Hi. Im looking to build a new high performance computer for general use (programming/gaming/surfing). But I want one that is reasonably quiet and small and have come up with the following components:

Lian Li PC-Q11B Mini-ITX Cube
SilverStone Strider 500W SST-ST50F-P
SilverStone SST-PP05 Short cable set
Intel Core i5 3570K Ivy Bridge
ASUS P8H77-I
Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600MHz (2x4)
Samsung 830 Series MZ-7PC256B SSD 256
Club 3D Radeon HD 7850 royalKing

I plan on using the stock intel cooler as well as the standard fan in the case and PSU

What are your thoughts on this? What will the noise level be? Will it even fit together (from posts on this and other boards i think so but am not 100% sure)? Are there better components out there (in the same general price range)?

Thanks in advance.

Everything will probably fit. You should be prepared to...

1. at least slow down the stock case fan, maybe replace it
2. replace the stock Intel HSF with a Scythe Big Shuriken 2
3. consider replacing the stock HSF on the video card with something quieter/better from Arctic Cooling -- or rig up a quiet 120mm fan on the bottom for the VGA card -- if the bottom vents are big enough. I'd consider modding the case by cutting the bottom panel to allow this if necessary.

IMO, with your components, assuming the front fan is decently quiet when slowed down, at idle, the system will be OK -- not great sounding but not noisy. With either CPU or GPU loaded, their respective fans will dominate, and either one will be noisy. During 3D gaming, both GPU and CPU fans will be going hard -- expect high noise.

Given that small cases like this end up on the desktop much closer and line-of-ears to the user, I'd make concerted efforts to reduce the noise.

There are better HD 7850's out there.

The upside to these small enclosures is space and portability. The downside is they usually end up being noisy for gaming builds.

Like MikeC said, you may want to replace the stock Intel cooler. I run mine at 20% until the temp exceeds 60-degrees and it can still be heard over my case fans (40%) and GPU fans (dual @ 30%).

CA_Steve also made a great suggestion. There are some very good 7850s out there that are very quiet and keep very cool. Also, there are some that are under 10" deep, which gives a little more flexibility for cable management.

Like? Club3D doesn't appear to be included in your topic/reviews.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeo ... x-review/8

Twin Frozr and HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceqX

Interesting results...pre-7850 HIS cards (6950, for example) sound like jet engines when they get going. I probably come off as an MSI fan boy at this point because I have an MSI 7850, but I have always been very impressed with their graphics cards. The MSI motherboards, not so much.

You will pick up almost an entire inch of CPU heatsink headroom by using the FSP300-60GHS-R PSU. It is a small form factor PSU that mounts like an ATX PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817104075

It increases the room you have from 83mm to 102.8mm. That is a big difference. The Big Shuriken, even with the 12mm fan, requires 95mm of headroom if you want to use a 25mm thick fan and also retain 25mm of breathing space for the fan.

It is ideal for your Lian Li case. (I have a Q-07 case with it.) It has a 4 Pin EPS 12V line for the CPU. It might be tight, but it would seem like it should have enough watts for your video card. You can have over 200 watts for the card and still have enough left over for the rest of the computer.