Need Advice on Ultimate Silent Gaming Machine

soultaker · Post by **soultaker** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:13 pm

Hello everyone, I'm a long time lurker first time poster. I am finally in a position financially where I can afford to put together the system of my dreams. To make a long story short I am interested in building an AMD64 gaming rig that is as quiet as possible - silence would be huge!

I have gone through reading oodles of reviews on computer parts for a silent machine, but I find they dont really help me in my goal of silent high end gaming.

Other than my target of AMD64 3500+ Winchester, and a 6800 ultra graphics card, everything is open to suggestions.

i am looking for recommendations on:

1) Motherboard (dont care for SLI techonology at all - I plan on using only 1 graphics card)
2) North Bridge Cooling Device
3) VGA Cooling Device for a 6800 Ultra PCI-E graphics card
4) CPU Heatsink/Fan (I am leaning towards the Thermalright 120/Nexus 120 combo)
5) Power Supply unit (my current thoughts are with the seasonic S12 - 430)

Ultimately If i can play new games whilst going to sleep with the machine 4 feet away from my bed - I would be in heaven.

- ST

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:37 am

Welcome to SPCR

You've come to the right place for the information you want. But your question is so broad that you'll only get broad answers (if any at all). I suggest you make a more detailed plan and then ask for advice on the details you really don't know/can't find already answered in another thread. During the last few month there has been a lot of talk about quiet high end gaming machines. Try browsing the System Advice, The Silent Front and General Gallery forums. Look for terms like A64 and nForce4.

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 10:45 am

The thermalright XP-120 is your best bet for cpu cooling, for vga cooling it would probably have to be the Arctic Cooling NV5, with a 6800Ultra this won't be silent during games though but at the desktop you should be able to slow it down enough for it to be inaudible.
The best northbridge cooling device is the ZM-NB47J, but finding an nforce4 board that will take this and an nv5 will be a problem, I believe the Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra has the heatsink above the card so that would be the best choice
And for the power supply the S12 would be a good choice, you get Seasonics usual quality and with dual 12V+ lines it will be a good choice for the 6800 and A64, you could probably get away with the 380W but if you can afford it the 430 will be abetter choice.

soultaker · Post by **soultaker** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:23 pm

Thanks for the quick feedback Graham, especially in regards to the motherboard selection. I've have been studying motherboard designs and couldnt find one that would work with the 6800 + passive northbridge cooling. Just a general question regarding Epox, I'm not very familiar with this brand of motherboards, I mainly stuck to the tier 1 manufacturers (Asus, MSI, etc..) how does Epox's products stack up to the these guys?

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:11 pm

Epox are as good as any of them, I would normally go for msi, but with the northbridge placement the epox would definately be my choice
Theres a review here

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainbo ... -9npa.html

HiddenWolf · Post by **HiddenWolf** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:45 am

that review is pretty damning

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:03 am

How so?
Epox make very good overclocking boards, their power circuitry is especially of high quality.
I've seen several cases where the boards reach 300mhz+ HT bus overclocks, they allow 3.1V for ddr, very useful when using top quality dimms, they are also quite inexpensive
about the only real complaint I've heard is the layout isn't great, but then seeing as no other board positions the chipset where this does it's a reasonable tradeoff

ilh · Post by **ilh** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:11 am

A DFI nF4 Ultra-D has two VGA slots, allowing you to move your VGA to the second slot at 8x giving your nF4 chip more cooling options. My 3DMark scores at 8x are within 1% of my scores at 16x (read: 8x is plenty).

Several of us have hacked/mangled a Zalman NB47J cooler underneath a 6600/6800 in the primary slot of an Ultra-D. Mine works great with a VF700 on the 6800 GT.

Do you really want to buy an Ultra? Most GTs can be overclocked beyond Ultra speeds. My eVGA GT is stable at 430/1.15. An Ultra is 400/1.10, and a GT is 350/1.00. Mine will run at Ultra speeds with the VF700 cooler than it does at GT speeds with the stock cooler.

The DFI nF4 boards are some of the best overclockers around if that is of interest.