Makes me feel better about the rather small and simple passive heatsink on my new 2600pro. Sounds like a fun trip. I've only been in one room like that and it was designed for radar waves instead. It was a fun experience.

any idea why they went for hemi-anechoic rather than the full caboodle? does ISO 7779 stipulate a reflective floor?

Truly impressive infrastructure, but I must say that I would have been disappointed in them if they didn't: how could they say that their product has an operating temperature of 10-50°C without having tested it?

It's at least a good deal more practical to work in IMHO

AtW

hemi-anechoic is stipulated in most acoustic testing standards like ISO7779. It's what Intel, Dell, and all the other big companies have been building for themselves in the past decade or so. Not sure of all the reasons for the move away from full-anechoic.

Having an anechoic room is a nice fantasy, but there are some downsides as well... I've been in one for over about 15 minutes (a lab visit) and then I already felt like having to get out.
Hearing no reflection does weird things to your mind, I started subconsciously trying to pop my ears (because it seemed they were plugged).

It was a fun/weird experience, but I felt relief when I could go out of that room. I think people can go crazy in there

No one "hangs out" inside an anechoic chamber. They are test rooms.

You could probably use a really isolated one to torture people w/ the lights off. It would become a sensory deprivation chamber. People's minds go nuts trying to get some "input". People with perfectly normal hearing are known to hear weird whining and other noises in anechoic or other super quiet environments -- it's the brain trying to compensate for the lack of input.

it's nice that they've invested that kind of money into it... but i would still be wary. having top-notch facilities doesn't stop the marketing people 10 floors above from fudging the results... in fact i'm willing to bet they do.

marketing usually trumps good science...



you are a sick man...

Yet somehow, MikeC, I suspect you left out the bit where they had to tear you screaming from the room, screaming "Silence! It's mine! ALL MINE!!"

My wife keeps saying that too, makes me wonder....


Since returning from Taipei and Bangkok, where average ambient levels are probably >60 dBA just about anywhere you go, I've discovered the joys of "moderately quiet". Silence is a fantasy and unachievable anyway. www.moderatelyquietcomputing.com is coming soon.

Wow. I don't remember Tokyo being that bad (Shinagawa district anyway -- or even Akihabara). Sunday mornings were particularly calm. /zen

Interesting stuff. It looks different than the anechoic chambers I've been in, but those weren't for sound. I never would've thought that these companies would make such an investment to do accurate noise testing.

Intel has also built 2-3 large hemi-anechoic chambers in the US over the last 2-3 years. Each one, without equipment or building in which to house it, runs minimum $200,000. Dell has a couple too. I found this out while researching builders/suppliers for my underground backyard anechoic chamber fantasy.

The kind of chamber you refer to is for RF. These are "silent" in the radio frequencies. Most big electronics companies have or utilize them to ensure FCC and other std. compliance.

OK, I don't know what the actual SPLs were, but both are very noisy cities. It's really, really hard to find quiet places in those cities. The ambient noise level in my home, in SPCR labs, would be utterly unimaginable, luxurious tranquility in those places. I don't think I was ever in any place in either city where it's as quiet as it is on an average day here. And I'm near the geographic center of Vancouver, near Queen Elizabeth Park, just 20 mins away from DT or the airport.

marketing usually trumps good science...



you are a sick man...[/quote]

Did either of you ever watch batman beyond - the episode with "ISO"? That's exactly what they did.

Eh... you know all of this is so weird. Gigabyte engineers use all these snobbery serious facilities, and then for example, automatic CPU fan control of their motherboards (which is exactly about noise and heat) are so poor that a schoolboy could write better. At least for the non-enthusiastic products; I don't know about the others. Well, maybe they deliberately bungle them and the more expensive models are good, although it's not clear how should I know that and run to buy a more expensive one... Well, whatever, it' just that the whole thing feels so absurd when you look at these facilities.

It's a shame with that nice room and all the testing equipment, that almost none of there products could be considered close to silent.

The new gigabyte board with p35 chipset has nothing but passive cooling through large heatsinks. There's no fans whatsoever, so unless you're talking about some other product they make, I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

Sainty: Obviously nobody talks about the fan of the mobos, as there are much more mobos without fan than with fan, Gigabyte or not, P35 or not. But, Gigabyte has not only motherboards, but video cards, CPU fans, computer cases, etc. And back to the mobos, although they mostly don't have fans, they still control the CPU fan rpm and possibly also of case fan rpm, so they still have role in silence issues. Also, it's important if popular silent CPU coolers mechanically fit. (Also, the passive cooling of the chipset and of MOSFET-s is factor, as they have an influence on how much air movement is needed inside the case, although it's surely a minor thing.)

BTW, lame fan rpm control (i.e., not adjustable in the BIOS setup, and the Windows-only(!) controller software is also lame or too buggy) is not a Gigabyte specialty, but a quite widespread thing, so I just used to take the mobo out of the equation: like most guys here probably, I use a CPU that's cool enough combined with a wildly over sized cooler, so that I can just chose a constant low voltage (e.g. using a fanmate, because, of course, the damn mobo doesn't let me chose a constant DC voltage or PWM percentage or -- God forbid -- PRM either...) that's enough even in the extreme cases (like 42C/108F ambient + Prime95) and is still silent enough. But this primitive constant rpm solution may doesn't work well with a really hot CPU (like quad core). And since the whole issue is just a little software issue (like maybe it could be easily improved even with a BIOS update), it's annoying that companies don't care about the topic (I know, because there is no money in it, since 99.9% of users is unaware of the issue). Anyway... fanmates are not expensive, nor many needs high-end quad cores, so whatever... Just it's obvious that they don't give a sh*t, and then they fancy around with these testing chambers... well, it just makes that mentioned annoyed felling stronger.

Does anyone know what are these sound reflecting wedges made from?

Sorry, yes I was talking about there line of heat sinks. Other then electrical noise there mobos are silent when no fans a present.