Antec P180 Mini - C2D - 4870 - SSD

Show off your quiet rig.

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jozi
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:42 pm

Antec P180 Mini - C2D - 4870 - SSD

Post by jozi » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:08 am

Friend of mine asked me to do a build for him a few weeks ago.

He wanted the following from this build:
*Gaming, old and new games
*Something that isn't to big, his current Antec P150 was to tall
*Something that is as quiet as possible
*SSD drive (not sure why but he fancied one, and I wouldn't mind having it)

Originally the case of choice was an Antec NSK 3480, what we ended up with was a Antec P180 Mini.

I had most/all parts chosen, ready to order when he changed the case. Different case lead to me having to make sure that the cooler would fit, how many fans do I need now and some other issue's.

I might add here that I'm out of the loop as to what's hot these days, my own pc was built about 3-4 yrs ago as can be seen in my sig.

The final shopping list ended up as follows:
*Antec P180 Mini
*Asus P5E-VM HDMI SKT-775 MATX
*Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 Wolfdale Skt1775 1333FSB : BX80570E8200
*Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU-Cooler, Socket 775/AM2/939/940
*Corsair HX520W 520w Modular PSU
*GeIL 4gb Black Dragon DDR2 PC2-6400 (5-5-5-15) Dual Channel kit (2x2GB) - GB24GB6400C5DC
*Radeon HD 4870
*Samsung Spin Point F1 1tb SATA2 7200rpm 32mb cache HD103UJ
*Samsung 32gb Sata2 SLC 2.5" Solid State Drive
*Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S DVD±RW/DL 20x6x20x8 S-ATA - Black OEM
*120mm Noctua NF-S12 1200 RPM Quiet Case Fan X3
*Logitech G15 Keyboard
*Logitech G5 Laser Mouse

So the build started with having a good look at this case. It's quite nice, I like the chamber separation although it's not ideal having the psu in the bottom if the cables aren't long enough :x

Mounted the Cooler on the mobo 1st. This thing is massive, I thought the cooler I had was big a few years ago, mounting it on the mobo went seamlessly, no problems here.

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On to the case...
PSU in 1st, fan up seemed like the best choice for some breathing room.

In with the mobo, or not, case fan in the way :? Was going to replace case fans anyway so no harm taking it out now. I was glad later on I put the fan in later cause it was some hassle getting the Noctua in with the rubber grommets.

I was originally going to hid the front panel cables under the mobo but deemed it to much hassle :P (just don't tell my mate).

Trial fitted the GFX card, it covered most of the SATA ports, who ever designed this mobo must not build pc's!

Once the mobo was screwed in i started with the fans.
The exhaust fan was a pain to get in with the grommets. Not a lot of room in the case to work with with the heatsink. Had to remove the top fan to get at the top rear grommet.
In take fan was as much hassle. The HHD cage rails had to come out to make room for the fan. Still a very tight spot :P

At the time of ordering I didn't think about how I was going to mount the SSD drive, which btw is light as a feather and feels flimsy but boots windows much quicker. It's the same size as a laptop drive and i didn't have a cage for it :( Some double sided foam tape later and it's fixed in the top HDD cage next to the normal HDD.

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Getting all the cables for the drives, mobo & gfx power, fans was a little tricky, it easily took me the most time.

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I wasn't sure what to do with the fanmates, inside or outside the case....
As can be seen in the pics I went for outside so they are more easily accessible than in the case. Had to mess a little with all the fan cables to get it some what neat.

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I wanted to route some cables differently but that didn't work cause they where to short. In the end I think I managed quite well, there aren't to many obstructions it only took me about 3-4Hrs to put it all together :roll: It's a little messy behind the mobo tray, got it closed without to much pushing..... on the 4 try!

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And here's the case with keyboard on it, I left the plastic on so my mate can take it of (give him a sense of newness) and not to damage it. The monitor beside it is my old one.

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I just got a new one today.
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And here's a pic of my own setup as in my sig:
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I know some will want to know how silent it is :P

As of right now the noise from it is louder than that of my Solo!
As can be seen in the images I'm stressing the pc for the last 2hrs with Prime95, FurMark and rthdribl and the gfx fans (there's 2) are going mental. Fan speed is around 52%-58% at 66Ëš Celsius.

The rest of the system is as follows:
System: 40Ëš Celsius
CPU: 57Ëš Celsius
HDD1 27Ëš Celsius (not sure which drive this is of the 2)
Core 0: 60Ëš Celsius
Core 1: 60Ëš Celsius

Thats with all the case fans at it's slowest setting. Turning them up drops the case temp mostly as well as the gfx card and the cpu.

I'll post back with idle temps if people are interested.

Can someone tell me should I be tying the heatsink to the top of the case?

Jozi

Ch0z3n
Posts: 400
Joined: Thu Oct 02, 2008 5:48 am
Location: Orlando, FL

Post by Ch0z3n » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:20 am

So, this is not actually related to what you are talking about, but in the winter wouldn't the massive space heater thing right behind your desk cause some issues?

frenchie
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Location: CT

Post by frenchie » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:36 am

How do you like the Noctuas compared to your own Nexus ?


(I couldn't find a thread with your setup in the Gallery... any chance you can post your pics ? I'm a solo owner and I like seeing how others have played with it :) )

jozi
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:42 pm

Post by jozi » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:50 am

You mean the radiator? This room isn't very warm in general but I've not really been keeping an eye on the temps of my pc since it's been running stable for a few years now. Also there's a big gap between the desk and the heater. Honnestly i wish it was bigger so the room would heat up more :P

I didn't do much comparing between the Noctuas and the Nexus since building it I've been installing windows and apps followed by stressing the system. With a bit of listening I did notice there's a slightly different hum coming from the mini. I don't want to say it's any better or worse.

The gfx card fans are prob the most audible fan in the case especially when the fan get up above 40%

I'll have a look and see if I can find some pics

Ch0z3n
Posts: 400
Joined: Thu Oct 02, 2008 5:48 am
Location: Orlando, FL

Post by Ch0z3n » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:07 am

Ah, being from florida I don't really know anything about radiators, cept that my car has one. :P

So what do you use the SSD for? Do you like have the OS on there? How has it been so far?

jozi
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:42 pm

Post by jozi » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:24 am

Yup the OS is on the SSD. I'm not sure if they are worth it yet, very expensive but silent.

As for performance difference, i ghosted my own os onto the SSD to see if there was a difference.
From pressing the power button to loading firefox took 38odd seconds with the SSD
The same with my own maxtor drive took about 25-30 seconds longer.

It is quicker alright. It prob more noticeable when loading maps in games.

Might be worth it in a year when they come down in price and maybe up in speed even more :)

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:06 pm

jozi, can you tell me how quiet (or not) is that Gainward Golden Sample / Palit Sonic HD4870 1GB? At idle mainly, if you would.


Thanks.

jozi
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:42 pm

Post by jozi » Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:11 am

Hi rpsgc,

I don't have the pc here, built for a friend, so can only comment on it when I was building.

Also, I'm not sure how high/low your silencing standard lies, I can only compare it to my own pc.

I'm my own pc I have the following card: http://www.viperlair.com/images/reviews ... 0_2271.JPG A His X800XL Ice-Q Turbo. I'm using atitool to control fan speeds, up 55C @ 31%. I think it's pretty quiet and not very noticable at idle.

With the pallit one, the fan idles in the 30-40% range. While I think it was pretty quiet the sound of it was a little different to my own card, maybe a little smoother. With the fan going over 40% you can really notice it. I think I left it set at 35% which was enough not to allow temps to get to high while still being quiet.

At my mates house with the pc in the sitting room, tv on, you only just heard it ramp up to the over 40% range.

I personally didn't find it to loud at idle, anything more and it really did get noisy. At full wack it's really loud! Even after 5hrs of stressing the card temps stayed below 70C which meant the fan was spinning just a little faster than idle.

I prefer my own card it only gets noticeable at around 55% and even then it's not loud.

Actually, just tried this, my own gfx card fan at 100% I think is more quiet than the pallit at above idle.

rpsgc
Friend of SPCR
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Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:59 am
Location: Portugal

Post by rpsgc » Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:30 am

Thanks for replying.

I was hoping that the card at idle would be quieter than a Corsair HX520/620W (the current loudest component on my PC). I was thinking of buying one and use its stock cooler. Now I think I'll buy a reference card and use an Accelero S1 instead.

jozi
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:42 pm

Post by jozi » Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:34 am

I didn't compare it to the psu, used a hx520 for the build.

I see from your sig you already have an Accelero S1? If I had one already i think I be looking for the cheapest 4870 to stick it on.

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