after many, many hours of research here and in the internet-shops I now have the choice between those 3 cases

CoolerM Sileo 510 for $124
Antec Sonata Proto for $153
Cooler Master Centurion 5 II for $112

I know, the Antec is the best quality build, but is it worth the $30 extra (for me?)?
Most interesting for me is the ease to make a quiet system, quality is only second option.
Anybody compared directly those in practice?]
Is the Antec the quietest? Other qualities to make it wotrh the extra money?

Please help
Thanks

system:
MSI PM8M3-V mainboard with P4 3Ghz (will opt for a dual or 4 core in the future)
CPU-cooler: Thermal Take Sonic Tower
PSU: Antec Neo Eco 400c (400w Atx 12v 2.3) Active Pfc
onboard S3 unichrome pro grafic
2 sata-drives
2 DDR memories

In my opinion a good silent case is the Fractal Desing R3, it costs less then all the above options. It provides more then enough fanports (7), so enough possibilities if you want to use heavy and warm graphics card. If you don't gonna use a heavy graphics card you can use it just with the stock fans. But your case is not the only part which needs to be quiet. Also the PSU and the CPU cooler play important roles in what the soundlevel of the total pc is.

But you have to ask yourself is that 100 dollar worth it? You have a pretty dated system, so if you put another 100 dollar down you maybe can upgrade to a system which is newer.

I researched for long hours and those 3 mentioned above are the only options for me here within my budged (from the recommended)
I already decided on the CM Sileo an this is why:
I read the Antec Sonata Elite review and I couldn't see any advantage over the Sileo. + the Sontata Proto doesn't even have the foam. Also the Hd-mount in the Sileo can be removed and airflow gets even better. The Centurion seams to be wide open on the front, so it's no option for me.
Also those prices above are brazilian prices, the Fractal Design wouldn't be cheaper if they would sell it here. Imported products are pricey here.




I go fine with onboard grafic





I researched a lot for the PSU, too and decided for the Antec Neo Eco (400 or 450)
CPU-cooler is passive, as mentioned above in the specs




This is not my priority. I go fine with my system. Thats because I use an optimized Linux Arch OS and I do 0 gaming (only Chess). It is sure a lot of money fore the case and PSU (even more comparing to brazilian prices) but I am constructing a home-studio, so I need a quiet PC.
At the end of the year I upgrade my Board and CPU.

damn, they tricked me

The Sileo 510 doesn't have the foam. so angry, already paid it. When I saw 510 instead of 500 I only thought it could be better. f_cking capitalism

actually, i doubt that this foam makes any big difference.
a lot better would be some drywall-boards. anybody already played with this?

LOL. You even read the frontpage behing this forum?

what are you talking about? I read a lot

I think the foam does help least that is my own personal view.
I added foam to the original Sonata cases too and that def helped more than a bit.

But it depends on what is in there if you have quiet fans and a fanless graphics card it's going to be fairly quiet anyway.
I just built a Sileo (the one with the foam) overall for the money they are nice cases. It has weaker points the tool less cards well erm just use screws seriously not great. Front drive tool less is fine.

I added rubber feet to my one too and did a foam job on the HDD bay. Leaving those quirks aside it's a smart looking case and good value.

hey, nice to here from someone having my future case. (They sent it today, wtf)




yea, you're right. I'm still waiting it arrive, so I will see that. Actually I haven't (wont have) any fan inside, so perhaps I wont need to do anything.




nice to hear. I read about the tool-less card thing before, makes no difference for me.






did this have a bigger effect? any particular reason why you did it?





I'm planing to take the hdd-bay out and suspend my 2 HDs. Airflow (frontfan) will be better.
what PSU do you have?
What is the loudest part? Do you here the fans? Do you use them at 12v?

Thanks for commenting

Greets

The rubber feet do help (I got accoustifeet ones) though HDD vibration is a lot less when I made a custom anti static foam to enclose them in the HDD bay (with some gaps for airflow etc)

You might be able to skip that part if you are suspending the drives as this seriously cuts down HDD vibrations. I think CM should have had rubber feet as standard but it was not a big deal to add them. Any very minor vibrations left are pretty much mostly wiped out with the rubber feet. I'd say you would notice quite a difference if you used the rubber feet with the normal HDD mounting..the rubber inserts on the CM case help a little but nowhere near as much as suspension of like I did with the foam job.

The PSU is a CM silent pro 600 watt modular model it's to my ear very quiet I'm sure there are accoustic figures around for comparison on this site and others I'm into the practical side of things myself if I can't hear it at normal working distances I'm happy. I consider myself fairly fussy as it goes. I went with this PSU because I wanted 80 plus bronze, modular, quiet with long warranty and the price is very fair for what you get (IMO that is). Due to the layout of the Sileo I think modular would be quite useful because you can simply cut down cable clutter by not attaching unused cables. I've no PCI-E cable as my graphics card does not need one also I don't need any molex connectors so basically I have 2 lots of SATA cables (3 on each) and obviously the CPU and main power cables.

The fans that come with the case do not run fast they do not require undervolting as they run at around 800rpm ish even max normal voltage so they don't make a lot of noise. They do have some kind of scratching bearing sound up close but at a normal working distance you won't notice this. I actually used Noctua 120mm ULN fans as I'm a bit fussy either way both fans shift enough air to keep my system cool.

I've noticed comments about the case being "hot" but I've found temps pretty good really for what I'm using (95w CPU) idle under 30 celcius and tops at under 50 celcius CPU at max but the artic silver 5 has not cured yet so it might drop a bit more. HDD temps are better than my older Sonata case (even flat out HDD it just creeps above 40 celcius) also using a TX-3 CM CPU fan with a 92mm Noctua on a Gigabyte board with smart fan enabled it won't even hit max RPM fully loading it up. Thus to me the set up is very quiet. I don't use the word silent because that is pretty difficult to achieve in a practical sense esp with HDD's but to me it's just a gentle "hush" of air and a very mild rumble on the HDD front. I think most folks even fussy ones would be pretty happy.

Compared to my Sonata builds (I still like Antec have to say) I'd rate the Sileo as probably a better case for the quiet pc builder it's also fairly smart looking (and I hate doors on pc's so that rules out some options. There are some warts with the Sileo but overall it's quite a good option price wise too so I think you've made a decent choice here. If you're into heavy overclocking or running a beefy GPU then it might not be the best choice but then this rarely goes hand in hand with the quiet pc type of builder! Hope this is of some help.

thanks a lot, man

I will post again, when my case and PSU arrive. Here or in a new topic.

So, now i got my Sileo 510 and my Antec Neo Eco 520

First thing, the Sileo 500 in the test got two 800rpm fans.
Mine came with a 1200rpm in the back and 800rpm in the front. and the 1200rpm is loud.
thought to me: change them, in the front behind the brezer the 1200 will rotate slower
done - noise of the 1200 was less, but still to loud, heat went up 1 or 2 °C
so I wanted to check some combinations. 7v and so on.
first thing i tested was turning the 1200 off and only using the 800 at the back.....to my surprise temps got better a bit!!!! front-fan must have generated turbulence or st.
as I saw still saw some headroom, I disabled the backfan, too.....heat got up 1 or 2 °C
so I went to test system like this, only fan inside besides the PSU-one is a 80 at 7v, unaudible (beteen heatsinks of themaltake sonic tower, blowing to the top).
CPU-temp in bios was between 51 and 53 °C
multitasking in my OS it is between 52 and 55°C
with a CPU-burning software it s around 63 and 65 °C......I know this CPU very well and it freezes around 70°C
resuming: I now use my case without any casefan and system is stable.
PSU-fan is at lowest speed all the time, even when stressing CPU. I hardly hear it, at 1m distance from the front I can't hear it at all. (near 0 background noise since it is 1 o 'clock in the morning)
next thing to get rid of, was the hum of my two HDs (a coming and going hum).
For testing I suspended them using a rope I found here at home. Suspended in the 5 inches case.
tested temps, unfortunatly they go up to 55°C some time, hum is less, but still there.......I got to buy elastics.
I guess I have to suspend them below the FDD case, what do you guys think? 55°C to high?

thanks a lot to this forum, learned all (still learning for sure) here

now you got some pics:




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Ok couple of questions what CPU are you using just out of interest? I see Via on the chipset? So I'm thinking it's an older AMD system? What PSU do you have fitted?

Surprised about one fan being 1200rpm I tried both of the CM ones and they're def slower speed on mine (I've used one in my older Antec case)
I'd be a bit concerned about HDD's being at 55 degrees my temps for my system are pretty good

I've the 2 Noctua ULN 120mm fans both connected to my mobo headers thus with smart fan on the front one rotates at a rather low 400rpm ish back one is a bit quicker. My HDD's are running in the 30's temp wise and rise to low 40's with heavy thrashing. Thus the very slow moving front 120mm fan is of some use holding temps down.

My CPU idles in the high 20's to low 30's and hits the mid 40's with heavy work even prime 95 it won't hit 50 this is a quad core Ph II 840 which is a 95w one.
I would think about maybe getting some airflow to the HDD's maybe you could use a slow rpm fan and somehow fit it to push some air around near them? 55 degress is def on the high side I wouldn't be comfortable with that.

it's an ooooold MSI PM8M3-V H mainboard wich by it's time already was a value board. lol
CPU is a P4 HT 3.06Mhz (got a Pentium D 925 here, but I didn't get it stable, will try it again)

I reanabled the 800rpm at the back, this time reversed (airflow noise is unaudible like this), so it blows ovr the heatpipe, board and up to the HDs (I hope).....I'm monitoring Hd-temps now, when they pass the 50C° again I will suspend them on the bottom

the other fan is def. 1200rpm it's even written on them (0,12 and 0,08, something like this)

dublepost - mods pelase delete

Ok they must have substitued the fan for another one.
Not sure the reverse airflow will work but give it a try.

I've found the rear fan to be the most useful as it can draw air in from the front of the case. If you note on the drive bays at the top you have removable metal cut out panels they had holes in the case I got. I left them as is but you could try taking a couple out to improve airflow.

I'm sure there are some after market add ons you could try for the HDD's I condsider the ones with heatsinks on that you use to mount in the top DVD drive bays but decided to go with the foam job on the HDD cage and so far that's proved very successful if a bit fiddly (space rather narrow but enough to put the foam in to kill vibration)

See how you get on I'd be looking for temps below 50 degrees for some comfort.

thanks man,

I was working today.

I baught some elastic thning and suspended the HDs below the FDD-case.
I must say, I am very impressed with the result, it's like they are not there anymore, even at full-read-benchmark I only hear them geting close to the case.
new temps below.

I installed the Pentium D 925 and this time I got it stable

Now I have the 800rpm atached below the heatpipe of the TT Sonic Tower and removed the shity 80mm....No case fan after all, only outtake is the Antec Neo Eco 520, and he does it very well it seams.



This time I made a long CPU-stress test, stressing both cores:

after 10 min:
Temp1 (don't know wich temp it is): 33
CPU : 60,5
Temp3 (don't know either): 47
HD1: 39
HD2: 38

(after about 13min of stressing I heard the Antec-fan for the first time)

after 20 min:
Temp1: 34
CPU: 61,5 - 65 (max)
Temp3: 47
Hd1: 42
HD2:41

now I stopped the stress, Antec-fan became quiet instantly

30 min after stress test (firefox and smaller aps running):
Temp1: 35
CPU: 52 - 56 (max)
Temp3: 46
HD1: 45
HD2: 43

So, now I'm satisfied.
Turned out that the foam of the 500 would probably only make things worse, since heat would be a few degrees higher, and I can't hear nothing from the inside now.
Only thing I hear is the airflow of the Antec (between 1m), so no way to get quiter anymore, and I am satisfied.

(what is this thing ticking like a clock I can hear now coming close behind the case?)

PICS:



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looks better now, I think




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doesn't look like but it's prety safe...I can turn the case all the way without the HDs hitting anything or each other.

unpluged the CD/DVD writer as I use it about 5 times a year....found out it got hot even when not using it.


I would like to thank this forum again as I am very satisfied with my result


one question about CPU-power:
I am thinking of buying a new mainboard an cpu by the end of the year. Now I'm asking myself if I would see any performance improvment in regular use. That because my cores very rarly go up to full load. I would only see improvment when at situations when my cores hit 100%, is that correct?

Good idea with the suspension on the lower part of the case should have thought of that myself

Not sure I've noticed DVD writers getting hot maybe a new one is in order (dirt cheap right now)
Performance wise well it depends on what you are doing I do photo work so I noticed a big leap in performance v my older dual core. Even HDD's new ones are quite a bit faster transfer wise than one 5-6 years ago you'd notice that too.

However if you're not doing video editing, photo editing, rendering or gaming then you could easily get by with an older processor for browsing, office work, watching the odd video clip etc etc. On the other hand it would be quite cheap to build a pc that is notably quicker for not much outlay at all. Even a superbudget CPU would be a lot quicker. As they say if a pc is doing what you want just fine it's not time to upgrade if it's not then it is!

Ram is also dirt cheap right now I can buy DDR3 2x4Gb for less than I paid for 2x1Gb of DDR 1 memory about half the price. Even kitting a pc out with 16Gb (overkill for most) is not expensive at all.

I do audio production. At the end of a production it requires rendering, too. But the amount of data is nothing compared to photo or video rendering.
The only time I use full CPU-power besides this is when compiling software...but most software is fast compiled, too.

My doubt was/is, if for example: I have a task that, let's say, uses 50% of CPU on a Pentium D and, let's say 5% of CPU on a i5, wouldn't the speed be the same?

No, because the i5 has higher I/O(memory:DDR3 vs DDR[2], SATA2[3] vs SATA1, PCIEv2 vs PCIEv1) speed then a Pentium 4D; so the i5 will finish the task faster.