Hi All

I'm a new member, and I know generally that there always is a trade-off between performance and lower noise, but I do beleive there is a holy grail of an optimal solution. Clearly I'd have to pay up rto $5000 for it, but it could be worth it (well, look how expensive cars are)

I'm trying to find either a pre-built or a customised solution, probably centered around the AMD FX53 being the quickest (and most future-proofed) CPU around for gaming.

So far, the only prebuilt I have come across that comes close is the VoodooPC Rage F-50 with an FX53 processor, but the hard drives noise seems to be a major issue and there don't seem to be any neat solutions to it.

I've thought of getting someone to build a custom solution (not sure I trust myself), but I don't know what the ideal configuration would look like.

Does anyone have any thoughts on either a prebuilt or a custom config with best of breed components?

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

5000 bucks?

Try ARM systems.

Or the TNN Zalman case and go crazy.

From my understanding, you can almost always get a quieter machine by building it yourself. That's because you're allowed to do crazy things like install ducts, suspend hard drives, etc, which can be ugly to look at or dangerous to ship.

That said, sometimes it's a lot easier to get someone else to assemble it for you. I would recommend looking into Arm Systems, the makers of the Stealth PC. They've earned an SPCR seal of approval for quiet PCs. But they're not quite as quiet as the homebrewed PCs of the SPCR staff members (but they're very close). So really it comes down to how far do you want to go vs. how good are your skills and how much effort are you willing to put into it?