I just swapped a 12v pin with 5v on the molex plug, and set the fan switches to full power.

Because of the design of case with 3x180mm fans at bottom, being on 5v is still fine. Running like this would not be fine if you were heavy over-clocked, and running powerful graphics cards however.

 

[magick]

Ok I updated the specs :-

Dell UltraSharp U2711 27" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey - £659.99

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £244.99

Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) - £54.98

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 300 512MB Graphics Card - £98.18

MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - £149.98

Corsair Vengeance Arctic White 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz - £119.98

Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - £299.99

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache (x2) - £93.98

Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - £114.98

Silverstone SST-FT02B USB 3.0 Fortress - £215.98

Seasonic SS-660KM X-Series 660W Modular Power Supply (PSU) - £117.19

Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1450 RPM - £11.99

AeroCool Touch 1000 4-Channel LCD Touch Panel Fan Controller - £28.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate - Retail (GLC-00181) - £179.99

Logitech Performance MX Mouse with Darkfield Technology - £69.98

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard - £54.98

Pioneer 24x Internal S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £20.99

Startech PCIUSB7 7-Port PCI USB Card - £12.98

Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound - £8.99

Swapped the 3TB Deskstar for two 1TB WD Blue drives, changed the case to a FT02, PSU to a Seasonic X-660 and added a fan controller so I can set the fans just right between good cooling and silence.

GFX has been changed to a Quadro NVS 300 512MB. Will that be ok to run graphic intense, by 2d desktop standards, audio software at 2560x1440?

 

[Admetos]

Ok I updated the specs :-

Swapped the 3TB Deskstar for two 1TB WD Blue drives, changed the case to a FT02, PSU to a Seasonic X-660 and added a fan controller so I can set the fans just right between good cooling and silence.

GFX has been changed to a Quadro NVS 300 512MB. Will that be ok to run graphic intense, by 2d desktop standards, audio software at 2560x1440?

My NVS 295 and 450's will run full HD video over 3 spanned monitors. They are plenty for 2d. They will even manage the one game I still play Company Of Heros however game is 4 years old and I run on low settings!

You don't have to pay that much for the NVS 300, search for NVS 295 on an auction website. Look for something that's a clean pull from a Dell.

If you want silent I would go for 5400rpm drives. The blues are also consumer drives, on an expensive workstation build for go for something higher quality if you can. For reliability you could run 2 x Western Digital Greens in mirrored raid, not that these are professional drives, they are pretty silent however. Another option is Western Digital RE4-GP. These are performance enterprise drives, but they run at low speed. There expensive however and maybe me recommending these is a bit extream! however if your trying to balance a professional drive that's quite maybe RE4-GP is not that crazy.

I would normally say WD Black HDD's, but there not quiet. Your HDD's choice is trying to balance, performance, reliability and silence.

Samsungs Ecogreens are also an option, performance good and pritty much silent. Again I would mirror these up if it's important data.

 

[magick]

If you want silent I would go for 5400rpm drives. The blues are also consumer drives, on an expensive workstation build for go for something higher quality if you can. For reliability you could run 2 x Western Digital Greens in mirrored raid, not that these are professional drives, they are pretty silent however. Another option is Western Digital RE4-GP. These are performance enterprise drives, but they run at low speed. There expensive however and maybe me recommending these is a bit extream! however if your trying to balance a professional drive that's quite maybe RE4-GP is not that crazy.

I would normally say WD Black HDD's, but there not quiet. Your HDD's choice is trying to balance, performance, reliability and silence.

Is there any difference between the normal WD drives and there RE counterparts? And maybe if I go for the WD Blacks I could put them in a GUP Smart Drive Neo?

 

[TigerUK]

just get a normal pc, place the tower outside the room, and connect it up to the keyboard, mouse, monitor in your room using extension cables

 

[Admetos]

Is there any difference between the normal WD drives and there RE counterparts? And maybe if I go for the WD Blacks I could put them in a GUP Smart Drive Neo?

The RE-GP's are very similar to WD blacks for quality and performance, but being the GP versions they have lower spin speeds, so less noise. It's a shame WD don't make a 'Green' black drive, that would combine the quality of a WD black, with the green abilities of the WD Green drives.

I'm only mentioned these for an all out hyper quality system, and money no real object.

In reality a Samsung Ecogreen or WD Greens would maybe do it (that's if they are fast enough), then I would run in mirrored raid for reliability of data.

 

[magick]

Cool, thanks.

just get a normal pc, place the tower outside the room, and connect it up to the keyboard, mouse, monitor in your room using extension cables

Not viable because I live in a flat.

 

[SheepBeast]

don't get mechanical hard drives. get one or more solid state drives (as much as required) and put all additional storage on a network and stick the drives elsewhere out the way.

also, i don't think overclocking the CPU is a great idea if you're going for silence.