How relevant are airholes in your case for a silent PC?!!

[Dance123]

Hi,

I am gonna buy a new Pentium 4 2.6 soon but I can't decide which silent case to choose. And with silent case I don't only mean a silent PSU, but what about all those airholes placed at random places with most cases. Many people probably overlook this, but the more airholes, the more noise from inside your PC that gets out, am I right, and if they are placed close to your harddisk or PSU for instance you will hear them pretty good, even if it is a silent harddisk or PSU! One might thing this is irrelevant, but I had an old case full of airholes and I noticed when I held my hand before some, everything sounded more quiet! I think the amount and placement of airholes in a case also plays an important part if you wanna build a silent PC!! The simple fact is that the casing itself muffles noise, and airholes are the enemy for a silent PC!

The Aopen H600 for instance seems like a good case, but it has a vertical stripe of airholes on both sides of the case close to where the harddisk, etc.. are installed, meaning you will hear it pretty good, am I right?!

The Aopen HQ48 seems like the perfect case (almost no airholes), but then again I wonder if it still does give enough airflow with current PCs even if you use a big silent Zalman cooler, etc..

So, which case should I choose then, cause I really don't know which one to choose best?! Which are your recommendations and what extra things could I do to make the case itself even more silent?!

Thanks very much for all good feedback, as I could need some good advice regarding this!!

Best Regards,

Mike.