Quiet SFF build

Show off your quiet rig.

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Skafte
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:22 pm

Quiet SFF build

Post by Skafte » Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:45 pm

Hi! Long time lurker posting, please be gentle :)

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Part list

CPU: Intel Core i7-950
Motherboard: MSI X58M
Case: Lian Li PC-V354B
CPU cooler: Scythe BIG Shuriken 2 Rev. B
Case fan: 1x Noctua 140mm @ 750RPM
Case fan: 3x Scythe Slip Stream 120mm @ 800RPM
Memory: 4x 2MB Corsair 1333mhz
Sound card: HT Omega Claro Halo
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850
GPU cooler: Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo II
PSU: Seasonic X560 Gold
HDD: Samsung 830 128GB SSD
Optical drive: LG Blu-Ray Combo

The goal of this project is to at some point end up with a SFF system that will give me decent performance in modern games while still being near silent. The current iteration is fairly close to obtaining this. I've mostly used parts that I already had sitting around, hence the old-ish CPU architechture. I'm still not sure if I actually need all these fans turned on or if I need them all set to ~800RPM, the GPU temperature at idle (~28 C) and full load running Furmark (~54 C) is fairly reasonable at least, though the CPU temperature is a bit on the high side (~60 C at full load with Prime95). But I should be able to solve that by adjusting the BIOS PWM settings.

I originally (as can be seen in some of the pictures below) had a Scythe 140mm fan in the top position but I could hear a tack-tack-tack noise when it was spinning so I replaced it with the Noctua, now it's hard to tell there's even a fan there.

Except for the after market GPU cooler all of the items here are stock. I realize that the positioning of the sound card is not optimal but I really need an optical output, I suppose I could either get a cheapo low-profile card or replace the motherboard with one that has such an output though for the latter option I'm not sure what the availability of new motherboards for X58 are.

The system is fairly quiet. While I don't have any equiment that is able to measure the noise level, I can barely hear the system when it's running idle with the case on top of my desk right next to me. At full load GPU load I can't tell the difference, though at full CPU load I start noticing the CPU fan. The case fans are not PWM managed so the only fans that will automatically spin up are the CPU cooler fan and the two GPU fans.

The memory will be upgraded to 16GB shortly and a secondary magnetical HDD will be added at some point as well.

Any suggestions for further improvements will be greatly appreciated.

A few more pictures:

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A humble beginning

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The chassis

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Some fans

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Motherboard tray in place

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Accelero heatsink

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Accelero fans

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PSU and Noctua fan

joeyl
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:41 am
Location: New Orleans, LA

Re: Quiet SFF build

Post by joeyl » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:23 am

looks good, only suggestion would be to clean up the cables with some kind of ties and bundling them so that they don't run all over the place

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