General Purpose Quiet PC (maybe a NUC)

[Niloticus1]

Hi folks,

I'm looking for a general purpose PC for home office use. Tons of web browsing with loads of tabs open, multiple spreadsheets, some picture editing with Lightroom and general media use. No gaming expected. The main point is that I want to run a minimum of 2 screens at a minimum of 2560. I plan on upgrading the monitors to a pair of Dell U2715H (although I could be talked into having one monitor to a higher spec).

My old PC was an Acer Revo i3 with 4GB of RAM hooked up to a pair of 24inch monitors. I'm really fed up with the machine slowing down and generally taking forever to do stuff so I'm planning on whatever I build having tons of RAM, at least 16GB. I guess the key point for me is that I want to set the thing up and then forget about it for a few years...

Must be quick to boot, relatively quiet, be capable of running at least 2 screens & have wifi onboard.

I started looking at builds on mid-size cases but was distracted by the Intel NUC. I spec'd out:

Tall Baby Canyon NUC7I5BNH Core I5-7260U
250GB Samsung 970 EVO
500GB (maybe 1TB) Samsung 860 2.5 for data
Corsair Valueselect 16GB SODIMM DDR4 2133MHz

Then I found out about the soon to arrive Hades Canyon.... Do I need it? No. Does it address all the things that niggle me about the Baby Canyon? Yes! Especially moving that damned audio connection to the back.... It's also totally up to date in connectivity terms which is a big plus for me.

So why am I here? I'm keen to go back and take a look at a build on a mid sized ATX tower (or even a micro ATX box) that ticks the quiet and future proof boxes.

I like the Fractal Design cases and wouldn't necessarily go water cooled straight away, rather see how quiet they are with standard fans and go from there.

In terms of chip I'd like to stay in the middle ground of i5 or Ryzen 2600 (heard good things about STOREMI in particular, would enable me to add huge storage for similar/less money compared to a data SSD).

For the Mobo I'd want NVME, WiFi and USB C/3.1 Gen 2

A quiet video card with Displayport and the ability to run 3 monitors would be nice.

Would want to mount a 970 EVO 250GB for the OS and another SSD for primary data drive. Space permitting, I'd add a third drive for scheduled backups (but that's optional).

Budget isnt really a big issue as it will be a company PC, but 1200 for the PC itself absolute max (keen to see what could be done for less)

Loose criteria I know but keen to see what people would suggest.

Cheers

Dave

 

[EsaT]

Tall Baby Canyon NUC7I5BNH Core I5-7260U

That's dual core 4T low power laptop CPU so can see that easily struggling with lots of software/stuff open simultaneously.
For keeping multiple softwares and lots of stuff open simultaneously you want good amount of cores/threads.
And Ryzen is lot better than Intel in that.
Also there's upgrade chance in couple years if CPU starts feeling sluggish.
(unlike Intel's no architectural change CPU needing new motherboard)


If you can find motherboard with wanted connectectivity then MicroATX would be viable choise.
But if case doesn't have to be smallest standard ATX gives huge amount more freedom.
Choise of smaller than ATX motherboards is just limited especially if looking for thing like built in USB C and wifi.
(though MicroATX boards would have slots for say USB controller card)


Also with non-gaming use you don't need power hogging graphics card and it will be easy to cool things quietly with CPU being only notable heat source.
Heck, cheap "waterpipe" coolers can be worser in noise per cooling than cheaper heatpipe coolers because of cheap pumps easily being additional noise source.


There are some meant for worstation graphics card with fully passive cooling and more than two displayport connectors.
For example Matrox makes those.
Though those are more expensive than standard like Sapphire GPRO 4200 with active cooling.
Then again in noise muffling case with lot lower than gaming GPUs power consumption that Sapphire likely wouldn't be that noisy.
(again driver/software support of Matrox is likely to be very good because multimonitor stuff is what they've specialized into)

 

[Niloticus1]

Thanks EsaT,

Yep, I started looking at the Ryzen boards and quickly found that the smaller format x470 boards are thin on the ground (can't find a MicroATX X470 at all).... If I went down the road of a full size ATX card which of the smaller cases would be a good call for lower noise levels?

Cheers

Dave

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Wide screen system . Unfortunately gigabyte has only graces Aorus board with flagship Intel WiFi - great if you have a bt home hub6 /smart hub or an Asus expensive router. If you've got a basic router, not worth it .
Intel's optane - turns HDD into SSD .. not as fast but tripling the speed of 3TB + drives at the cost of £200 when 2TB SSD cost £600+ .. not bad
Case is smaller then most mATX board .
Ultra wide to cut down on lots of screens . Haven't checked colour stats but you get the rough direction .
Coffeelake CPU will be quicker then ryzen in most applications .

Price can be cut down using i3 quad core which has been highly under rated

Spoiler: Wide-screen

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM= £158.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B360 Aorus Gaming 3 WIFI Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £95.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD48G2400= £68.99
• 1 x Intel Optane Memory 32GB M.2 Module (MEMPEK1W032GAXT)= £89.99
• 1 x Toshiba 3TB P300 Performance Hard Drive (HDWD105UZSVA)= £68.99
• 1 x EVGA 450BT 450W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £37.99
• 1 x Raijintek Thetis Aluminium ATX Cube - Silver Window= £86.99
• 1 x Cryorig M9I Single Tower Heatsink for Intel= £15.95
• 1 x AOC U3477PQU 34" 3440x1440 IPS WideScreen Super-Wide LED Monitor= £469.99

Total: £1,109.77 (includes shipping: £15.90)​

​

 

[Niloticus1]

Wide screen system . Unfortunately gigabyte has only graces Aorus board with flagship Intel WiFi - great if you have a bt home hub6 /smart hub or an Asus expensive router. If you've got a basic router, not worth it .
Intel's optane - turns HDD into SSD .. not as fast but tripling the speed of 3TB + drives at the cost of £200 when 2TB SSD cost £600+ .. not bad
Case is smaller then most mATX board .
Ultra wide to cut down on lots of screens . Haven't checked colour stats but you get the rough direction .
Coffeelake CPU will be quicker then ryzen in most applications .

Price can be cut down using i3 quad core which has been highly under rated

Spoiler: Wide-screen

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM= £158.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B360 Aorus Gaming 3 WIFI Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £95.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD48G2400= £68.99
• 1 x Intel Optane Memory 32GB M.2 Module (MEMPEK1W032GAXT)= £89.99
• 1 x Toshiba 3TB P300 Performance Hard Drive (HDWD105UZSVA)= £68.99
• 1 x EVGA 450BT 450W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £37.99
• 1 x Raijintek Thetis Aluminium ATX Cube - Silver Window= £86.99
• 1 x Cryorig M9I Single Tower Heatsink for Intel= £15.95
• 1 x AOC U3477PQU 34" 3440x1440 IPS WideScreen Super-Wide LED Monitor= £469.99

Total: £1,109.77 (includes shipping: £15.90)
​

Thanks for that. Problem is I'm tied to a multi screen setup as I have to work from home a few days a week. With 2 screens I can have one hooked up to the work laptop and one to the home machine (I'm actually considering a 3rd screen but only 15inch for emails...).

 

[Niloticus1]

I just tried to cobble together a sample Ryzen 2600 build on the configurator:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x OcUK Tech Labs AMD Ryzen Midi Tower Gaming PC Configurator = £901.78
  • Processor:AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail
  • Motherboard:Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 5 Wifi AMD X470 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
  • CPU Cooler:Raijintek Themis Black CPU Cooler for Ryzen
  • Operating System:Unwanted
  • Memory:*Build Stock* Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (1x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz - Grey
  • Case:be quiet! Pure Base 600 Midi Tower Case - Black
  • Power Supply:Kolink KL-500 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
  • M.2 Solid State Drive **For Operating System If Selected**:Samsung 960 EVO Polaris 250GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive
  • Mechanical Hard Drive 1:Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD
  • Graphicsalit GeForce GTX 1050 StormX 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 Graphics Card

Total: £915.88 (includes shipping: £14.10)
​

It's not exactly what I'm looking for. Couldn't choose a Define C and I just picked the standard GPU card but I guess it's a start.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

@Niloticus1

You can put a list of anything and OCUK can build, add I think £150 to price

 

[Niloticus1]

@Niloticus1

You can put a list of anything and OCUK can build, add I think £150 to price

Thanks for the tip. I may well self build but this is a better stab at a shopping list:

BB CODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x PNY Nvidia Quadro P400 DVI Low Profile Graphics Card - 2GB GDDR5 - 256 CUDA Core= £127.99
• 1 x Fractal Design Define C Midi Tower Case - Black= £79.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £169.99
• 1 x Corsair Value Select 16GB (1x16GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Single Channel Module (CMV16GX4M1A2400C= £158.99
• 1 x be quiet! Straight Power 10 500W '80 Plus Gold'' Power Supply= £98.99
• 1 x Samsung 960 EVO Polaris 250GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £119.99
• 1 x Seagate 3TB BarraCuda Internal Hard Drive (ST3000DM008)= £69.95

Total: £838.49 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Ditch the quadro , unless your doing graphical workbase calculations and modeling

Just slap a gtx 1030 in there !

Also, bequiet PSU with silent wing 3 fan (£20 a pop) are very quiet, but you could cut down to 400w versions .

I ran my 12 silent wing 3 120mm high speed at 80% on my rig at one point , next to a child's cotbed haha

 

[Niloticus1]

Ditch the quadro , unless your doing graphical workbase calculations and modeling

Just slap a gtx 1030 in there !

Also, bequiet PSU with silent wing 3 fan (£20 a pop) are very quiet, but you could cut down to 400w versions .

I ran my 12 silent wing 3 120mm high speed at 80% on my rig at one point , next to a child's cotbed haha

Thanks, I'll take a look at the lower spec PSUs. I could only find GT 1030 cards and they don't seem to have Displayport? I know the quadro card is probably overkill but I'd seen reviews that said it was reliable and quiet.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Thanks, I'll take a look at the lower spec PSUs. I could only find GT 1030 cards and they don't seem to have Displayport? I know the quadro card is probably overkill but I'd seen reviews that said it was reliable and quiet.

Ah, I see your point with 3 DP

 

[ExoMale]

that quadro is wrong for that case, so would need changing, but for a non workstation card and save a few quid you could just get a 1050

 

[Niloticus1]

Thanks I'll have a look at some 1050 cards. What's the compatibility issue with the quadro by the way, the fact that the card is low profile?

Speaking of the case, the Define C is looking a bit dated without USB C/ 3.1 Gen 2 on the front. I swap a lot of data around on sticks so a fast USB port would be really nice (upward facing, I hate bashing outward facing sticks with my knee...). I can see they have an updated unit for the R5 but not the C. Is there a similar case that's more up to date? I may just go with the R5.

I always seem to update my pc on the cusp of big changes, Thunderbolt 3 in this case, of course no X470 boards seem to have TB headers yet...

 

[Niloticus1]

I had my heart set on an X470 build but I'm going to wait a bit and see how things shake out 're Thunderbolt support etc. Probably sounds a bit strange but building a pc that's just behind the next big change in connectivity Will bug me....

On that basis I'm going to build a (relatively) cheap nuc that will act as a quick interim solution and then fall back as a backup or HTPC when I build the Ryzen machine (I'm in no rush on that one).

One question; can anyone recommend a suitable single 16GB 2133 DDR4 stick that I can use in a nuc 7i5BNH? The Corsair ValueSelect DDR4 SODIMM 2133MHz Memory Ref: CMSOxxGX4M2A2133C15 (I plan on using a single 16GB module so there is space for a future upgrade to 32GB).

However, when I checked the Intel site for recommended hardware compatibility that module is specifically mentioned as being incompatible:

Instability, monitor flickering, monitor blanking reported with Corsair CMSO32GX4M2A2133C15 memory. SPD data is not correct

Even though that is the ram module supplied as standard by people like quiet pc? Any advice much appreciated!

Cheers

 

[Niloticus1]

An update to the thread. I ended up building a nuc based on the 7i5BNH with a 970 evo OS hdd and an 860 evo data drive and a single 16gb stick of the Corsair Valueselect RAM (quietpc said they'd never heard of the aforementioned problems with that model so I took a punt). I tried out a single Dell U2518D as well.

Very mixed results so far.... The build was a doddle and I was initially very much impressed with the speed and responsiveness of the nuc. The problems started when the mud refused to wake up after going to sleep. A search of the Intel forum quickly revealed that this is a known problem and seemed to be trivialized and shrugged off by Intel; "just set it to never sleep...." "this is a long term known issue, we have higher priority issues to deal with" seem to be pretty strange answers for a unit that is supposed to be a low power eco friendly pc... Not sure if this is a deal breaker or not yet but it's really annoying having to constantly think about powering down manually.

As far as the Dell goes, had major problems getting it to register my work laptop, an HP G840 i5 on a docking station. Can't get it to pick up on either the DP or mDP inputs. Ended up running everything via an HDMI switch... Interestingly, when I googled generic DP input problems every thread seemed to be about Dell monitors. Other than that the Dell is very much the best of the bunch in terms of a 2560 thin bezel monitor that can be vesa mounted. Will probably end up buying a second one now I've proved I can get the HP to run via HDMI and that the nuc will run off of a Thunderbolt 3 to DP adapter.

Longer term I'm still keen to build a quiet Ryzen based system but I'm waiting for an x470 board that supports Thunderbolt, along with a quiet case that has a front mounted Thunderbolt port (I know, I love hunting unicorns...). Luckily I'm in no rush .

Cheers

 

[ExoMale]

good and bad on your update, its all about trial and error with tech and as for my last reply, yeah it was the fact it was a low profile card, you chose a case that takes full height bracket where as that gpu you chose only seems to come with small bracket which is no use.

but to be super silent, you need a passive embedded like system or just passive parts and be powered by a pico.