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

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:

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?

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.