Planning new project and....

gtir666 · 18 Apr 2006 at 21:58

...was wondering, is it stupid to think that high performance gaming pc i.e noisey and mce pc i.e silent wont go together?

My other half has got the point where im not allowed the pc in the living room because of noise, but through the HDMI input on my 42" samsung gives best experience for games and dvds.

To be fair with games its not to bad, but when you sit down to watch a dvd the constant buzzing fans gets on your nerves.

So as im planning to build my next project, and having had a silverstone LC16M i know the noise level to expect from case fans(virtually nothing unlike thermaltake tower case) im wondering whether i could build another mce pc but with performance for games and not a lot of noise? Im a bit limited on experience high gfx cards and as to how noisey they are. i know i can get everything else more or less quite.

Also from a performance point of view, i had a wd raptor in my old LC16M and the noise for HDD was unbearable. If i had a silent HDD say with capacity running OS and general storage but then WD Raptors in raid would this eliminate the problem, i.e noisey drives whilst gameplay can live with? No experience with a mass storage, raid setup so no idea.

This is the case i have in mind
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc20m.htm
As going from experience with the LC16M the LC20 should be able to acomodate 2 high end gfx cards, maybe limit me to 3 hdd's but that should be fine.

Sorry prob rabbited on for a bit, thanks for your help

Monstermunch · 18 Apr 2006 at 22:07

There are several different ways to approach your problem but in the end as usual it all comes down to budget!

A media centre PC has it's limitations because of the fact that they have to be silent so are not very easy to cool, so they tend not to be as clockable or as fast as they could be.

If you have a large budget, and I gues by the mere fact that you are talking about dual gfx cards means you have then I would be looking at a water cooling system, which can be near silent and the best cooling available at the same time. The main thing to bear in mind is that gfx cards are slowly becoming the noisiest thing in a PC, especially the top end ATI's.

If you do want to consider this route then I would have a llok at the Swiftech Axis kit on OCUK, probably going to be around £200 once you've added in the coolers for the gfx cards.

As i've quickly discovered, cooling by air is not as cheap as it would appear when you start adding together all the various components you need:

Extra £30-£50 for a better/quieter case
£20 minimum for a good CPU cooler
£30ish for a good GPU cooler (each)
£7 each for 120mm fans

etc..etc....

gtir666 · 18 Apr 2006 at 22:26

Do you know what, i hadnt even thought of liquid cooling

Your not wrong bout noise from gfx card, thats why i ditched 6600gt in my original media pc, thing was noisier than all other components in pc put together and didnt even perform that well.

Although talking of budgets im not rolling in it, im looking to accomodate 2 7900gtx's couple more HDDs (raptors) using current mobo etc. untill funds allow to upgrade cpu and memory. Ive got a hiper 580w psu by the way worth upgrading too maybe?

Should i stop down this road and go back to my original plan of temjin TJ07 and media pc i cant play games on and cost more all together, which seems a waste of my 42" plasma and money :confused:

Angelos_n · 18 Apr 2006 at 22:43

well for the gfx card i would get that watercooled 1900xtx if it will fit, beast of a card aswell as silent, for cpu the zalman, these are just some ideas

gtir666 · 18 Apr 2006 at 23:04

Only prob with ATI card is im headed for SLI. Def go for Zalman if i now dont go for liquid cooling, ive got all excited about it now lol

Just been eyeing up the liquid cooling stuff in the catologue its not as expensive as i thought so could well be a winner, only thing to work out is which kit suits best baring in mind not a lot of space, maybe the swiftech micro job would the the kit to have?

Monstermunch · 19 Apr 2006 at 00:17

gtir666 said:
Only prob with ATI card is im headed for SLI.

Why?

2 gfx cards either crossfire or SLI is a complete waste of money. Buy 2 top cards now and run in dual mode and in 6 months i'll be able to beat them with 1 card!

New tech for gfx is moving way too fast at the moment to consider 2 cards, by the time any game fully utilises the capabilities a new generation of cards will be out that do it much better!

gtir666 · 19 Apr 2006 at 12:40

That is very true, all ive been looking at is the obvious hdtv decoding and compatability with things like vista and performance 2 gfx cards helps.
All i keep thinking is if i keep waiting ill never get anything, gotta bite the bullet at some stage. could always just start with one card see how it fairs.