silent pc project

hideki

hideki

hideki

Associate
Joined
26 Dec 2008
Posts
1,211
Location
Scotland
Hi all

I'm interested in constructing a silent PC, The only component im set on is the i7 920 but the rest is up in the air

I don't have any interest in overclocking, but the system will be on 24/7, so stability is important. I'd rather go with air cooling than a water solution.

My current system is a shuttle sn27p2 mini PC. Its very quiet; heat pipe cooling with temperature activated fan.

I browsed the case forum and the antec p182 looks interesting, but i'm not sure about noise levels with that.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

cheers
hideki
 
pc will be used for gaming and work

the budget around £1000 plus or minus a few hundred if needed, no need for monitor, speakers or input devices

cheers
hideki
 
some suggestions for parts
CPU cooling (may not be totally silent but should be very quiet)
Thermalright TRUE Black 120 CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £30.99 (£35.64)
Noctua NF-P12 Vortex-Control 120mm Quiet Case Fan - 3 Pin £12.99 (£14.94)
or
Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £6.99 (£8.04) needs a fan controller to undervolt it to make it silent. i chose this over the 1000 model as it will allow you to increase airflow going through your cpu cooler if the needs arise, although there will be an increase in noise.
Thermalright LGA1366 Bolt-Thru-Kit £6.99 (£8.04)

GPU (this may depend upon your preference)

28+"* 4870X2 or sli GTX260 216core or SLi GTX280
go for either a 4870 or a GTX260 216 core for 22-28"*

4850 or 9800GTX+ for 19-21"*

under 19"* 4670 or 8800GT

*assuming the monitors are running at native resolutions,
possible 3rd party GPU cooling
Thermalright T-Rad2 VGA Cooler (ATI / NVIDIA) £28.74
- Compatible with 9800 GTX, 9800/8800GT, 9600GT, HD4850, HD4870, HD3850, HD3870
- NOT Compatible with GTX 280 & GTX 260

HDDs

the western digital green range should be good storage HDDs, but maybe considered slow for a main HDD

the samsung F1 spinpoints maybe good for running your OS off
 
Last edited:
you'll probably want a fan controller too, or to hook up every one of your case fans to your motherboard so you can change RPM, that way you can have fans almost completely silent when watching films/idling etc and then turn them up for playing games when complete silence isnt as necessary

the website "silent pc review" gives great advice on component choices.
 
What's the number of HDDs and optical/5.25" devices you're going to have?
And Antec P18x is probably quietest stock case utilizing active cooling.
Zalman has made some passively cooled "heatsink cases" but installing components (and changing) must be pain in the neck:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article301-page1.html


For hot graphic cards, today meaning practically all higher end cards, best stock cooling is exhausting dual slot cooler which can have bigger size fan than single slot cooler and doesn't leave heat inside case stressing other components/case cooling.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article870-page2.html
And especially anykind CF/SLI configurations of them generate so much heat (and waste power even when idling) that they are couple million light years short of sensible.


Better forget 200RPM fans!
Fan's have limit for being able to start when undervolted and even better fans would go straight to near that limit. 1300-1500rpm is better max limit for chance to have them started when undervolted to quiet speed.
Also better to have few more quiet fans for increasing controlled airflow through case than less high speed fans and/or uncontrolled airflow. (case design affects lot to how easy it's to have air circulating everywhere inside it with least noise)

And "hardware" fan controller allows more direct adjusting of fans and is always accessible unlike some software.
 
thnx guys

jak731 said:
some suggestions for parts
CPU cooling (may not be totally silent but should be very quiet)
Thermalright TRUE Black 120 CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £30.99 (£35.64)
Click to expand...
is this one compatible with the i7?

MidnightLamp said:
you'll probably want a fan controller too, or to hook up every one of your case fans to your motherboard so you can change RPM, that way you can have fans almost completely silent when watching films/idling etc and then turn them up for playing games when complete silence isnt as necessary
Click to expand...

something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...lman ZM-MFC1 Plus Silver Multi Fan Controller ?

EsaT said:
What's the number of HDDs and optical/5.25" devices you're going to have?
Click to expand...

At most 2hds (1boot, 1data) and 1 optical.
My current DVD drive the pioneer dvr-215d is noisier than id like. I understand the newer samsung drives arent as loud?
 
Last edited:
as long as you remember to put this in your basket - Thermalright LGA1366 Bolt-Thru-Kit £6.99 (£8.04) - to make it i7 compatable
 
Heres what I have so far:


Are these components compatible with each other?
Will the P182s stock fans need to be replaced?

Still to decide on mobo and gfx

cheers
hideki
 
maybe check out the zalman zm-850 PSU too,
the 1000w version is reviewed on silent pc review

but beware, the 750w and lower versions have a 120mm fan, NOT the 140mm fan of the 850-1000w versions and spcr say these ones are louder

you could rig the stock fans up to the fan controller and see if they're quiet enough, then replace them if they arent!
 
I would get the nzxt for the case, it's designed to be silent.

and why not just use the noctua cooler, then you don't need to waste money on a fan controller.
 
NZXT has barely any cases which are above blinged basic junk and especially they don't have anything even remotely comparable to P18x.
This is what quiet of NZXT means:
As for the noise the term “low noise” is an outright lie. With the fans running at half speed they can still be heard over the noise of my PSU, CPU and graphics card fans combined. The plasticy nature of the case also plays a role here as every vibration can be heard through the poorly made side window. Even without the fans, there is nothing in place to stop the vibrations of other things, such as hard disks and disk drives.
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/games/nzxt-guardian-921/4


Asus seems to have decent cooler in GTX260:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article870-page7.html
 
That wasn't the nzxt case I suggested. The hush one has noise deadening foam. add some rubber grommets to the fans or better still replace with noctua 800rpm ones and you have a brilliant silent case.
XSreview seem to rate it
This case did a good job and quietening my PC, and almost reached the dizzying heights of being mulnaz. However, the fans aren’t vibration proofed (they tried, but failed) and there is nothing particularly special about the case in the way of ventilation or installation.

That said, it’s a near-budget case and the front does look pretty good, especially with the blue LED lighting. The NZXT Hush might not be the perfect LANer’s case but it would be prefer for anyone who wants a reasonably priced, quiet gamers case.
Click to expand...

And about half the price of the p182 allowing for more expensive quiter components.
1k is a push for an i7 setup let alone a silent one. the p182 although good is not what I would recommend for this set up.

He's not overclocking he doesn't need everything to strip out in 2 seconds flat. a p182 in this case is wasted money. Same as a true cooler would be.
 
Last edited:
Yes I was wondering how the p182 and nzxt hush compared in terms of quietness. From what I've seen, the antec has the edge on built quality and support.
 
Why i7? You might get better bang for buck with LGA775. Here is sumimt I'd propose with your budget.

CPU: E8400 Or Q9450 (e8400 will be good enough for work and todays games and probably tomorrows, if you really need quad and wanna push to the £1k limit then q9450 would pwn)

MOBO: ASUS P5Q-E Or ASUS Maximus II Formula (check out reviews)

RAM: 2x 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix 800MHz Or 2x 2x1GB OCZ Reaper 1066MHz (2GB should be enough, I hear there is like a really small difference bewteen 2GB and 4GB in games, but 6GB is deffo overkill IMO)

HDD: Samsung 1TB (you could even get two one for O/S and one for data but = more noise)

GPU: ATI HD4870X2 2GB (get this with your budget, unless you don't game too much or wanna save then get a HD4850 at LEAST, I would not bother with a HD4670 or anything like that it's under killing your system) if you didn't game much you could get a passive cooled GPU.

Personally I think i7 isn't worth the money, currently, your paying £150+ on RAM, and even more on a motherboard. The rest of the money you could get a case/psu that's known to be quiet with good reviews. Get a fan controller for your case fans and enable SpeedStep too.

I am not telling to get LGA775 but maybe it would be good to consider it. If you have need for such machine (i7) and you know you'll be upgrading a lot in a year or so then you should have a better upgrade path in the future with i7 or perhaps wait for the 32nm when they come out? Perhaps if your a render-head then i7 is the more obvious choice.
 
Last edited:
Tony Williams said:
GPU: ATI HD4870X2 2GB
Click to expand...
That's crossfire of two GPUs and so extremely hot, power hungry noise source.
With absolutely i***tical 80W "idling".
So last thing I would want for quiet PC.

AcidHell2 said:
That wasn't the nzxt case I suggested. The hush one has noise deadening foam.
Click to expand...
And that Akasa Sh*tmat is acoustically 99% impotent to damping anything.
Absorbting sound waves (or damping vibration) needs heavier stuff with mass or above half meter of thickness.

Also front leaks... conveniently in front of HDDs... which don't have soft mounting. And PSU is placed conveniently above CPU for minimizing chances of it running cool and quiet... Very high impedance hole plate blocking back exhaust also works toward that goal by leaving more heat for PSU.
If those aren't enough that low weight (especially for steel) guarantees thin materials and operation as vibration powered loudspeaker.

At least that different "yippee, shiny LEDs... brain overload - thinking halted" reviewer isn't yet completely deaf:
The two fans that are included with the case are the main sources of noise and you can hear the fan vibrations being passed onto the case.

Practically all PSU reviews were full of BS untill year or two ago and practically all reviews are still similar in their noise related comments because those urbanized half deaf reviewers "couldn't tell the difference between snowball and rock even if thrown to face"!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom