Best Silent case for high end rig

[Clintos]

Hey guys wondering if I can anyone here has built a silent PC and can help me out. I’ve got a pretty good setup with all my components able to spin down etc when idle.
Intel 7700K with Noctua D15
EVGA GTX1080 ACX 3.0
16gb Gskill Ram
512gb M2 Samsung 960 Pro ssd
MSI Z270 M5 motherboard
Corsair RM850i PSU

Anyway looking to get a new case + case fans to complete my build. Silence/Performance are my main concern and I have no real budget. I’m thinking of either the Fractal design R5 and the Be quiet 900 case. Also thinking of outfitting them with better fans than stock if required. I was kind of weary with both of these cases howvever not having PSU shrouds. The Corsair PSU tends to get a bit hot and I could see the hot air rising into the gpu causing it to heat up and ramp its own fans up.
Also wondering how many fans I should get and what fans etc as I’d need good airflow as my PC gets pretty hot (live in Australia). Eg running more fans at a lower rpm etc. And any other tips would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

[NeilBlanchard]

Welcome to SPCR,

I have seen anything about the Be Quiet 900 case before, so only going by the pictures, it looks similar to several other cases. It could very well have low restriction air flow, or it might be held back by the fine mesh grill they used.

Does it have panel dampening like the R5?

[lodestar]

...I’m thinking of either the Fractal design R5 and the Be quiet 900 case.

The Be Quiet Dark Base 900 is probably the best of the two as a complete out of the box solution. That's because it comes with 3 140mm PWM fans as standard and a PWM hub, and I suspect its sound proofing would be at least as good as the Fractal Design R5. The main issue in the UK is that the 900 costs significantly more than the R5. The same seems to apply in Australia with the 900 Black at around $330 while the R5 Blackout Edition with Window is around $190.

The Be Quiet PWM fans have a maximum speed of 1000 rpm as do the two 3 pin fans supplied with the R5. As you say you're expecting to run your PC in relatively hot conditions this might be a problem. It would obviously be more economic to replace the R5 3 pin fans with PWM fans of your choice rather than have to supplement the already expensive 900 with yet more fans. My suggestion would be that you consider the R5 plus 4 140mm PWM fans in the two front, rear exhaust and the rear top exhaust positions. If you choose the Noctua NF-P14S Redux 140mm PWM in either the 1200 rpm or 1500 rpm versions it should cost you around $25 per fan. So the R5 plus 4 PWM fans would come in at around $290 versus $330 with the 900.

I don't know the motherboard you're planning to use. But I would assume that it would have BIOS controls enabling fan profiles to be set so that you could run the PWM fans at low speeds under idle or low system stress conditions but ensure that they ramp up speeds automatically when gaming. Motherboard thermal control typically takes account of the CPU temperature and ambient temperature so what you should find under load is that a balancing point will be reached, normally somewhat short of full speed. In very hot conditions the fans might run at full speed. This might mean that 1500 rpm PWM fans could be a better choice just to give that extra margin if required.

[Abula]

I’m thinking of either the Fractal design R5 and the Be quiet 900 case. Also thinking of outfitting them with better fans than stock if required. I was kind of weary with both of these cases howvever not having PSU shrouds.

If you like the design of the Fractal Design R5, and by your specs i dont see any 3.5 drives nor Opticals, so why not consider the Fractal Design Define C, it does come with a shroud.

About the fans, really depends on what you are aiming at, and that we all have different tolerances toward noise and whats acceptable, i would suggest to look into BeQuiet! SilentWings3 BL066 for the back and BL067 for the front, depending on your fan control and the motherboard you chose (i recommend AsRock or MSI), can allow you to drop them 250 or ramp them to 1400/1000 (66/67), personally i find those figures really good, above 1000rpms i never have found a fan that its quiet, no matter the brand, so good range of operation and good PWM control are keys for you to tweak the setup to whatever you feel adequate in terms of performance/noise.

Now just as a comment, i started my quiet builds from the SOLO days, and been moving toward silent cases, my last was the R4, recently i have moved more toward more airflow oriented cases like Silverstone FT05 and Corsar Air 740, and looks like ill continue this trend, i feel that almost any case can work out fine for building a quiet pc its matter more the components you chose to run inside, cases like R5 are really nice with quiet operation oriented with front cover and side dampening and so on, but to me other things stand our more like their very easy cable management and in general to work with, nice laid back look, price, etc. But they do suffer somewhat on airflow, on my R4 on very hot days, the noctua fans that i used on it ramp up above 1k to sustain the build with in acceptable temps, and you could notice it, not loud at all but noticeable, from this decided to start moving toward better airflow cases, and to me its better and my specific hardware, i can more fans or bigger fans at lower rpm and end up with a quieter setup, no matter what high end stuff will require a lot of cooling, you can either get a more enclosed case and try to dampen the noise, or make more open and try not to ramp the fans up to compensate. By this im not trying to change your choices of cases, i think the R5 and BQ900 are great cases, just something that down the line you might want to try on.