Spec me a quiet gaming machine!

Skully

Skully

Skully

Soldato
Joined
6 Jan 2004
Posts
9,653
Location
Halesowen
Hi,

sold my PC ages ago and moved to an iMac but now I fancy coming back to PC gaming.

Can someone please spec me a system that has the following requirements? I have no idea what is good these days!

Budget £6-700
No monitor, planning on using my TV so I would need some way of connecting it to the HDMI port (carrying sound over HDMI is a BIG must as my TV doesn't have a 3.5mm audio in
Quiet and unobtrusive case as it is going in the living room.
Will need a wireless keyboard and mouse, something I can use from the sofa.

Thanks for taking a look :)
 
I probably can't help you much, but just thought I'd let you know I'm going to follow this post as it is almost in line with what I am looking for atm.

Although I might put in a question for the topic as well, what do people think about using a TV as a monitor as opposed to a monitor? I've read a bit about it but it isn't really very clear. For PC gaming is it alright to use a bigger TV?
 
If you can stretch a bit further this would be best for performance whilst maintaining quietness

quiet.png


if you want to stay in budget you could drop down to an i3 without too much hit on gaming performance

Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £84.99 (£72.33)
Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £69.99 (£59.57)
Total : £154.98 saving the £105 for mobo
depending on your desire for performance over quietness you could also look at a 460 gfx card which is more powerful but a lot more noisey than this quiet 5770
 
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XFX ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card ***Supplied with Stalker & Stormrise Games*** £217.36
(£184.99) £217.36
(£184.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £111.61
(£94.99) £111.61
(£94.99)
OCZ Reaper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C7 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600LV4GK) £88.11
(£74.99) £88.11
(£74.99)
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
(£72.33)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £59.98
(£51.05) £59.98
(£51.05)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £35.24
(£29.99) £35.24
(£29.99)
Akasa AK-CCX-4001HP Nero S Direct Contact Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / LGA775 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 ) £32.99
(£28.08) £32.99
(£28.08)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.99
(£13.61) £15.99
(£13.61)
Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £10.21
(£8.69) £10.21
(£8.69)
Sub Total : £581.69
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £103.98
Total : £698.17

On budget, faster graphics card, lower latency RAM and a quad core CPU. :)

Oh and you get 2 free games. :p
 
Mine shouldn't be too loud, that Nero S cooler gets decent reviews for quietness and the HD 5850 should be quieter than most Nvidia cards.
 
Thanks, whilst I would like it quiet I would also like to be able to play games :p.

All I am trying to avoid is having a jet engine while playing.

I have my iMac which is silent for general use, the PC would literally be used only for gaming then turned off again!

Is there any gain in getting SLI or indeed slightly higher spec? The main things I want to use it for are some MMOs, SupCom, ARMA II etc..
 
My spec should be fine for that. Only half 'quiet' SLI at the moment is with GTX 460s, which is very fast but it'll increase your power consumption and increase the cost quite a bit. The HD 5850 is fine for gaming on a 1080p screen.
 
for those games you want quad core cpu so ditch the i3 option, either i5 or AMD would be best, most noise nowadays comes from gfx card I find, rather than cpu, hence why I specced you the vapor x version for quietness, if youre not too bothered then go for the 5850 redmint suggested, and yeah you can prob go for chepaer case too if its not that much of an issue, Id definitely avoid dual gfx set ups though as they tend to sit close and get v hot so spin up more = lots of noise, trust me, voice of experience, lol, Id go for a 5850 then with either intel i5 or AMD 955/965 your call, pretty much equivalent really
 
No worries, let us know if you have any more questions. :)

In reply to FNGsam's question earlier, think the main difference these days between monitors and HDMI TVs is the response time is slightly slower on TVs? Although I'm not 100% sure on that and will happily be corrected there. Most of the time it's probably not even noticeable though.

edit: HIS 5850 think the cooler on this one is a bit quieter/better than the XFX one I first suggested.
 
If you really want the 5850 range of ATI cards, the best as far as research and personal experience have found would be either the Vapour-X or Toxic cards from Sapphire. They are however quite a bit more expensive than other cards and would be detrimental to any plans of staying on budget while having a reasonable case and power supply, especially while maintaining a quad core. However it is something to keep in mind.

Other than that, Redmint steered me right when I specced my latest rig, the first one I ever built from scratch since 2001.

Good luck shopping around and then building.
 
Hi,

just been looking at the HIS one Redmint, one thing I am confused about is how and what cable I will need (other than HDMI) to get audio through to my TV?

Thanks!
 
95thrifles build: +1 :)

Although, drop the case to the Fractal R2, they're basically the same thing, and spend the savings on a GTX460, THIS one if you can, or a 5850, and theres many to choose from :)
 
Skully said:
Hi,

just been looking at the HIS one Redmint, one thing I am confused about is how and what cable I will need (other than HDMI) to get audio through to my TV?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The 5850 has an onboard audio chip, think you can just connect the HDMI cable and it'll send the audio data to your TV. (not tested it myself but this is what i've read on other forums).
 
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