1080p, £1K-ish rig, silence

[elitehellokitty]

I've decided to go with a Non-OC'd, Non-SLI, no water cooler, 1080p aimmed rig.
I want the set up to be compact and silent as possible without blowing the bank.

Fractal Design Define R5 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl *-£10ish reduced price*
MSI GTX 970 OC Aftermarket (0-30dba)
Asus Z97
i5 4690 3.5Ghz
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler (18.8dba)
SSD: Samsung 1TB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND (silent vs HDD)
TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED316G1600HC9DC01)
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614)
SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 650W Fully Modular "80 Plus Platinum" Power Supply - Black (semi passive cooler so lower dba)

Approx Build: £1,224

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Erm the prebuild ones come with 7.1 Audio, which part is that?
Do I need a 1TB SSD? Or save money on a 500GB one?
A few websites advise 650w for a OC graphics is that necessary?
What parts would you tweak?

Thanks

 

[Danny75]

Erm the prebuild ones come with 7.1 Audio, which part is that?

Motherboard onboard sound.

Do I need a 1TB SSD? Or save money on a 500GB one?

Totally up to you. You could even start off with 120GB if that would cover you for a while. But 250/500GB makes more sense. By the time you need more than 500GB, SSDs will likely have come down in price more and you can quite easily add another yourself.

A few websites advise 650w for a OC graphics is that necessary?

O/C'ing video card will likely add to noise. Depends how much you overclock. 650W is slightly overkill for non-K i5 and GTX 970 but it will help keep things quieter.

What parts would you tweak?

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4690 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E500B/EU) £149.99
1 x Asus Z97 Pro Gamer Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £107.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYED316G2133HC11ADC01) £79.99
1 x Fractal Design Define R5 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £76.99
1 x EVGA Supernova G2 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £74.99
1 x Be Quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler £54.95
Total : £1,113.07 (includes shipping : £13.50 Ex.VAT).

 

[RyanF]

Totally up to you. You could even start off with 120GB if that would cover you for a while. But 250/500GB makes more sense. By the time you need more than 500GB, SSDs will likely have come down in price more and you can quite easily add another yourself.

Just to add to this - I've got a 128GB Samsung 840 EVO and 2x 1TB HDDs; can't hear any of them. Might be worth saving on the SSD and possibly want to look into picking up some decent fans as generally the fans that come with cases tend to be quite loud. Most case manufacturers tend to give fans that optimise air flow over sound

 

[Danny75]

Just to add to this - I've got a 128GB Samsung 840 EVO and 2x 1TB HDDs; can't hear any of them.

Right, some HDD's can't be heard. But you never know which you're going to get. Mine can be heard ("hoom" sound, not too loud but can hear it). Safe bet for silence is SSD only.

Might be worth saving on the SSD and possibly want to look into picking up some decent fans as generally the fans that come with cases tend to be quite loud. Most case manufacturers tend to give fans that optimise air flow over sound

I think the Fractal is the opposite, and comes with soundproofing. It also has a fan controller. So think the default fans should be tried and tweaked if necessary, before spending on fans that may not be needed.

 

[elitehellokitty]

I've stepped the SSD to 500GB might get a HDD given whats said. I think there is possibly diminishing returns on this whole "silent thing" , the GPU will hit 30dba on full load reguardless

As for case...
Fractal Design Define S- is cheaper, same design, less HDD cages I'd never use, 2 less USB on the front *shrugs*.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-028-FD

In terms of going smaller there is the...
Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Tower
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-042-FD
Bit dated looking intakes, though.

What about PCU fan?
Alpenfohn (got awards and has good dba stats)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-048-AL

External DVD/RW, barely use the thing and its easier to port over for next build.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-147-SA&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=494