• Help me build a completely silent PC!
    9 replies, posted
Hello, I would like to build a completely silent PC. SDD's, passive cpu cooling, etc. My budget is £1000, but lower is obviously better! I have no particular preference to brands, I would just like a powerful, completely silent PC. It will not be used for gaming, so a fancy graphics card is out of the question, but apart from that, anything goes! Thank you very much. TL;DR - Need the most powerful, [B]SILENT [/B]components
First off I've managed to find a decent power supply from a reputable brand. [B][I]Seasonic X-Series: X-400FL - £107[/I][/B] Next up the graphics card, not too hard! [B][I]Sapphire HD 5450 Graphics Card - £25[/I][/B] Motherboard, I have this on my home desktop and it's a lovely board [B][I] Asus P8Z68-V PRO - £131 [/I][/B] CPU, went all out at the moment, may downgrade, need to consult with colleagues about the amount of CPU power we actually need [B][I] Intel CPU Core i7 3770K - £251 [/I][/B] CPU Cooler, not sure if compatable, from my research apparently so but unsure, if not need a socket 1155 passive cooler with good performance! [B][I] Coolermaster Hyper Z600 Passive CPU Cooler - £50 [/I][/B] RAM, no fancy heatsinks, and I think (?) it's a decent set of RAM, may get 4x4GB instead, somebody knowledgeable give me some hints towards what to lean towards? [I][B]16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 (1600) - £80 [/B][/I] Case, any better suggestions? It won't have fans running, so I guess it'll need lots of vents? [I][B]Silverstone Tech. Black Aluminium Tower Computer Case - £140 [/B][/I] SSD, may increase the budget to £5000 for one of these, looks good, is it worth getting a PCI SSD over a regular SSD though? I know they're much faster right? Pros outweigh the cons? [I][B]OCZ 600GB Velo Drive SSD - Solid State Drive - £1750[/B][/I] Is that everything? When I do purchase all of this, I'll do a build log for you guys, should be fun!
I'd highly suggest getting a computer case built for isolating the sound. I haven't tested any myself, but the Fractal Design Define cases with their isolation and the option to choose between optimal cooling and optimal silence seems like a great choice. Plus they are very cheap. [url]http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-008-FD[/url] [url]http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-015-FD[/url] Another interesting thing you could look into is getting a PSU similar to the XFX 1050W Black Edition Pro, which has an interesting "Hybrid Fan Control" which turns off the fan if the load is small enough, and runs very quiet if the load is a bit higher. 1050W is obviously overkill, but it's the only XFX PSU that I know of that has this feature. [url]http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-010-XF[/url] When it comes to the CPU cooler, I'm not sure if that Cooler Master will function well without fans. There are some very good active CPU coolers out there that also run extremely quiet. One very good brand for this is noctua. Do you plan on doing any overclocking?
I need the sound cut down to an absolute minimum possible, as the environment the PC will be in has very sensitive equipment and we need to eliminate as much background noise as possible. No overclocking, the K edition of the CPU was an oversight, but a toggle-able sound PC could also work, such as, when doing lab work the PC was silent but recording, and while doing work on the PC it has fans active, is this possible?
Couldn't you just get really long cables or something and leave the machine in a completely isolated area?
[QUOTE=Oppenheimer;36110820]I need the sound cut down to an absolute minimum possible, as the environment the PC will be in has very sensitive equipment and we need to eliminate as much background noise as possible. No overclocking, the K edition of the CPU was an oversight, but a toggle-able sound PC could also work, such as, when doing lab work the PC was silent but recording, and while doing work on the PC it has fans active, is this possible?[/QUOTE] With fan controllers, yes that is entirely possible to do. I have never tried it though myself.
[QUOTE=Griffer;36112272]Couldn't you just get really long cables or something and leave the machine in a completely isolated area?[/QUOTE] Or a completely fanless and solid-state thin client pc connected to a stationary computer in another room via a long LAN cable.
Due to the setup of our lab, we only have 1 room to work within, which is rather small in itself, this is why we'd prefer it silent :smile:
Could somebody tell me if the components I posted are okay?
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1187232[/url] read this.
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