Help needed for a quiet gaming PC build

Jakespal

Jakespal

Jakespal

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23 Jan 2010
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5
Hi,

I'm an avid PC Flight Simulator hobbyist and now need a new build for P3D and a search here didn't quite cut it. I've tried putting it together myself but lack the confidence.

I'm after a quiet running build and not interested in an RGB light show as it distracts from nighttime flying. All black would be great and for reasons I don't know, I'm drawn to Asus as a quality mobo manufacturer although I'm open to suggestions that don't detract from power, speed and quality. The P3D code base is FSX and CPU hungry.

Okay, must be: Intel CPU at least 4 cores, Cooling to suit, Mobo needs 4 USB ports if possible v2 is ok, 2 x SSD's - one for Win 10 Home OS and the other for the Sim so perhaps 250Mb and 1Tb? m2 spec not required, 16Mb fast memory, GTX 1080 8Mb - 1080Ti option not needed unless a necessary requirement for a 4k monitor, quite black case without unnessarry lighting and suitable PSU 750v?, cabling must be neat.

Budget around £1,500 to £1,800 if possible. Many thanks in advance.
 

orbitalwalsh

orbitalwalsh

orbitalwalsh

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1 Dec 2015
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18,514
@Jakespal

Bequiet... For being quiet :)
Stick with Asus board though prefer gigabyte for warranty , which used their GPU as it's cheap and good .
480 SSD should be plenty for OS and SIM games, HDD for other stuff
Solid PSU, one of the best and modular

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,430.10 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​

Glass version of case is cheaper and would be about 5% louder , which would already be silent, I run those case fans at 100%

7XrOXaS.jpg
 

Pocah

Pocah

Pocah

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816
Just be advised that if you buy an ASUS board they, by default, overclock the CPU. If you really want the PC to be quiet then you need to turn that off. In the BIOS it is called MCE ( multi core enhancement ) and it defaults to ON. MCE gives you a 10% performance boost but it increases the heat produced by the CPU by 40%. It's also not 100% reliable. This is really something you don't want if you are trying to keep your PC quiet.
Also, I don't know whether you have built a PC before, but invest £5 in an electrostatic wrist strap. They are a pain to use but give you confidence that you haven't accidentally damaged anything while you were building the PC.
 

Jakespal

Jakespal

Jakespal

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OP
Joined
23 Jan 2010
Posts
5
Thanks for the build and the helpful advice. I have build a few PCs but a long time ago (Pentium era!) so the modern technology is more challenging to me.

Quietness is more important than overclocking so perhaps a Gigabyte board is a better choice or use liquid cooling as well. The flight sim engine code is old and heavy on a single CPU core with the other cores sharing textures, 3rd party scenery, add-ons, etc. Would the i7 7700k @4.2GHz perform better for this use? There's a balance here I'm not sure about.

Interesting to compare the 1070Ti and a 1080 card as there doesn't seem to be significant cost difference so I'm unsure of the gains of Ti in this - again, CPU speed rather than GPU power is where frame rates are made or break, but appreciative of any bottlenecks.
 

orbitalwalsh

orbitalwalsh

orbitalwalsh

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1 Dec 2015
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18,514
@Jakespal

Don't worry, board chipset and i7 are Non K chip and unclockable board, so just plug and play and the i7 will boost all cores to 4.3ghz with a good cooler .
That bequiet cooler is .ore than enough for that Chip as well as being Very quiet !!!

If you want To go for the Gigabyte board then the Aorus 3 B360 for £9 more is the best board in class and features the full B360 chipset features (best WiFi you can pretty much get unless buying routers etc )

https://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator

Also changing to the most quietest PSU units with a fan installed , focus is silent but loud compared to this unit . Included the calculator link to see that even though it's stated recommended unit is 550w for 1070/70ti/80 , 450w is more then enough with a quality unit, would be 66% under max load

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £201.48 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

Only problem is, board out of stock

As a heads up, since that system would look damn pretty without looking like Blackpool power. Glass version is cheaper and on sale.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/be-quiet-pure-base-600-midi-tower-case-black-window-ca-11y-bq.html

Glass is a good insulator of sound rather then bare metal or plastic panels

If your going 7700k route, get it second hand cheap, wouldn't pay anything more over £150 personally and overclock it to get max single core performance .
 
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