OK, I have to correct myself, after a few minutes of checking SPL with a 3TB WD Red. 1) The 3TB WD Red is pec'd at 23 dBA. 2) Lawrence measured 13.65 dBA@1m in his review. With the HDD on a piece of foam atop the table, I measured 13.6 dBA@1m this morn. (nice to see the consistency!) 3) Decreasing ...

... which again begs the question of how they measure; we know how we measure. Well, don't keep us in suspense, Mike. How do they measure? If Mike'd really really know how, he'd probably be working for them and would make tons of money, repaying him all those years of tinkering and learning. Oops, ...

MikeC wrote:... which again begs the question of how they measure; we know how we measure.

Well, don't keep us in suspense, Mike. How do they measure?

How did you get the noise-level for your harddisks down from 24 dBA to only 17 dBA ? Are you still planning to use WD disks ? Green or Black ? ... So if there is a trick to reduce HDD idle spinning noise from regular ~25 dBA on most disks, to just 17 dBA, that sounds very interesting. No, I didn't ...

Well, assuming the suggestion in my last two posts is correct, my corrected noise estimates come out to the following: noise power at idle CPU: 14 dbA x 1 = 14 dbA GPU: 15 dbA x 3 = 20 dbA PSU: 10 dbA x 1 = 10 dbA disk: 17 dbA x 1 = 17 dbA fans: 10 dbA x 7 = 18 dbA total: 24 dbA noise power at full ...

Here's another example of how multiple identical sound sources add up (in SPL) -- in this case, many hard drives in a system measured in my anechoic chamber: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Nine_Suspended_HDDs_and_Testing -- 6 HDDs, 16.85 dBA; 9 HDDs just 18.62 dBA (less than 2 dBA difference). Actua...

What am I doing wrong? Assuming that a formula actually matches what is seen in practice. The formula might be suitable for many cases but what is seen in practice may be a special case. Experiments on SPCR have shown that adding fans doesn't really do what you expect noise wise and 3dB is the meas...

You're reading the table wrong. It's the Power or Intensity Ratio column that's relevant. Listen, I'm trying to give you the benefit of over a decade of listening to, thinking & reading about, testing and measuring the acoustics of computer gear - and SPCR has the most systematic, consistent, pract...

On the second page you linked, the last 2 paragraphs and the scale on the bottom explain clearly how 2 sound sources add in SPL (assuming they are identical except in level). http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Sound_Pressure_Level.html For example, equal SPL readings (0 on top scale) produce a...

First of all, your method of caculating combined SPL is way off. I don't know, MikeC, but the following sites: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/CCRMA/Courses/152/SPL.html http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Sound_Pressure_Level.html http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-pressure-d_711.html http://e...

No, you want to minimise the overall noise of the system. How fast the air inside is moving is only one factor in that but in our scale of thinking (keeping things quiet) it is the fans that make the noise, not the draft of air. We're not blowing a hurricane here. Well yes, and the way to make fans...

I would not say you want close to minimise difference from ambient as that would mean you need separate in and out fans which may cause problems noise wise with beat notes. Plus you will lose the dust minimising properties of positive pressure, this is why clean rooms always use positive pressure. ...

If you still feel the FT02 has not enough airflow, then your only choice seems to be this one: http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=2454&fid=342 What's the name and model number of that case? I can't follow your link; Antec keeps taking me to a page that whinges about cookies, even though I have exp...

I think the case itself is too small, I would use much larger case to get more air inside the case. For e.g,. a NZXT Phantom 820 That's a pretty sexy case... but it's expensive and it tries to be all things to all men. In my view, it ends up being a Jack of all trades and master of none. Its air co...

A common misconception. The fan speed is not directly dependant upon the power load. It is thermally controlled and if the PSU has a higher rating it still has to get rid of more or less the same heat and it's not magically going to do that on it's own. I've already linked to the SPCR review of the...

If you have an SSD, why bother with a 7200rpm HDD? Just get a WD green or red and call it a day. Well, with an SSD in the system, the most important performance parameter of the hard disk is its sustained data transfer rate. With that in mind, the Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB, which I found thanks to y...

WD Black 2TB isn't as loud as you've listed. Oh, that's good to know! That reduces my noise estimates from 38 and 48 dbA to 35 and 46 dbA at idle and full load, respectively. The Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB reviewed in that article seems like a better choice, though, and the 3TB Barracuda reviewed her...

I can think of two ways to silence a build with 3 GPU: - put it next room und connect remote -Think about using watercooling for ALL components (still would need case fans though) Both options occurred to me. The first requires punching holes through walls or floors, which restricts the computer to...

I'm not sure of your region of the world or the other posters but for most of the world 220-240V is the standard and you can draw a couple of kilowatts depending upon the design of the plug. In the UK we have 13A at 240V rating for plugs but the circuits themselves are designed for 30A as they are ...

I came here looking for a system running four graphics cards for GPGPU use, so I'm also interested in the PSU numbers. Will a 680 or a TITAN take as much power when running CUDA apps (like a 3D render) as they do when gaming? What's the peak wattage one can expect from these cards in a GPGPU enviro...

I believe for SPL the formula would be 20log 10 [(75^2)/(100^2)] or roughly 6dB. Yes, still no where near the same. Actually, sound pressure falls off as 1/r. It's sound intensity which falls off as 1/r^2. So the correct formula is 20 log(75/100) = 2.5db. Think of it this way: in the analogy betwee...

If you'd like more input from other members, then by all means create a new thread in the System Advice forum with a relevant subject line like "Building a quiet/powerful PC for computational analysis" or something. Link back to this thread for background. I think I will do just that. In Guru3D's c...

heat-pipe coolers refers to any air cooler that has a base with heatpipes attached. The heatpipes route through an attached large radiator that has a fan attached. See any CPU cooler review on this site for a reference. So... does anybody make a heat-pipe solution that conducts the heat right out o...

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Well, the CPU and GPU will instantly throttle when they hit specific temp thresholds. So, death is not likely from failed coolant or fan failure in an air cooler....and your BIOS can be set to trigger alarms for both temp and low fan rpm. Well, I guess t...

It might be worth mentioning that (for Linux, anyway), having a second video card is convenient for CUDA debugging unless you want to code with X disabled. I guess I don't know about Windows SDK stuff though. I don't know if you can use integrated graphics for this. I use a cheap second card, mysel...

Unfortunately if you consider how they might accurately measure components it is not possible to measure the CPU itself unless you somehow connect a metre across the right pins of the CPU. They can only really measure the whole system. There are some graphics card reviews where the PCI-E slot power...

Those values are all for the system , not the CPU itself. A couple of things to think about: - When measuring CPU power consumption, most reviewers are measuring system power use and not at the component as edh pointed out. - When measuring power consumption, most reviewers are measuring at the AC ...

You don't say which core i7 you have...and the only i7's that have 130W TDP are the SNB-E's (or the earlier gen i7-9xx). Sorry, I was referring to the 3960X. According to Intel Core i7-3960X Review: Sandy Bridge-E And X79 Express , the 3960X draws 87W at idle, and according to Core i7-3970X Extreme...

Welcome to SPCR. Yep, not many sites providing SPL readings for PSUs reviews above 1kW. Thanks. You're right about that; it seems that most people who want quiet operation are willing to sacrifice performance to get it, and most people who want peak performance don't care how loud the machine gets....

To add a little detail, I'm looking to draw about 750W from a 1500W power supply. This should put it near the peak of its efficiency curve and near the knee of its noise curve. There are a number of 1500W, 80+ gold (and even platinum) power supplies out there, but I must be looking in all the wrong ...