Fractal Design Arc Mini
SeaSonic X650 Gold (pull from current pc)
ASRock Z68M/USB3
G.Skill DDR3 1866 F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR
i5-2500K
SSD? confused, was thinking Intel, who knows. Samsung?


can someone recommend cooler that is quiet? can be 165mm tall.

I may change fans in the Arc Mini.

no gaming, just video work etc.

The arc mini seems more toward a user that wants more fans or 240 rad on top. Its really nice micro atx case, but imo Define Mini should be more like R3 just smaller.

On the cooler, i would go with Thermalright HR02 macho, at $40, its probably among the best coolers with low noise at an affordable price. I also bought a Scythe Mugen 3, and its a very nice cooler, comes with PWM 4pin Slipstream that to me it very quiet at 500rpm, i get 30C at idle on i3 2120, the only thing i didnt like was mounting it, a little hard to do it alone, but its not that bad either, just need some practice.

SSD i would go with Crucial M4 seems the best ssd and its one of the cheapest sata III, and good performance with fw0009.

The mobo i would go with ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z or MSI Z68MA-ED55 both will have better fan management than the Asrock, and if you change the fans, look into PWM fans so you can control the via BIOS/Software like Scythe Slip Stream 120mm x 25mm PWM Mid Speed Fan - (SY1225SL12LM-P).

AFAIK Intel SSDs are the most reliable, Crucial (and since recently Corsair SF-22XX) are the most affordable, OCZ Vertex 3 are the best performing, Samsung ones are a mixed bag. It depends of what you want, mainly.


Current price/performance ratio leader (with the demise of the Scythe Mugen 2) is the already quoted Thermalright Macho.
A CM Hyper 212+ (now in EOL phase, as the Mugen 2) can be a good, inexpensive option if you may get a good fan (a Scythe SS) for enough cheap.

But how much a cooler can be quiet depends mostly how you use it: the quoted Scythe Slipstream fans may give an additional advantage at idle (where most system spent most of their lives), as they may run at lower speeds than any good competitor (usually ~300rpm vs 5-600rpm).

At anyway, give a look to the relevant SPCR charts (only some behemoth like the Thermalright Archon is out of your clearance requirements).

Intel and Samsung are probably the most reliable brands, though the Intel 320 series had issues when the elecrtrical supply was cut off. Also, Crucial M4 SSD's haven't suffered from any issues either. The first firmware is even stable enough so you won't need to flash it.

The Sandforce 22xx firmware has been widely known to show many BSOD and sometimes being unrecognizable by the BIOS, though that may have changed with a new firmware update:

http://pcper.com/news/Storage/SandForce ... irmware-ot

So any SSD from Intel, Samsung and Crucial should be reliable.

If you buy a CM 212+ and replace it with a 3pin fan, you must know whether your motherboard can control the 3pin fan. That's why I would rather recommend a Scythe Mugen 2 since you won't need to replace the stock fan (it's excellent!) My brother fitted it in a Fractal Design R3 without issues.

Maybe it would be no more quite true. So, check twice.

There was french study that reflected intel as one of the most reliable. There is an amateur counting of the user reviews in Newegg that reflected Crucial n Samsung among the best ssds, if you want to read more, check Let's count Newegg customer reviews of current SSDs - Who will help?, peronally i have experience with Intel n Crucial, both been great, no issues at all.

Thanks for the hint, however it's not a whole new concept.

We already have a couple of two-years-long active threads here on SPCR, by dhanson865, in the "Silent storage" forum, on the same arguments and with similar methods: they may worth a look.

Something about that door on the Define Mini that just doesn't settle with me - i use the optical drives quite a bit. most likely put really quiet 500rpm fans in it.

Scythe Mugen 3 looks ok, thanks for that.

hmm... If i use 500 rpm 3-pin fans in the case will the fan management matter really? the MSI looks ok tho, sort of wanted a PCI slot, guess i can lose the sound card.

The M4 SSD looks ok also, i was sort of hoping the new Samsung 830 would show up, can't wait forever, maybe a week or so tops.

Thanks again, getting ready to go on this.

I like more 4pin pwm fans, cause you can control them via bios/software, some mobos can control 3pins via voltage (not all), but fans like the Scythe PWM can drop down to 300rpm, which are almost silent, but at this rpms they also dont move much air, but the good thing is this fans can be ramp up to 1600, its up to you, so you know they will work both very low and high.

I been playing with the mugen 3 on the weekend, although the server isnt working great (i think my psu is having issues at cold boot, arleady have CP850 on the way), i was able to toy around with the setup for some hours, including some prime95 stress and the cpu only goes up to 800rpm with full load on a i3 2120, netting a temp of 40C, still a lot of room on the temps to lower the rpms more, my guess is you can let it be at 300rpm at idle still netting around 35C, and let it ramp up to 500rpm on load and still have around 55C (on full load, normal task should still be much lower)... this is a guess, so take it with a grain of salt. With an i5 2500k it should have a little higher temps due to more cores and higher tdp cpu, but i think you should be able to run it below 800rpm easy, this is the good thing about this fans you can tweak around until you have a good balance of cooling/noise.

I believe there are 2 slipstreams pwm fans, the one on the mugen runs 300/1600rpm and there is a slower one that runs 200/1300rpm, Scythe Slip Stream 120mm x 25mm PWM Mid Speed Fan - (SY1225SL12LM-P) $9.95, in case you are interested on swapping or adding case fans. In case the mobo dont have many PWM fan heathers, you can use something like Akasa SMART PWM Fan Cable Adapter - Black Braiding for 5 Fans $7.95, with one 4pin pwm mobo fan heather you can run 5 pwm fans, and not stress the mobo as it takes the current from the a 4pin molex, just uses the mobo for the rpm and pwm signal.

yes, would be nice to have PWM support for case fans, not many MicroATX boards that fit, i'll look at the Asus and MSI closer.

Thanks again

Sorry cant help you much with MSI, but i do own a Gene Z, its a nice mobo, there is a very nice thread going about it, **Official** ASUS ROG Maximus IV GENE-Z68 & Z68(Gen3) Owners Club, there are lots of builds with it there, but just focusing on your interest of the Arc Mini, this might give you some rough ideas into what to expect, check Build 1, Build 2, Build 3.

Gene Z looks nice. I doubt many here use the Intel HD graphics, but just an HDMI to DVI cable should work fine correct? Thinking about this board.

going with the Define Mini. now if I can just find one...

What happen with the Arc Mini?

just changed my mind. better for what i want i guess.

I have everything here, the Gene Z board etc.

trying to decide between the Samsung 830 SSD and the Crucial M4.

Interesting Crucial doesn't offer any software at all to optimize the drive etc.

when installing Win 7 fresh to an SSD, just let Win 7 format it? I always thought you were not supposed to format an SSD drive really.

I remember using diskpart once to ready the drive.

On my M4 i just let windows did the format, just dont do slow format, the quick one should be safe. I didnt use anything extra.

Intersted on seeing how your build ends up, maybe you share some pics.

The Samsung 830 is new to the marked and the firmware might not be mature enough to be considered yet, though Samsung is one of the only companies with a good track record in this regard.

The Crucial M4, however, has never suffered from any issues. Crucial even discouraged users to update the firmware if they weren't suffering from a very isolated issue, before the 0009 version was updated but that update was to increase performance.

The difference in performance between any modern SSD is virtually non-existent, so that shouldn't really matter.

went with M4.

How about a really quiet GT 440?

Good choice, i have no issues whatsoever with mine, really fast. Remember to check the sticker to see if you get one with the latest firmware 0009, else flash it before you install windows.

Totally passive, ASUS ENGT440 DC SL/DI/1GD3 GeForce GT 440 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card



If you want a little more powerful, this is the highest NVidia GPU still passive SPARKLE SXS4501024D5SNP GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card



Remember to run passive you need really good airflow in you case, else just strap a low rpm fan to the gpu, like a slipstream.

These should fit in my new case, may not fit in my HTPC with Silverstone GD04.

How about one with a quiet fan? I see gigabyte makes a gt 440 with a quiet fan.

Edit:
Going to try the passive Asus as above, ASUS ENGT440 DC SL/DI/1GD3.

I hope it will be cool enough if I change the fans in the Define Mini.

If you mind: http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/NVIDIA_Series/ENGTS450_DC_SLDI1GD3/.

yes, this looks like the one. I hope it will cool well if I change the fans in the case. need to see if the Gene Z has PWM headers for case fans etc.

Remember there are two GT440s, one with GDDR3 and other GDDR5, the Asus passive is only GDDR3, so wont be as fast, but really depends on what you will use it. The Sparkle GTS 450 has more shaddres and GDDR5 so its a more capable card, but more expensive. In either case, try to have good ventilation on your case, or tie wrap a slow rpm fan on the heatsink.

The Gene Z has 5x 4pin PWM fan heathers, 2 are CPU (both will behave the same), and 3 case/chassis fans (havent tried the chassis fans on PWM, i used a 3pin on them but couldnt control it via bios but my guess is a 4pin you can, again just a guess). Btw one is very close to the GPU, so if you decide you need a fan, you have one in hand, i used both of the CPU heathers one for the CPU the other for the back case fan as they are located better for both fans, and the bottom one for case, but there is another near the 24pin, here is a pic in case it helps,

Thanks for that, yeah I looked at the board today and it has everything on it, 4 pin fan headers, USB 3.0 header etc.

DDR3 card should be fine, no gaming really.

Abula' s post: http://scythe-usa.com/product/acc/076/s ... etail.html

Maybe put 3 of these in the case since the Gene Z has 3 PWM headers.

The scythe is a good cheap pwm fan, specially since it can drop down to 200rpm or ramp up 1300 if you need it. That said i would recommend to test with 1 fan, 2 fan and 3 fans (you could even go with 4fans as it has 5x 4pin connectors -1 of the cpu), see if it has an impact both in temperature and noise, not always more is better, really comes down to each individual setup, in your case i would try removing the middle hdd cage (use the bottom for your hdds and ssd), so the fan has less restriction into blowing cool air to the video card. I say this and im about to run 8x Scythe Kama Flex PWM 120mm on my Antec 1200 , but the plans is to run them very low (300-400rpm) to cool all the hdds, and wanted a side fan to blow air into the HBAs.

Now one thing worth mentioning about some Asus mobos, is that they restrict on the bios the lowest the fans can reach, 60% in the case of the P8B WS, you can go up, but below that the bios says its an invalid value, the CPU fan connectors on the same mobo can go down to 30%. I haven't tested on Gene Z the chassis fans cause im running 3pin (frontal 180mm of the TJ08E), and i couldn't lower but didn't try a pwm fan, but i did on the P8B WS. Now 60% of 1300rpm should be around 780rpm, more like 700 as its not that exact, so via bios my guess is that will be the lowest you will be able to go, now you can use Asus AISuite / Xpert fan to change this i believe, even below the 60%, personally i haven't tried as im fine on my micro build as it is and the server mobo turn out to be defective and now im building on a SuperMicro, not sure how it will handle the PWM fans

Up and running Win7 x64, runs very well, all latest drivers in place etc.

Just installed 3 Scythe fans. Set the BIOS for Silent and they are running at 1000 rpm, the CPU is 400 rpm.

I must say I am very disappointed in the chassis fan control on the board. the Scythe case fans will not go below 1000 rpm.

I have installed the Fan XPert and Qfan is enabled in the BIOS.

Seems to work ok on the CPU, but not a chassis fans. No way to test the chassis fans in Fan Xpert, so no profile, that is greyed out.

the stock Fractal fans are as quiet, maybe just put those back in and use the controller that came with the case.

I have 4 hard drives + SSD so will need both cages.

At this point I may look for another board. The Gene Z chassis fan control is useless.

Sitting here with my new "silent PC", much louder than my last PC. Going to have to rethink this.

it's a bit too audible for me.

I added the stock 1200rpm to the bottom of the Define Mini with the controller and have it set to a low silent setting.

the noise is coming form 3 Scythe PWM fans that will not go below 1000 rpm.

Maybe just order 500 rpm 3pin fans.

somehow this doesn't make sense when the Gene Z has the 4 pin headers.

Have you tried the CPU heather if the Slipstreams can go below 1000rpm there? have you also tried FanXpert on Asus AISuite?

Im having issues with my server build an PWM fans, but its more Supermicro and their bios that lets the fan go to low and the mobo goes into panic and ramps them to full speed just to let them down and again, and again, it becomes and endless loop, and its an issue with most Supermicro mobos, seem at least 5 documented cases, so now im going with 3pin fans as cant stand this fans at 1600rpm.

On the Gene Z is wierd, there are some users that dont have any issues lower fans with the AI Suite and others that cant, not sure why is this happening.

Using User Mode on the Chassis fans, able to get 40% which comes out to 680rpm on my 1300rpm Scythe fans. quiet now.

Fan Xpert+ 1.01.06 will not allow a "profile" with the chassis fans, only the CPU fan. They test out at 411-420rpm at all powers. strange.

would rather just use the BIOS, not sure if that will work yet.

Next some stress testing..