... at an affordable price? (hopefully under 1000$/EUR?)

Any suggestions?

Apparently the current rage are the 'Mini Mac lookalike' options, but most like Asus EE or the pretty linux one seem not powerful enough to run graphics-intensive or video-editing programmes on...?

Acer Mini & 'the real' Mac Mini maybe look like an option, but how quiet are they? Mini Macs offered nowadays are quite different from their older versions, any idea how the newer ones compare in noise/being silent?

Is Dell the only company with published dB specs for their computers?
/Shouldn't there be like a law for everyone to do so? /

It seems 'home-made' is still cheapest... (?) At the lack of getting a techie boyfriend, what other options are there?

My mum has an Acer L5100 92.G7T9Z.UYT that has an Athlon 64 X2 5200+, 3gb ram and a TV tuner. I'd say it gives around 22-30dB but this depends on how resonant the surface is mounted on is and the orientation it is mounted.
You can pick one up for around EUR 600-800 (400-450GBP).

Loudness/sound power specs seem only to be given for pcs aimed at the business end of the market. I think European Health and Safety law means that business computers must be quieter or something.

On that, you should considerr the Lenovo Thinkcentre A57 and M57 ultra small form factor PC's. According to Lenovo blogs, they are supposed to be fairly quiet. You should buy direct from Lenovo, if you can as it will be cheaper.

Thanks!!

Will check them out...

Any suggestions for a laptop?

Bit late, but just found this post.

I'm assuming you need this pc for school/work. If you want to do do video editing, don't restrict yourself to mini systems.

You'll need:
- a very fast cpu, and for the cheaper ones (q6600) that means it will run hot (130 watt). Anything less than that and your projects will take longer to do. On an atom based or other low power pc, a LOT longer. ´

-Lots of high-speed memory, as well, so 4gb on a Vista 64 system.

-A RAID 0 array to work from (for speed) and a RAID 1 array to back-up on (for safety); so 4 disks in total, and a mobo that supports RAID. Most mini pc's have 1 disk only, and if that fails (and it will fail) you have lost all your work. You can skip the RAID 0 disks in favor of 2 seperate external disks, but you have to let someone set up a good mirrored backup.

-Lastly, if you do video editing, you will need a blu-ray burner at some point (the sooner the better).

recap:
You can have the pc quiet by using a silenced case with slow-running 120mm fans, but it won't be small

I will agree with half of what L2GX says, but that spec has been taken to an extreme.

You really do need a fast HDD, 1 will do for most people (light/not constant work) a decent speed dual-core chip and a heap of RAM (because it's cheap).

As L2GX says this basically rules out the type of PC you are looking at, you certainly dont need a monster case but it is not practical to use such a PC in an ITX form factor.


Andy