Novice builder needs advice on £1800 extremely quiet gaming PC

doobyscoo

doobyscoo

doobyscoo

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Hi everyone, I’m completely new to PC gaming and fairly clueless. I recently bought a new MacBook Pro and decided to install Windows 10 on it to do some gaming. I am hooke. But while my MacBook runs things OK, it gets noisy. It’s also my work machine so I’d prefer to keep it just for that.

I’ve decided to build myself a gaming PC, but I want it to be as quiet as possible without sacrificing too much graphic fidelity. I would like to game at 1440p with maxed settings (possibly 4k with graphics dialled down). I have a budget of about £1800 for the PC (no display).

Given that near silence is my goal, what would be the best components to achieve this? And is my budget sufficient? Finally, is there any new hardware being released in the near future that would make waiting a while (not too long) the best course of action?

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated :)
 
Assuming you have peripherals already, but I think something like this should do you very very nicely.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,555.99 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​
 
Praz94 said:
Assuming you have peripherals already, but I think something like this should do you very very nicely.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,555.99 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​
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Thank you very much for this. Really useful. I’ve got a couple of questions. Is there a clear advantage of using water cooling rather than air cooling to keep noise levels down? Also, which case would you recommend?

Journey said:
The answer you are looking for is Noctua, that is all.
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From what I’ve seen, Noctua have an excellent reputation.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

New graphics cards. Probably March-June.

A slightly overspecced PSU with hybrid fan mode/s and fluid dynamic bearing fan. The Corsair RM650x has the fan modes, not sure about FDB fan. I have a SuperFlower Leadex III 650 Gold which also has the fan modes + FDB fan and I cannot hear the fan at all on the medium setting, let alone the lowest.

Avoid mechanical drives. Stick to SSDs (NVME M.2 or SATA).

MSI 2080 Super Gaming X Trio is extremely quiet. Obviously you'd save some money with a model like the Ventus XS OC, though, and undervolting a little and tuning the fan profile can help a lot.

With liquid coolers it's pot luck. You can get a unit with a silent pump or not. Also, most liquid coolers (not all) tend to have high RPM fans (Corsair H100i comes with high 2400 RPM fans) and rubbish fans noise-to-performance wise which most who seek silence end up replacing. Whereas you can find plenty of high-end air coolers with high quality fans that also don't have massively high RPM. It's not all about the db noise level. It can be the type of sound. A little fan (such as the pump is essentially) or chipset fan on a X570 motherboard, can be more annoying to ears even if they produce less db. So if you don't need an X570 (which may or may not be quiet) you could go for a B450.

A decent case with mounting for 140mm fans can be better noise-wise than 120mm only, while still pushing a bit more air at lower RPM. Phanteks P600S might be worth a look. I think the stock 3 x 140mm case fans are ok especially after tuning, but if not you could replace with Noctuas or BeQuiets. The case has options for airflow or for silence. You can also go for only silence-optimized cases however the issue with those tends to be more heat requiring components to run the fans at higher speeds and thus defeat the purpose.
 
DarkRock 4 Pro is dead silent.
The issue usually is the GPU, which, if the case offers good airflow, and is equipped with efficient and quiet fans, the only thing that may be noisier than expected is the GPU under load.
My RTX2080, EVGA, haven't used as air-cooled for long, but it was reasonably quiet. Now is watercooled.
Other users, using their GPUs with the provided cooling system, may help you choose a quiet GPU.
PSU, try one of those that may operate with the fan off if not under heavy load.
Solid steel cases, with noise dampening, like the Fractal Design XL R2, is a good choice. No side window, but if you're focusing on silence, that would be my choice for case.
 
doobyscoo said:
but I want it to be as quiet as possible without sacrificing too much graphic fidelity.
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If you use long cables you can put the PC itself far away. You can get 10m fibre-optic video cables, for instance. You will also need Active USB cables.
 
The RMi 650W is currently on offer. I would take it over the RMx. The EVGA P2 650W is also a quiet unit, but out of stock at the minute.

Also MSI X570 boards are not that good for the most part. The B450 Tomahawk is a better cheaper option.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £119.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)​
​

As mentioned Noctua coolers are very quiet, as are BeQuiet. You can get cheaper alternatives from the likes of Scythe, Cryorig and Alpenfohn etc that will still be quiet.
 
Thanks for the great advice, everyone. Really appreciate it :)

Danny, your explanation made things a lot clearer for me. Great stuff. I understand what you mean about the quality of noise. Certain frequencies, even when quiet, are more irritating. I think air cooling may be the way to go. Maybe a Noctua NH-D15 if I have the clearance. I’ll take a look at the Phanteks case now.

MrPotato said:
My RTX2080, EVGA, haven't used as air-cooled for long, but it was reasonably quiet. Now is watercooled. Other users, using their GPUs with the provided cooling system, may help you choose a quiet GPU. PSU, try one of those that may operate with the fan off if not under heavy load. Solid steel cases, with noise dampening, like the Fractal Design XL R2, is a good choice. No side window, but if you're focusing on silence, that would be my choice for case.
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I was looking at the Fractal cases earlier. The R6, I think. Seems like they have plenty of room for good airflow. I’m not keen on side window’s, so solid panels sound great. If I end up with any RGB components, I really don’t want to see them :)

Quartz said:
If you use long cables you can put the PC itself far away. You can get 10m fibre-optic video cables, for instance. You will also need Active USB cables.
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I hadn’t considered this. Smart idea.Will certainly give it some more thought.

lee32uk said:
The RMi 650W is currently on offer. I would take it over the RMx. The EVGA P2 650W is also a quiet unit, but out of stock at the minute.

Also MSI X570 boards are not that good for the most part. The B450 Tomahawk is a better cheaper option.

As mentioned Noctua coolers are very quiet, as are BeQuiet. You can get cheaper alternatives from the likes of Scythe, Cryorig and Alpenfohn etc that will still be quiet.
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I did a little more research earlier and that Corsair PSU was mentioned a few times. Thanks for the recommendation. I will definitely go with a Noctua cooler. The one I have my eye on, though, is a monster. Lol.
 
timebomb26 said:
I used this in my recent build (3700x, 2070 super gaming oc, define r6 case) and it is silent. I had my head in the case looking for a serial number while it was on and I still couldn't hear anything.
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That sounds like my kind of machine. What brand of 2070s do you have? I noticed the ROG Strix one has 3 fans and is meant to be extremely quiet indeed.
 
I have a Define R5 case, MSI RTX 2080 Duke, CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler and a Seasonic X750 PSU. If I disconnect my mechanical disks, my machine is uber quiet, but with them plugged in though it makes a noise (a little disk wine and then extra noise when they are being accessed - it's not much noise in total, but it's enough to notice). The moral of the story is, if you want a silent machine, don't use any mechanical disks.
 
doobyscoo said:
That sounds like my kind of machine. What brand of 2070s do you have? I noticed the ROG Strix one has 3 fans and is meant to be extremely quiet indeed.
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The 2070s is the Gigabyte Gaming OC one. To be honest I always use headphones when playing games, but even when I’m done I still can’t hear anything. The case does a very good job of killing any sound the rig might put out.
 
timebomb26 said:
The 2070s is the Gigabyte Gaming OC one. To be honest I always use headphones when playing games, but even when I’m done I still can’t hear anything. The case does a very good job of killing any sound the rig might put out.
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Thanks for this. I generally prefer to play without headphones so the quieter the better :)
 
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