New Silent Rig

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Joined
11 Jul 2003
Posts
180
Location
Edinburgh
I'm interested in getting a new, near silent rig. My current PC is around 3/4 years old. While it is sufficient for my work needs, it just sounds too loud -it has a Delta fan!

My needs are really only work, but should be capable of HD movies. I do a lot of Photoshop work as well + multi tasking (i.e. many windows open). If I can get gaming into it as well then great, but this must not sacrifice silence. I have a server room with local AD running, so I don't need too much storage on the box.

As a benchmark, I have a Antec Fusion Black HTPC Case also running in my room and can never hear it.

Comments please, I've been a little out of touch with current hardware :o

Many thanks,

Chris


2x OCZ Core V2 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2C120G) £299.99
1x Asus P5E3 Premium/Wifi@N Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £189.99
2x HIS ATI Radeon HD 4650 Heatpipe Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £49.99
1x LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £128.99
1x Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail £199.99
1x Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card £79.99
1x Corsair 4GB DDR3 DHX 1600C7DHX Twin3X (2x2GB) (TWIN3X4096-1600C7DHX) £214.99
1x Zalman GS1000 Titanium Chassis Zalman GS1000 Titanium Chassis £99.99
 
i would get a DDR2 based system and DDR2 RAM

do you need 4 dvi/avi ports?

add a 3rd party cooler like the thermalright ultra extreme with a quiet fan
 
looks good dude if you want silence I know of a website I don't know if I can mention it on here.


If you want case fans get yourself some Noctua case fans they rock
 
Thanks for the quick responses.

I have two monitors at the moment, thinking of adding a nice 24 widescreen in the coming months, so that's the reason for 2 graphics cards.

I'll change to:

1x OCZ 8GB (4x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Quad Channel Platinum Low Latency XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P8008GQ) £99.99
1x Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £104.99
1x Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £49.99
1x Scythe S-FLEX 1600RPM Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £10.99
 
Add in a decent power supply as well. Since you've mentioned silent as a criteria then you need to choose carefully as the PSU can be the noisiest component if not chosen correctly.

Add up the predicted power consumption of all your components then check that any PSU you choose will be operating at peak efficiency when delivering that load. A PSU operating at peak efficiency (apart from saving electricity) will run cool and therefore not need to ramp up the fan. I think most quality PSU manufacturers post efficiency curves on their websites.
 
get a noctua cpu cooler with 1 or 2 fans attached to it, and some noctua case fans, they're renowned for being the quitest fans but still with good performance.
 
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