Quiet Build

DHR

DHR

DHR

Soldato
Joined
30 Apr 2003
Posts
3,576
Need to refresh my kit in the office, after a CPU/Mobo/Memory/GFX bundle that'll be used mainly for work, video and a bit of gaming on a 32" screen.

Doesn't have to be a powerhouse because most of my gaming is done on the XB1. Not sure whether to go AMD or Intel, but I'll be upgrading from an upgrading from an Athlon 7750BE. I do make use of a thrustaster wheel so project cars etc looking great would be a huge bonus.

It'll be getting put in my trusty ATC-210 :D ventilation isn't that great so it'll need to be run cool and quiet.... In fact could do with a couple of new fans too still running the 14 year old originals!

Suggestions please!
 
Putting the effort into a decent fan profile on the motherboard or using a fan controller will give you the best payback for noise control pretty much regardless of what fans you buy. Pardon the pun, but all makes have their fan-boys.

You don't mention PSU, but one of my criteria for a quiet build was a PSU where the fan only spins up under heavy use. I can replace all other fans easily but opening up a PSU is a step too far for me.
 
Yeah I won't be replacing the PSU for this build, had one go on me so this is a relatively new one.

I was looking at passive GFX, silent 80mm fans, not sure about the cooler. Was looking at one of the sealed water/liquid ones but no chance of getting that in the space.

Decided on Intel, next steps do I go i3 or i5, the more cores the better really as I use the setup for encoding. One massive oversight I've made is that I have a plextor IDE CDRW I use for acurate ripping (damaged CDs etc)... Looks like I may need an IDE card/converter. Never thought I'd hear me saying that lol
 
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How much are you hoping to spend? Project cards performs very badly on AMD cards, so if that game is important then I would go for an NVIDIA GPU.

If you give a bit more information on what case you are using and how much money you are willing to drop then I should be able to help
 
How is your ATC-210 case for quietness? I had a Coolermaster aluminium case once, some time ago now, and it was a real rattler. Could never keep it quiet. By contrast, my current Fractal Design R5 is wonderful, when not gaming I can't hear any noise from the PC at all. Totally silent (I have the fans hooked up to the motherboard so they are profiled). When gaming there's a gentle whoosh from the CPU and GPU fans, but it's still very quiet.

If you're encoding you want more cores, so i5 is better than i3. i7 would have course be even better, but then that's a big budget leap.

Regarding the IDE drive, there are IDE to SATA converters. Can't vouch for how well they work and whether they would allow your drive to remain as accurate as you require. You might be better off with a new SATA drive, internal or external. DVD drives are very cheap now anyway and all much of a muchness, but I've always found Pioneer drives to be pretty accurate.
 
Cheers guys, from a bundle perspective without GFX I'd probably be looking at £250-300 tops, then around £100-200 for GFX.

Yeah the case in fairness does rattle every now and then but it's never a huge bother it has to be said.
 
The i5 6600k and z170 mobo, with 8gb of ram would put you at ore over your £300 limit. If you aren't bothered about overclocking then go for h170 motherboard and i5 6600/6500/6400.
There is a promotion on the 6600k and z170 motherboards, around £20 cashback so would be a decent value proposition at the moment, but is at the very top of your budget.

Unfortuantely NVIDIA doesn't have many offerings in that price range at the moment, but some of their 10xx series may fall somewhere in there. there is a lot of hype over the rx480 from amd and it should fall into the right price range
 
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