Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

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eXurion
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by eXurion » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:23 pm

CA_Steve wrote:use and if it's worth the 20€.
Yes its almost 40€ more then the Asus R7 260X.

Right now what I've noticed its my biggest noise complaint its the old hitachi 500GB HDD that I use as storage.

Maybe i would be better off with the Asus R7 and getting a quiet HDD something like the Western Digital IntelliPower Green 1TB.
I've read spcr reviews saying that they recomend 2.5 HDD's but i can't seem to find a WD green on 2.5 all i see is the 3.5 ones.

Silence is indeed addictive before I had a much louder PC and i didnt have all this care about silence but now that I have I always want to keep the noise to a minimum.
quest_for_silence wrote:
eXurion wrote:I can't find the Palit

But why don't you pick the cheapest available GTX-750Ti and slap an Accelero S1 Plus on it?
It would be more effective, noise-wise, and maybe cheaper than any ASUS or MSI card.
I've searched and all i can find is the Accelero S1 rev.2 for around 25€.
The cheapest GTX 750 TI 130€ so it would be more expensive then the MSI Ti TwinFrozr OC.

The place I live can reach 40ºC in the peak of summer so I'll try to stay away from complete passive cooling specially on the graphics card .

quest_for_silence
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Sep 22, 2014 2:14 pm

eXurion wrote:I've read spcr reviews saying that they recomend 2.5 HDD's but i can't seem to find a WD green on 2.5 all i see is the 3.5 ones.

What about to giving a read to some of the latest SPCR article? I mean, like that one: http://www.silentpcreview.com/WD_Red_6TB_1TB

eXurion wrote:I've searched and all i can find is the Accelero S1 rev.2 for around 25€.
The cheapest GTX 750 TI 130€ so it would be more expensive then the MSI Ti TwinFrozr OC.

Whether you stated your location, probably it would be a tad easier to advice you, wouldn't it?

eXurion wrote:The place I live can reach 40ºC in the peak of summer so I'll try to stay away from complete passive cooling specially on the graphics card

That seem just a lack of knowledge: unlike the Radeon R, the 28nm GTX-750Ti is an extremely efficient GPU, so that the Accelero S1 Plus is fully able to cool not just one but two GTX-750Ti at the same time passively.
Just for instance you may dig into these forums, otherwise on the OCN 750Ti owner's club there are examples of GTX-750Ti overclocked up to 1375MHz (from 1150MHz) which tops at around 70°C, a temperature more than about 25°C lower than the throttling level, all done passively (with an S1 Plus, of course).

Said that, whether a MSI Gaming or a passive GTX-750Ti isn't affordable for you, there's no reason to avoid that ASUS R7 260X? Its cooler is fairly capable, and I hope the fans are more easily customisable than Nvidia's ones: it's just hotter, but you don't have to cool passively, so there's no problem with that (set aside a sligthly higher electricity bill).

CA_Steve
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Sep 22, 2014 2:14 pm

The stock R7 260X and the GTX 750 Ti are evenly matched in games. The biggest benefit to the 750 Ti is it uses 40W less power while gaming. If you do GPGPU stuff, then the AMD card is better. If you have 2 monitors, the GTX card will use 10W less power at idle/2D loads. The Asus R7 card has a decent cooler and fan profile. It'll be fairly quiet.

A WD Scorpio Blue 2.5" drive would certainly be quiet. In the US, the 500GB goes for $50. Or, you could go with the WD 3.5" Green or Red.

eXurion
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by eXurion » Tue Sep 23, 2014 12:38 am

I've decided to go for the MSI GTX 750 TI. It has the right price/performance/quality. The Strix is just too expensive being 22€ over the MSI.
As for the HDD i'll go for the WD Green 3.5 as its 25€ cheaper them the WD Red 2.5.

Now i only have one last decision to make.
The fan's on the silencio 352 are quiet at 600rpm -my mobo has 2x 4 pin pwm for case fans- but a while after gaming +/- 30min the cpu gets to 50ºC and the fans start ramping up and when they get to 750rpm they are kinda noisy.
I was reading the spcr reviews and the Noctua seems to be the best choice but they are kinda expensive and i dont know if i should get a normal fan or a pwm one.
This is where im going to buy them http://globaldata.pt/pt-PT/cg/115/120mm_115.htm
I would like to buy 2 new fans for my case but i can't really understand all the different fan's and i would like to try buy 2 fan's for under 30€ or if there is a better cheaper fan maybe buy one more also to replace the hyper 212 evo fan.

Pappnaas
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Pappnaas » Tue Sep 23, 2014 3:42 am

Which fan exactly ramps up and gets noisy?

And yes, i'd start replacing the stock fan on the 212 first.

Keep in mind that any 120mm fan reaching rpm of 800 or more can get louder than when spinning at 600 rpm. In addition the amount of air moved by different fans can result in different cooling while runnning the same rpm.

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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Sep 23, 2014 3:56 am

eXurion wrote:The fan's on the silencio 352 are quiet at 600rpm -my mobo has 2x 4 pin pwm for case fans- but a while after gaming +/- 30min the cpu gets to 50ºC and the fans start ramping up and when they get to 750rpm they are kinda noisy.

I don't understand the scenario: first of all, a CPU under load at 50°C is running COOL, so you have just to differently setup the fans, whether they run too fast.
Then, your mobo should have fake PWM headers, so 3-pins fans work, but with a rather high minimum in the BIOS (60%?): so, as far as I know, you have to try the ECO Control Center (or whatever MSI call it) or SpeedFan to prevent them from ramping up.

eXurion wrote:I was reading the spcr reviews and the Noctua seems to be the best choice but they are kinda expensive and i dont know if i should get a normal fan or a pwm one.
This is where im going to buy them http://globaldata.pt/pt-PT/cg/115/120mm_115.htm
I would like to buy 2 new fans for my case but i can't really understand all the different fan's and i would like to try buy 2 fan's for under 30€ or if there is a better cheaper fan maybe buy one more also to replace the hyper 212 evo fan.

As far as I know the case fan header are not real PWM ones, so you need 3-pins fan (not PWM).

Among the cheaper 3-pin ones, the quieter are the Noise Blocker XL and the Scythe Slipstream (check the relevant SPCR reviews), the lower the speed, the lower the noise (but the higher the temps: even if I don't think you will ever get thermal issues with your config). Even the Noise Blocker Black Silent Pro and Scythe Gentle Typhoon may be considered, if you mind.
Anyway, you can't use those fans on the 212, you need a PWM fan for the heatsink, and you've been already adviced about which one.

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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Sep 23, 2014 4:09 am

Pappnaas wrote:any 120mm fan reaching rpm of 800 or more can get louder

For sure, but those stock CM ones are just annoying, Pappnaas.

eXurion
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by eXurion » Tue Sep 23, 2014 4:54 am

I have been reading and decided to go:

2x Noiseblocker BlackSilent XL1 for the case

and since the website im gonna buy the parts from doesn't have any Scythe PMW i'll go for a
Noiseblocker BlackSilent Pro PL-PS PWM for the hyper 212 evo

I was also looking into the Noctua NF-P12 PWM but not sure if the 5€ difference is worth it.

Abula
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Abula » Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:12 am

Personally i dont recommend the Noiseblockers PWM fans, while the tonallity is good, their PWM design is very different from most, they plan their fans to start at 0% pwm, but not that many motherboards allow it to go that low, that makes the starting in point in a lot of cases higher than other PWM fans like Nocutas. Here is an exmple,

Image

On the MSI motherboad (not sure if you went with the MSI H97M-G43), you can go as low as 12.5% PWM on the CPU_FAN, which is the only PWM fan header, this would mean 800rpms as the least you will be able to dorp the PLPS, weather its good enough for your quiet computing idk, its up to you. Now noctua NF-F12 will allow very low rpms under the same settings, kinda like 300rpms. For case fans NF-S12A can be a good option, depending on how you going to control them, but MSI motherboard allows 50% as their minimum, i believe the Redux there is a 1200rpm version, so it should drop around 700rpm (this i cant say for sure as i dont own a none PWM), the PWM version drops to 300rpms under a PWM signal under 12.5%. Personally i would go full PWM and Y pwm splitter with NF-F12 for cpu fan and NF-S12A PWM for the case fans, but thats just my opinion.

Image

xan_user
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by xan_user » Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:52 am

a while after gaming +/- 30min the cpu gets to 50ºC and the fans start ramping up and when they get to 750rpm they are kinda noisy.
are you certain the noise is coming from the fans that are @ 750? perhaps its PSU or GPU fans ramping up too, because of increasing case temps.

can you keep the machine at idle and manually set fans to 750+? do you still hear the same noise as you do after 30 mins gaming? you could use a recording device to compare, its hard to remember sound signatures accurately.

eXurion
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by eXurion » Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:16 am

Yes i went with the MSI H97M-G43
Abula wrote: On the MSI motherboad (not sure if you went with the MSI H97M-G43), you can go as low as 12.5% PWM on the CPU_FAN, which is the only PWM fan header, this would mean 800rpms as the least you will be able to dorp the PLPS, weather its good enough for your quiet computing idk, its up to you. Now noctua NF-F12 will allow very low rpms under the same settings, kinda like 300rpms. For case fans NF-S12A can be a good option, depending on how you going to control them, but MSI motherboard allows 50% as their minimum, i believe the Redux there is a 1200rpm version, so it should drop around 700rpm (this i cant say for sure as i dont own a none PWM), the PWM version drops to 300rpms under a PWM signal under 12.5%. Personally i would go full PWM and Y pwm splitter with NF-F12 for cpu fan and NF-S12A PWM for the case fans, but thats just my opinion.
Yes i went with the MSI H97M-G43, the Noiseblockers XL1 is a 1000rpm fan so at 50% would be 500rpm much lower then the 650 that my current case fans go and the noiseblockers are much cheaper then the noctuas so i will go for them.

As the cpu fan i think its slightly louder then the case fans - using msi command center I tested each fan induvidually at different rpm's - i see that the noiseblocker pwm isn't that good controlling the rpm so i should go for a pmw noctua.
The options i have is the NF-F12 PWM and the NF-P12 PWM almost at the same price the P one seems to be slightly better in the noise department

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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:24 am

eXurion wrote:The options i have is the NF-F12 PWM and the NF-P12 PWM almost at the same price the P one seems to be slightly better in the noise department
But the F12 goes 300rpm lower than the P12, a behaviour which I judge pretty useful at idle/low load.

lodestar
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by lodestar » Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:35 am

The P12 PWM has a 300 to 1300 rpm spec, the F12 PWM 300 to 1500 rpm so in theory idle speeds should be about the same. In practice the P12 will idle at slightly slower speeds than the F12 under motherboard PWM control (Asus Silent profile). For a CPU cooler I would recommend the F12.

Abula
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Abula » Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:50 am

eXurion wrote:Yes i went with the MSI H97M-G43, the Noiseblockers XL1 is a 1000rpm fan so at 50% would be 500rpm much lower then the 650 that my current case fans go and the noiseblockers are much cheaper then the noctuas so i will go for them.
Personally i wished it worked like that, but not always the case, not all fans like undervolting, and even so some have strict starting voltages, etc. Also 50% on bios/software doesn't always equate to 50% speed, sometimes is higher as 12V is to 100% as 50% would be like 6/7V.... or so, nothing is completely certain here to be exact, if i had the XL1 i could ran them on FanXpert2 to give you a more exact number.

Here is an example of a Noiseblocker that don't like undervolting, if you see 50% it still is at is the same as 100%, no drop in speed.... so its not all up to the motherboard but the fan has to like undervolting.

Image

One fan that has been SPCR favorite for a long time has been the Nexus 120mm, really good fans, that undervolt well, and for the price still very competitive, and today you can get them even more pleasant looking like the Nexus Basic Black/White 120mm, not sure if you have those available. Another really good imo and since you are into Noiseblockers is the M12-S1. Read the SPCR Fan Roundup #6: Scythe, Noiseblocker, Antec, Nexus, Thermalright , where you will see both of the fans im suggesting head to head, really good read btw, has some of the best 120s on the market.
eXurion wrote:As the cpu fan i think its slightly louder then the case fans - using msi command center I tested each fan induvidually at different rpm's - i see that the noiseblocker pwm isn't that good controlling the rpm so i should go for a pmw noctua.
The options i have is the NF-F12 PWM and the NF-P12 PWM almost at the same price the P one seems to be slightly better in the noise department
SPCR seems to like more the P series in terms of tonality, i cant say much here as i dont own it to compare, but either option should drop extremly low under bios of the MSI. There is also the NF-S12A PWM or NF-S12B Redux PWM, this are according to noctua, meant more for case fans.... then martin liquid site posted it was better than NF-F12 on heatsinks.... so idk, i know i like all my NF-S12A PWM, their range of operation is very good.

One last recommendation is to drop the MSI Control Center, personally i don't think it brings much to table, as the bios can control the fans fine, its just more bloatware running eating resources for something that the bios is capable.
Last edited by Abula on Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

eXurion
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by eXurion » Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:26 am

So after a bit more reading i've seen that the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120 800rpm is one of the spcr most favorites.
The NB M12-S1 is a bit better but i can get the typhoon at 12.50€ and m12-s1 at 18€ so its a big difference.

As for the cpu fan after reading a bit i saw some topics on spcr saying that the noctuas have a vibration problem.
Now im in doubt again. I wouldn't want to spend almost 20€ on a fan and be noisy. Maybe i'll leave the cpu fan for after I have the typhoons.

Edit: Unfortunatly i can't find the nexus fans on any portuguese website its weirdbut maybe they never shipped to portugal

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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Abula » Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:55 pm

eXurion wrote:So after a bit more reading i've seen that the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120 800rpm is one of the spcr most favorites.
The NB M12-S1 is a bit better but i can get the typhoon at 12.50€ and m12-s1 at 18€ so its a big difference.

As for the cpu fan after reading a bit i saw some topics on spcr saying that the noctuas have a vibration problem.
Now im in doubt again. I wouldn't want to spend almost 20€ on a fan and be noisy. Maybe i'll leave the cpu fan for after I have the typhoons.

Edit: Unfortunately i can't find the nexus fans on any portuguese website its weirdbut maybe they never shipped to portugal
Dont worry about the Nexus Basic, both of what you have are slightly better, Scythe GT 800rpm and Noiseblocker M12-S1, about the GTs they are already discontinued and seems the price you can get them is decent, so i would go for that, they will undervolt well, i cant tell you exactly as im not home where i have all my fan tests, but ill post it later on.

About the CPU fan its up to you, I would go either NF-P12 PWM or NF-F12 PWM, they should drop low, in my experience as long as you push it above 1k, they remain quiet, specially below 800rpms. Scythe Glidestream or Slipstream PWM could be another option.

Abula
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Abula » Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:31 pm

Here is the pic of the Scythe GT 800rpm, 50% on MSI bios should be about 470rpms or so.

Image

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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by xan_user » Wed Sep 24, 2014 3:00 am

keep in mind guys/gals,
most fans are rated around 10%+/- for thier rpm specs.
most mobos measure fan speed/temperature with similar accuracy.
so worst case, all your numbers might be off by as much as 20%. :D

eXurion
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by eXurion » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:25 am

Hey so here it is :D its finally complete and im very happy with the end result

Image

I ended up going with gentle typhoons all the way around. 2 ap12 for the case fans and 1 ap13 for the cpu.
It's very quiet and fast.

Final Build:
Case - Micro-ATX Cooler Master Silencio 352
CPU - Intel Core i5 4460 (3.2GHz) Socket 1150
CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Motherboard - MSI H97M-G43
Memory - G.Skill Kit 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Ripjaws CL9
Storage - SSD Samsung 840 Evo 120GB SATA III
Storage - Western Digital 1TB 64MB Green
PSU - Corsair Modular RM-550W
GPU - Asus GTX750 Ti STRIX OC 2GB DDR5

Fans
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm - 1150rpm
2x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm - 800rpm

Total Cost - 876€

CA_Steve
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Oct 03, 2014 12:27 pm

Congrats on your build :D

Telstar
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Telstar » Sat Oct 04, 2014 2:11 am

The important is that YOU are happy :)

PS: watch out for a firmware upgrade for your 840 evo to fix a bug.

Abula
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Re: Micro ATX Silent Light Gaming Build

Post by Abula » Sat Oct 04, 2014 8:45 am

eXurion wrote:Hey so here it is :D its finally complete and im very happy with the end result
Fans
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm - 1150rpm
2x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm - 800rpm
Congrats on the build, seems really nice =).

Btw did you try to enter the bios and lower the rpms of the Scythe under SYS_FAN 1,2,3? I dont think you will be able to lower the cpu fan as MSI CPU_FAN only works on 4pin PWM, but you should be able to do it with the other two fans, either way the 800rpm is very quiet fan as it is, but sometimes depending on grills or mesh filters you can hear a wosh that can disapear removing it or lowering the rpms some.

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