Greetings bit-tech'ers, It's my first post. I'm a CPC mag subscriber. I built my first PC about 10 years ago. I have a new project, and I'm looking for some advice, please. I want to build a 'silent' PC to live under my TV in my living room. I'm inspired to do this as my darling Mrs has recently appeared with a new TV which made me want to swap my DVD player for Blu-ray. I was already thinking of upgrading my ancient CD player (no digtal out :-o), and so have decided to go for a DAC (e.g. Cambridge Audio DAC Magic) and a PC. I'm also an occasional gamer, flight sims, Half life 2, Monkey Island series recent conquests, so nothing process intensive. I also have a 'noisey' general PC also for gaming, in another room. I don't watch much TV. Main uses for this machine in order of frequency: 1. Stereo audio (CDs and ripped lossless audio files through my about-to-buy extrenal DAQ, my Marantz stereo amp and Tannoy speakers) 2. Blu-ray (Panasonic LCD HDTV and audio as above - I've no interest in surround sound) 3. Gaming (as above) 4. In future I may upgrade for TV recording when decent DVBT2/S2 PCI cards become available, but not now. Budget: £800 ish Parts required: I'm building from scratch, with quietness being a priority, and so focusing on passive cooling, so no overclocking. Software: W7 home premium OEM / Media Centre @£73 Case: Zalman 501 @£105 PSU: Corsair 400W @£30 (is it quiet at 1/2 load?) or Seasonic Bronze 430W CPU: AM3 (45W) Sempron @£30, Athlon II X2 @£56, X3 @£80, X4 @£110 CPU Cooler: aimed to be run fanless if possible: @£40ish Scythe Mugen 2, Ninja, Coolermaster Z600, or Noctua NH U9B SE2... any ideas for fanless or ultra quiet fan??? Storage/boot drive: SSD - Crucial C300 64GB @£110 (bulk storage via my home network) GPU: Saphire HD5550 Ultimate @£60, or Gigabyte GV-R575SL-1GD £120, or Gigabyte GV-R577SL-1GD @£135 Optical drive: Blu-ray player Samsung 8x @£50 RAM: Corsair Memory XMS3 4GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) Dual Channel @£72, or Corsair Memory XMS3 6GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) Triple Channel @£105 Mobo: Asus M4A88TD-M or Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3....SATAIII would be good since the C300 SSD, USB3 to the front panel would be nice, but will the Zalman case wiring cope with this? Onboard graphics not desired, microATX to save power/heat? Help! Keyboard: Keysonic KSK-3201RF @£35 Remote: ???? Thnaks if you've made it this far. Please share your knowledge! Thanks! CPL
Have a look at the Cooler master Z600 it's a big old beast but would suit your purposes perfectly . Your case will have to be about 180mm wide to swallow it up. With all that passive cooling going on don't forget you'll still need a fan blowing cold air in and 1 to get hot air out, so total silence is not quite an option, but with the right fans fitted you be 90% of the way there. Have a look at the fan tests done on bit-tech to help you make your choice. http://www.bit-tech.net/search?q=fan+test
Thanks Jeff, for the tip with the Coolermaster Z600, I hadn't come across that one. The Zalman 501 case I fancy the look of is 170 mm high, so it probably wouldn't quite fit? I'm open to a bigger case though as my amp is rather large, so a massive case wouldn't look out of place beside it. The Zalman 501 comes with a couple of 80 mm fans, I'll have a look at that link to see if swapping them for aftermarket ones might reduce noise. Cheers!
Don't bother getting triple channel RAM, as it won't run in triple channel on anything other than an X58 motherboard, which isn't what we've been talking about in this thread so far... Your best bet for a motherboard with SATA6G/USB3 is the 800-series chipset, altho not all of them have the right south bridge. On scan the cheapest one that does and is mATX is the Asus M4A88TD-M £80. There aren't that many cases that have USB3 on the front panel by default, don't know if there are any aftermarket methods/products to achieve this. The Corsair CX400 starts getting noisey after 150/200 watts of power is being drawn, when the intake temp is 30 degrees: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1008-page5.html Doesn't seem very likely to me that you would use that much power and you'd probably have to spend at least 20 pounds more to get a PSU that excels at being quiet through it's whole power range. And in the Zalman HD501 it will be drawing in cool air, rather than hot system air as was the case in that review. The OCZ StealthXStream 400W has a good reputation for being quiet, but I don't know of any tests/reviews that show any SPL readings at any load. I vote for the Scythe Mugen 2, as it can run passively fairly well, and if you have to use the fan it will be a good one for being quiet. Another option is the Noctua NH U9B SE2, which comes with two quiet fans (you could only use one of them) and use the LNA or ULNA to reduce the fan speed if they are too loud, don't know how it would fare passively tho. Something to bear in mind is that some passive components actually need more airflow in the case to ensure they stay cool enough and don't overheat or cause instability, so maybe it might be wiser to choose parts with good quiet fans.
About the graphics, is that cryptic Gigabyte a HD5750? If so, get that. The HD5550 seems like a weird gap-filler between the HD5450 and HD5750, it can't really play any games (I'm quite sure it would struggle even with HL2 at fullHD resolution), but still draws more power and heats up more than the HD5450. The HD5750 heats up as well, and will require case airflow, but atleast it can play games if needed. Other than that it looks all good to me.
Thanks Jipa, the gigabyte is HD5750, this is the most capable fanless GPU I can find. I have added a link to the product in the original post. I take your point and have greyed out the HD5550 from the list.
Thanks MrTeal, I have updated the list based on your insights. It's an interesting point you make regarding fan vs fanless components. I shall do some research on GPU's with virtually slient fans , starting with the ones at QuietPC.
Oh and you can also slap the excellent Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 to just about any graphic card and make it silent.
I would say it's a fairly certain bet this will be quieter than the Corsair, AND it's more efficient: S12II Bronze I know nothing about HTPCs, but tbh, I would be tempted to think about an R3 for your case. Then whatever you put inside it, is a little less noise critical. Please bear in mind that if you want to game at 1080p i.e. through your TV, you're probably gonna want AT LEAST a 5770 for modern games, but preferably a 460. Similarly on a gaming front, I'd look at a Phenom II X2 555 (or the newer one) for the extra cache, overclockability and possible extra cores, as we've discovered here that 3 cores is where it's at for gaming. As for CPU HSF, why not a Gelid Tranquillo?
ive got a antec nsk2480 case with scythe ninja without the fan and its very quiet, ive just installed a gt240 graphics card so i can watch bluray and thats also quiet can only hear it on startup
Nice looking bit of kit, somewhat more subtle than the passive cooler Gigabyte have used on their silent HD5750 I have a 9600GT I could silence with one of thhose Accelero S1's. I suppose that's too old to bother with now though :-o
Thanks okenobi! I did consider the new seasonic passively cooled PSU, but the 400W version is about £100!! :-o If the Corsair PSU is going to make a noise, then your suggestion looks like a better alternative at £55. I'm going to accept that I can't play all of the latest games at 1080p on this machine, because I value quietness, and have limited the budget. I have my 'noisey' machine in another room connected to a NEC EA231wmi which is my main PC and is maintained capable of running what I want to run. Hence I'm limiting myself to a 45W CPU and passivley cooled GPU for the thread topic machine. The good news is our friends at Gigabyte have just released a passively cooled HD5770 so I'll add this into the options mix.
Thanks, Dave. I like the look of your case. What CPU is your ninja fanlessly cooling? Is it a 45W one, or can it manage something higher?
well the case has 2 huge fans and they are right next to the cooler and they run at 3 speeds i have them on low and they are near silent so another fan was pointless and noisy, im running amd x2 5000 so its not a new 45w one and i am running a palit 1gb gt240 gpu with 4gb ram got the asus m3n78-vm, got it running through hdmi on the gt240 on my TV and it is very quiet and the blu ray is brilliant. the case it good as it has seperate chambers for psu optical and hard drives.
Yeah, obviously silent would be good! The S12II is an older design, but it's been tweaked for 80plus bronze certification, so it's efficient and the fact that it's Seasonic pretty much will guarantee it being the quietest thing in your price bracket. Take your point on the CPU and that 5770 looks ideal, but if I may, you'll need good airflow for that to work and I would suggest smaller HTPC chassis' may not deliver in that area. I would think about a 5770 Vapor-X Pretty damned quiet AND will allow some OCing, which will help squeeze more gaming out of your budget
How about the Sapphire 5670 Ultimate? Passively cooled and manages to stay cool in the tests I've seen. At this point I will also vote for the Athlon II X2. If the Nexus Value 430 is in his price range then that will be even quieter... http://www.silentpcreview.com/article922-page5.html
It might be quieter, but it's not as efficient and personally, I wouldn't buy one, as I've never heard of Nexus. But it's obviously not my call.
That's because you're british. Nexus has been an estabilished brand for a while now, just not that widely available/known i guess.
