Hey hey!

I'm currently studying animation in school and am moving slowly into 3D modelling and rendering so I figured it was time to upgrade my lowely E6300 for a new rig. Enter the i7 920!

My plan is to use minimal fans, custom sound deadning panels and acoustic foam to make the system completely inaudible from 3-4ft away.

Components plan so far:

i7 920 (will overclock and undervolt as possible)
Asus P6T-SE motherboard
12GB OCZ Platinum DDR3-1600 7-7-7-24
OCZ Vertex 60GB (OS and main apps drive)
2.5" WD Scorpio Blue 500GB (for games installations and temp storage)
Powercolor 4770 512MB
Corsair HX620 PSU
Cheapest DVDRW drive I can find

Case and cooling plan:

Antec P183 mid-tower case
Scythe Mugen 2 CPU cooler w/1200RPM slipstream
Accelero S1 rev.2 VGA cooler (passive)
1200RPM Slipstream exhaust fan
Maybe swapping the HX620 fan for an S-Flex or Slipstream 1200RPM

So far I've received the P183, video card and PSU. I'll post along the way as I make the sound dampening and assemble the components.

Happy days!

I would recomend just using the PWM fan that comes with the Mugen 2 I have used it and it will run as slow as ~250-1200 RPM and can run at much slower speeds than a normal 1200 RPM slipstream and it is PWM controlled so you don't have to worry about fan control.

Awesome sounding setup. I can't wait to see some pictures.

My fiance is currently in school studying animation. It'd be nice to build something like your system for her!

I built my main PC for animation and rendering. I bought everything right when it came out so in total i think i spent 3 g's. It renders pretty fast. 1 min video in highest quality in Maya rendered in about 4 min i think it was less. my laptop would normally take 30 min and the schools macs would take 40 min.

Intel i7 940
Asus P6T deluxe oc/palm
6gb ddr1600
Evga 295gtx
2 146 seagate cheetah 15krpm in raid 0
1 WD velociraptor 300gb
corsair cmpsu-1000HX
Creative X-Fi Fatality
vista ultimate 64 bit.
Coolermaster stacker 810

Fans
front 2 120mm coolermaster silent
these three fans all change speed together
Back 2 120mm Panasonic
top 120mm silent cat

Heatsink
Thermalright ultra 120 extreme with stock fan


That's what it looks like but now with a 295 gtx instead of the 280 gtx

I was thinking that. From what I've read the stock fan is basically a slipstream 1200rpm (at the least in noise/performance). I may use that extra fan if I get a second card for OpenGL (ATI Firestream) or for the PSU fan swap if the stock turns out to be too loud.

Here's a couple of shots of where I stand now. The black pads are Roxul AFB 1.5" mineral wool wrapped in a breathable polyester fabric to contain the fibers and make it look sexy. The Roxul is just about the best sound aborbtion material I could find in any usable thickness, slightly better then Owens Corning 703 for the frequencies I'm interested in dampening.






Still need to order some 1/2" acoustical foam to treat the rest of the case but that may not be for a few weeks. In the meantime, I'm expecting the motherboard to arrive next week so I can start running wires and making it look as sexy as possible.

Where are you studying animation?

Nice rig! I'm thinking of getting an FX 580 to replace my ATI card or adding a second ATI Firestream card. I'm mostly interested in actual animation then modelling though so I'm not sure the extra viewport performance will be needed.

At Sierra Nevada College. yeah i just changed my major to art with a concentration on digital art and a minor in entertainment technology it was computer science but i hated it.

Wow, looks good so far. Some Acoustipack dampening foam on the insides of the left and right case panels might be the next step.

While you've got the case bare at the moment without any components, I would take the opportunity to cut out the front and rear fan grills and lever off the aluminium cover on the top fan grill while you are at it, just to increase the air flow potential a little bit.

As for the fan swap, a 1200rpm fan would probably be too low if you are going to connect the fan to the PSU's fan header. (If you aren't, then a 1200rpm S-Flex E would be great if you're wiring it to a motherboard fan header.)

I've used the Scythe S-Flex F 1600rpm as a fan swap into my Zalman ZM600 PSU and am very happy with it. I'd strongly recommend using this fan if you're considering a fan swap and wiring the new fan to the PSU fan header so that it varies with PSU load and temps.

The stock fan is different than a normal 1200 RPM slipstream because it is a PWM fan which allows it to be controlled by the CPU temperature and allows it to run slower than a normal 1200 RPM slipstream. I would definitely recommend using this as your heatsink fan as it is controlled by CPU temperature.

Thanks for the advice guys on the fans guys. I've already cut out the back fan grill but I'll leave the fronts since there won't be any active fans there.

I'm gonna stay away from Acoustipak, I just can't afford the cost. I've ordered some 1/2" acoustic foam from PartsExpress which I'm going to combine with some heavy vinyl (tiles maybe). That should give me the same performance at a 3rd of the cost.

For those interested in the sound absorbing panel I've made, the Roxul AFB mineral cost me $32 for half a metric yard....enough to do 100 computer cases and still build sound treatment panels for my home theater. I've just used a framing square and utility knife to cut, I use spray adhesive to attach one or 2 pieces of cardboard to the back and sides (away from the sound source) and then use the same glue to attach the cloth. I used the same process in my P180 for my E6300 rig and the difference was immediately noticable. They pretty much abosrb all reflected higher frequency noise.

I've put them:

-Stuffed in the optical drive bays
-Surrounding the front intake
-Below mainboard
-bottom of PSU bay
-In the bottom of the hard drive cage (my 2.5" WD drive will be suspended over it)

When building a computer for animation (using Maya, Flash, and Photoshop), which components are the most important?

I'm considering building my finace a new system for her to use.

Currently she has these components:

Core 2 Duo E6600
6 GB DDR2 800
250 GB SATA II Western Digital (windows and apps)
1 TB Western Digital Green (storage)
Nvidia 640MB GeForce 8800GT (i think. something from around that area anyway).
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit

I think Ram and the CPU would be the most important. when i'm working in Flash i normally have illustrator or Photoshop all of them open at he same time with big files in them. More ram is help full. And a good video card. i was using a 9600 gso for a while till i got my 295 gtx back and it would have trouble once a few polygons where moving.

Acellero S1 wont fit the HD4770. I'am speaking from personal experience. So far the only cooler that will fit is the Scythe Musashi. The conflict is the chip on the 4770 is farther back than previous cards.

I'am currently waiting for the Acellero L2 Pro which is supposed to come out this month.

I got my L2 pro last week. Its asymmetrical and fits HD 4670 which has also gpu more left than center. So I presume L2 pro will fit HD 4770 89% likeliness.

*Edit* Your in Europe that might explain why you got one already. I don't think we will have them in Canada for a while yet.

Where did you get yours I can't seem to find them yet?

Lets see some more pics!

I ordered it from Native electronic's reseller: verkkokauppa.com.

One thing is amazing: they fit cooler, 8 ram sinks and 8 vrms sinks + adapter and attachment bag in package that is barely larger than cooler itself. Extremely well done space management unlike in accelero S series'.

Now if I would just knew what to do with it. I kinda bought in a heat of an moment thinking its so damn cheap, who knows when I need smaller cooler like that...

Small update, still waiting on the CPU and since the Mugen 2 screws in from the backplate I can't get the motherboard installed which means I can't do much right now

I've also got the 1/2" accoustic foam on order from Parts-Express, should be able to pick it up next weekend.

As to the Accelero S2 - I received it the other day and as reported, it didn't fit. However, as I had read somewhere else, a pair of tin snips and 10mins later and the cooler fit perfectly. I've got installed in this box as we speak and temperatures are idling around 40 degrees. All it took was trimming the back edge of the fins just about flush the back heatpipe. I'll post pics when I start assembling the rest.

For animation, I think CPU and RAM are the most important and video card comes in a close second. The biggest time consuption is always rendering which is completely CPU dependant. If I can do a quick animation and then render a preview in 20secs instead of 2mins then I can save an hour a day. Video card is important to keep the viewport running smooth when modeling or animating higher polygon counts and while testing out lighting. If I find the 4770 lacking, I may ditch it for an Nvidia FX580 (9400GT speciallized for OpenGL).

Hopefully I'll have the CPU soon and that can only mean on thing....wire management!

Can we get pictures of the Accelero installed ?

Bit dusty there mate! Some filters would be useful.

Now now, the man is pushing a lot of hardware there, he can be excused for not vacuuming before guests come over.

I'm in the process of a move right now and I'm waiting on my i7 chip so my build is on hold for a couple of weeks it seems. I'll try to get pictures of the Accelero installed on the 4770. I did make kind of a mess of the fins though, need to take a dremel to make them prettier.

Interesting approach used for tidying up the IDE cable to the XFI-card, when I had the front panel connected (for about two days) I used an exacto knife, your way is faster.

...and for God's sake man; clean_the_system ---> cut the fags ---> and shoot the darn pet, yes!



...
Or you could just clean it once in a while of course, no need to go overly excessive here or anything so don't get - me - wrong - please (whistles)

Ok wow, so after nearly a year and a half, I realized while installing some more RAM that I never posted any pictures of this build.

Final specs:

i7 920 @ 3.75 24/7. Runs at 4.1Ghz while doing render jobs
12gb OCZ Platinum 1600MHz 7-8-7-24
ATI 4770
Corsair HX620 PSU
2x Scythe Slipstream 1200RPM. 650RPM@Idle
OCZ Vertex 60gb SSD
Hitachi Travelstar 250gb 2.5" for storage.

So here we are!

You have a great looking build. Hide those left over (fan?) cables, and I'll look amazing !!

good looking build, looks like its quiet. and a good OC too.

I might have have missed it, but did you say what type of rendering software you are using?

is that a Starwars collection?

Thanks guys. Its really dead silent until it goes into full load on a render and the exhaust fan picks up to full speed. Even then, I can barely hear it over the central heating in my house. Gaming, it's completely silent which is great.

I've been working in Maya and Mental Ray and I've been experimenting with VRay a lot lately.

And yup, thats my vintage star wars collection. Just missing 12 of the last 17