best quietened case

TigerUK · 17 Dec 2011 at 15:20

I'm looking to get a case that's quieter, I was looking to get some sound dampening kits for my antec 300 and do some fan modding when I realised after all the work the results will probably be not that great.

I've come across youtube video of the p280

Looks really great, I was wondering what is the best quietened case for around the £100 price mark, and would the sound dampening be a significant amount on this case compared to an antec 300.

There are other benefits I like with this over the antec 300, like the fact that it has better cable management where I can feed the cable behind the mobo plate, and side facing drive bays that allow better cable management and airflow.

I'm not very familiar with cases so would be great if anyone can advise me on the best quietened cases out there.

Randomface74 · 17 Dec 2011 at 15:32

I've had a p180 and now I have a p193.
Both perfect: subtle, quiet, tidy, easy to work in, great cooling.

Assuming the p280 is comparable to the p180, and that the p193 is only £20 more - I'd recommend you save a little more and go with the p193.

The p193 has more depth (front to back) so can take longer video cards. It also has two fans in the roof, instead of one on the p180 (although the p280 has two smaller fans by the look of it). The p193 has a fan on the side for cooling graphics cards - I'll come back to that later.

Whether you go with the p280 or p193 - they are both essentially silent. So it will come down to the loudness of your components. Usually your graphics card is the loudest component - that's why I like the p193's side fan - and also why you should choose a graphics card with a custom cooler. The next loudest component is your CPU cooler, there are loads to choose from - but if you're using the stock cooler you'll probably want to swap it out.

TigerUK · 17 Dec 2011 at 15:44

my gpu and cpu fans aren't that loud, I know it's not advisable to do this but ive just opened up my case stuffed my fingers into the fans of the gpu and cpu (h50 water cooling), and powered them up, there was still quite a bit of noise from the hard drives, case fans and psu fan my main drive is an SSD and I just use the mechanical fans for storage and userdata so they won't be spinning at full speed too often.

I think in my case it's not one or two select fans that are making most of the noise, but they all contribute a low level humming noises that are noisy overall. (case fans are set on low)

so a foam padded front and sides as well as hard drive vibration proofing could provide substantial noise reduction.

.:SAmSuNG:. · 17 Dec 2011 at 19:19

Consider a case with a door. I had a old lian-li that was fully sound proofed. With and without the door open made a big difference.

TigerUK · 17 Dec 2011 at 20:47

.:SAmSuNG:. said:
Consider a case with a door. I had a old lian-li that was fully sound proofed. With and without the door open made a big difference.

yep all cases made for quiet operators have doors.

I'm really keen on the p280 but I need to get rid of some stuff before I buy because im in the red now.

The case has a push pull type fan system in front of the case. to put in front of the drives and behind. You can have one or both. More importantly you can have them deeper than right at the front of the case, which reduces nise to the user.