Silent PC Review is dedicated to reviews, news and information about quiet, low noise, and/or silent computers and components as well as their energy efficiency and thermal performance.
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- The Reference / Recommended section contains reference articles central to understanding silent computing, along with lists of recommended quiet products.
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Submitted by Mike Chin on Sun, 2008-04-27 13:58.
About Us
A new sound measurement and recording system, and a <15dBA anechoic chamber for the SPCR lab: We aim to implement these improvements and use them in our reviews by the end of June 2008. We need your support... and our corporate sponsors will reward your support with great prizes in a Second Giveaway Draw! Prizes include:
- Enermax MODU82+ 425W power supply (2 units!)
- Enermax PRO82+ 425W power supply (2 units!)
- Antec Solo mid-tower case
- Antec 900 ultimate gamer case
- Corsair VX450W 450W PSU
- Corsair Survivor 16GB USB drive
- Intel E7200 Core 2 Duo processor
- Intel QX9650 Quad Core CPU, retail box — The obvious 1st prize, currently selling for over $1000!
Boxed Intel QX9650 top prize valued at >$1000.
May 6: New prize sponsor CoolerMaster added several more great prizes to be won: Cosmos 1000 Luxury midtower case, Hyper Z600 fanless heatsink (2 units) and Cool Viva Z1 fanless VGA cooler.
There are already 18 lucky winners. Join them in this second contest for new prizes valued at over $2200. Contribute at least $25 for a chance to win now!
NOTE: As of 7am May 9, 97 generous individuals have qualified for the second giveaway prize draw which began May 1. With 14 prizes, your chances of winning are currently about 1 in 7.
Submitted by Mike Chin on Thu, 2008-05-08 14:21.
Fans & Controls
Scythe 120mm fans have become the de facto choice for SPCR users in the know in recent months, particularly the Slip Stream series. The brand offers more 120mm fan lines than any other in the computer DIY market. We tackle the Slip Streams, Kama PWMs, and the Ultra Kazes in a massive Scythe-attack.
Submitted by Devon Cooke on Tue, 2008-05-06 14:51.
Site News
SPCR is always working to improve its testing procedures, and every once in a while we make a breakthrough that massively changes the way we go about testing hardware. Recently, we had such a breakthrough in our airflow testing methodology.
The problem with breakthroughs is they tend to make things obsolete. Such is the case with our current database of airflow results — our new method improved things so much that we have to throw out all of our existing results and start again. After countless days refining our test procedure — and several more of retesting — we proudly present the fruit of our efforts. With the exception of some obsolete 80mm fans, every fan in our database has been retested with the new test procedure.
Fan Round-up #1: 80mm fans
Fan Round-up #2: 120mm fans
Fan Round-up #3: 92mm fans
Fan Round-up #4: 120mm fans (again)
Unusual Fans
Noctua NF-S12 Series
SilenX Ixtrema Pro
Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 12L
Submitted by Mike Chin on Fri, 2008-05-02 11:35.
Cooling
Xigmatek's direct heatpipe-to-heatsource technology finds its way to VGA cooling. The big, aptly named, 4-pipe Battle-Axe looks like a serious contender for cooling the hottest video cards. Does it do it well... and quietly?
Submitted by Mike Chin on Sat, 2008-04-26 06:51.
Cooling
Thermaltake radial-style "Orb" line has had many variants (and colors) for cooling chipsets, video cards, and processors. Manufacturers appear to have abandoned the radial design these days, though Zalman is an exception, with its CNPS8700, an updated heatpipe version of their CNPS7700. Now it's Thermaltake's turn to try and extend the radial heatsink/fan's epoch with the MaxOrb.
Submitted by Mike Chin on Mon, 2008-04-21 22:29.
SPCR Designed Systems
The title says it all. It's a Silent (22 dBA@1m) Gaming PC certified by SPCR and offered by EndPCNoise.
Submitted by Mike Chin on Sun, 2008-04-20 07:49.
Two big CPU coolers that use the traditional top-down airflow design from Thermaltake and Xigmatek go head to head. Are they competitive against the big tower cross-flow heatsinks? How do they fare at whisper-quiet levels?
Submitted by Devon Cooke on Fri, 2008-04-18 20:36.
The Silent Front
It should come as no surprise that we're computer geeks here at SPCR —
that's a given for almost any tech site. But, bearing in mind the Silent
part of our name, we're as much audio geeks are we are computer geeks. So, it
was with great excitement that we accepted an invitation to participate in a
Student Summit for the AES (Audio
Engineering Society). Our participation was twofold: A presentation on building
silent PCs for studio applications, and an actual, bona fide SPCR-built silent
system awarded as second prize for best pop mix.
Submitted by Mike Chin on Fri, 2008-04-18 16:18.
About Us
Silent PC Review's editorial team members travel and attend various IT events throughout the year to keep abreast of news and developments relevant to our interests and those of our community. The following schedule attempts to answer the question, Where in the world is SPCR?
Submitted by Mike Chin on Mon, 2008-04-14 08:58.
Audio, Video, Misc
Asus has a large, growing stable of fanlessly cooled graphics cards. Their latest sports a sports car engine design theme on a GF 9600GT GPU platform. We take it out for a test drive.
Submitted by Mike Chin on Thu, 2008-04-10 08:55.
Complete / SFF Systems
The name doesn't exactly roll smoothly off the tongue, but the P3-P5G33 certainly looks slick enough. What does this stylish, modestly priced slim barebone PC from Asus offer?
Submitted by Mike Chin on Tue, 2008-04-08 23:13.
Storage
WD's new 320GB/platter Caviar SE16 desktop hard drives have been creating some excitement. They are high performance by virtue of their high areal density, the OC websites have reported. With the low number of spinning platters, they should also be very quiet, a quality WD have been focused on for a couple of years now. We took the 320GB single-platter model out for a spin in our acoustics lab. It turned into a long and winding road.
Submitted by Mike Chin on Wed, 2008-04-02 12:51.
Cooling
Yes, these tower coolers from Xigmatek feature bases in which the heatpipes themselves make direct contact with the top of the CPU. Elimination of a heat transfer interface to improve cooling performance is the aim. In other aspects, the coolers are typical heatpipe tower coolers. Does it work?
Submitted by Devon Cooke on Mon, 2008-03-24 23:41.
Audio, Video, Misc
Most SPCR reviews are about eliminating noise, but Scythe's Kama Bay Amp is all about making noise — as accurately as possible. A stereo amp in an optical bay may not be for everyone, but for those frustrated with trying to get high quality computer audio, it may be a godsend. Why limit yourself to computer speakers when you can choose from a vast selection of superior quality hi-fi speakers for the low cost of this amp?
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