Greetings, silence lovers!
I've been visiting your website for a few years, but I never got around to building a new PC, until now.
Warning, wall of text follows, here's the tl;dr version:
1) is there any motherboard in particular that has better fan/temperature control and reliability than others, gaming not being a priority? Is the number of fan controllers and auto-detection of pwm/non-pwm the deciding factor? 2) should I wait for the CPU pricing/performance competition to play out for the next few months or should I just build now? 3) the fractal define series being overpriced here, what's an alternative for a reasonably priced matx/atx with 2 large, low rpm, filtered intake fans with a PSU not on top of the motherboard? (or whatever gives me dustless silence on a non-gaming, non overclocked system, looks are not a factor).
Thanks!
The system I'm replacing is pretty old, i5 750 with a Gigabyte P55a ud3r motherboard, inside an even older Chieftec case that I got in 2005. Built like a tank but noisy, bad airflow, no space behind the motherboard, no cpu cooler cut-out, no front intake fans, PSU on top of motherboard. I'd have to use power tools on it to get it usable on a modern build, so I'm getting a new case and doing a more up-to-date build.
Don't laugh, for what I've been using this system for, it's actually been running great, close to 24/7, so I have only nice things to say about the components. It's more than 7 years old and it needs to be retired.
I'll be doing a build around a recent 65W intel CPU with integrated graphics, Ryzen is out of the question because I don't want/need the additional gpu card right now.
I will be running a linux desktop on this, some virtual machines, spreadsheets, some database work, scripting/coding but not much actual compiling, some stress testing, I figure 16gb of ram will do just fine for now, 32 will be an upgrade in the future.
I have an M-audio pci sound card that still works very well, but only few modern motherboards have a vintage PCI slot and I don't want that to limit my choice of motherboards. There is one Asus motherboard with a PCI slot, in their commercial category, the PRIME B250M-C. I was actually looking at the Gigabyte GA-B250M-D3H, but some reviews made me want to look at other boards. I see people recommend Asrock boards, the last time I did an Asrock build, they were lower quality and the one I got started to bend after one year, the shape was ridiculous but it worked. Never had an MSI.
Back in the ancient days, bioses didn't really have fancy fan controls and temperature monitoring to the extent they have today. I will probably be running 2 intake fans, 1 exhaust and the cpu cooler, but I'm not sure what motherboard has good support for tuning the speed for the case fans - most of them advertise that they have great support. I know I can get hardware fan controllers, go the diy route, even linux has fan tuning support, but my gut tells me I'd better leave the speed control to the motherboard, if the OS crashes or locks up, the fans might stop. I will never do SLI or anything like that, and whether I get an unlocked cpu or not is still up for debate. I don't need a nvme drive for now, but at least an m.2 slot on the motherboard would be nice to have.
I'm guessing an i5 7600 + b250 motherboard will do. I'm still considering an i7 7700k + z270, but I need to figure out the budget for the entire build and it might be overkill and too hot for my needs.
There will be some good holiday deals, I'm sure of that, on the other hand I might as well wait for the 9th gen to come out and see how the pricing competition plays out between Intel and AMD. 8th gen. means more cores on the i5, that would be a nice thing to have for my needs, but I can settle for the H.265 10 bit support and 4k(ish) support that the 7th gen currently has, since actual per-core performance is very close and the pricing is much better for 7th gen.
I'm not sure this system will ever have a discreet GPU inside it. Maybe if something like Warcraft 4 ever comes out, not really a priority but I'd like to have the option to add good one, should I ever need it (related to PSU and case spacing)
I need the build to be in a solid case, I'd like it to work for at least 3 years without worrying about failure. I'm in a dusty environment, I might get a room air purifier, but that's noisy as well. My current case sits on the floor and has negative air pressure, it's full of dust. This build will be in a smaller case with positive pressure and dust filters, off the floor. I am still using an optical drive a lot but I could renounce it if I found a good case without a slot.
I'm looking at Fractal Define C mini or even the smaller itx version, but fractals are overpriced around here - $112 for the mini C, $130 for the R5. Cooler master Silencio is better priced but seems flimsy. I can get a good deal on an old Antec p182 case and maybe there will be big price drops in the following weeks, I'd hate to get a case that old for a new build. 140mm intakes at low RPM would be a nice thing to have. I might have several HDDs in the future, I'm using 3 right now, but some will be retired soon. Separate network storage would also be an option, I see some modern cases focus on multiple SSDs hidden behind the motherboards, ditching the HDD rack in the front while still keeping room for 2-3 HDDs. I have an aggressive backup strategy and that takes disk space.
I don't care about the looks, but I want 24/7 (well, not really, but close enough) reliability and noise are more important, I need to hear myself think, CPU speed is overrated when you can't get work done.
For the PSU, I'm looking at the Seasonic Focus+, the platinum rated, 92% efficient models, if I do the math right, the fan might not even start most of the time. I see people complaining about coil noise on their fanless models, so I'm not sure that's the better option. I see people also build with EVGA a lot. My current cooler master 550w PSU is still working, but the fan failed, my replacement isn't pushing enough air, it's hot and for its age and history, I simply don't trust using it anymore. I think it also overheated once because the exhaust fan failed on the case and it sucked up all that hot air by itself, top PSU placement is really bad.
Wow, that was long.
Huge thanks to anyone who read this!
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