New Build, anything to change?

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ZakO
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Joined: Sat Feb 08, 2014 10:48 am

New Build, anything to change?

Post by ZakO » Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:07 am

Hi,

I built a quiet PC back in 2008 with the helpful advice from the people here, noise emitting parts being:

Case: Antec P182 (2x NF-S12 fans)
CPU: Q9550 (NH-U12P cooler)
PSU: Corsair TX 650W
GPU: nVidia 260GTX 216 (stock cooler)


I'm now looking to do a new build of equivalent noise levels or quieter. Could somebody have a look at the parts I've picked below and see if there's anything you would change?

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl)
PSU: Corsair RM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H ATX LGA1150
RAM: Corsair XMS3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 760 TwinFrozr 2GB

* The RM 650W and RM 750W are the same price in the UK, that was why I put the 750W. Also I picked a nVidia card over AMD because I need to maintain a legacy CUDA app.

I'm hoping for the system to be as quiet as possible idle and while under load. It will primarily be used for software development but also some gaming.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

CA_Steve
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Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 08, 2014 12:37 pm

Welcome to SPCR. See my signature for a comparable build.

You could easily drop down to a 550W class PSU without any issues.

The Noctua is a solid top end cooler. I'm very happy with the Mugen 4.

Go with 16GB if your coding needs it - 'cause games won't.

The MSI gfx card is the only thing I hear in my case. It's very quiet (and top tier at idle vs other cards) but still noticable in a still environment - fans drop to ~1000rpm and no lower. YMMV.

The R4 is an easy case to use and pretty quiet. Try the stock fans and see if they work for you.

quest_for_silence
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Location: ITALY

Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Feb 08, 2014 1:58 pm

ZakO wrote:Thanks in advance for any advice.


The proposed mobo come from a vendor usually not silencers-friendly: so check carefully the manual and any review of the BIOS (particularly the fan control capabilities) before purchasing.

ZakO
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Feb 08, 2014 10:48 am

Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by ZakO » Wed Feb 12, 2014 3:09 am

Hi, thanks for the replies,
CA_Steve wrote:You could easily drop down to a 550W class PSU without any issues.

Go with 16GB if your coding needs it - 'cause games won't.
Is there any disadvantage to the 750W? The RM550W and RM750W in the UK are only £5 different at the moment.

Yeah I need a lot of RAM for virtual machines.
quest_for_silence wrote:The proposed mobo come from a vendor usually not silencers-friendly: so check carefully the manual and any review of the BIOS (particularly the fan control capabilities) before purchasing.
The motherboard seems to have the same fan control capabilities as my current mobo (P5Q-E) from the gigabyte manual:

Image

Does that look okay?

Thanks again.

CA_Steve
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Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Feb 12, 2014 8:13 am

Code: Select all

Is there any disadvantage to the 750W? The RM550W and RM750W in the UK are only £5 different at the moment. 
You might lose a little efficiency at idle and lower loads.

Mobo - If you want to control the fans via UEFI, then Gigabyte's control is pretty minimal (as shown). If you plan to use their s/w utilities, then the fan control is ok.

quest_for_silence
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Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Feb 12, 2014 8:28 am

ZakO wrote:Is there any disadvantage to the 750W? The RM550W and RM750W in the UK are only £5 different at the moment.


As said, you will loose efficiency at low loads: so higher power draw from the wall, and slightly higher thermal rise inside your case (which *might* rise your case fans speed).
On the other hand, you will gain a better build quality.

ZakO wrote:Does that look okay?


As said, it seems not very flexible, so probably it might be not enough at the higher loads: if I'm not wrong you will have a minimum 45% PWM at 60°C, which is a bit high (IMO/IME): if your fans works well at 45% modulation it still may be fine, but a lots of fans run too much fast at that value, and so more noisy than needed.
To give you an example, I run mine at about 30% PWM @ 75°C with a Core i7 2600K, about 550rmp, and it is absolutely fine (they handle 8 instances of Prime95 without cranking up).

At any rate, if - as said by CA Steve - the bundled utility let you a fine regulation for fans speeds, and you will use it, then I think it might still work.

edh
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Location: UK

Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by edh » Wed Feb 12, 2014 11:30 am

Do you intend to do heavy overclocking? If not, you don't need the K CPU so can save some money.

What about storage? An SSD or HDD?

ZakO
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Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by ZakO » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:10 pm

Thanks for the replies again, I didn't know other motherboards had additional fan control options, is there a different motherboard you would recommend (doesn't have to be gigabyte)?
edh wrote:Do you intend to do heavy overclocking? If not, you don't need the K CPU so can save some money.

What about storage? An SSD or HDD?
I do intend on overclocking quite a lot, not right away but later down the line. For the storage I'm just using the SSDs from my existing build (2x Samsung 840 Pro 256GB)

CA_Steve
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Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:29 pm

Maybe Abula will chime in and wax poetic about mobo fan controls. In general, it comes down to:
- do you want to control the fans through UEFI or software? If the former, look toward Asrock, Intel, MSI. If the latter, they all (but Intel) do a good job. We can get into which mobo's provide PWM control for chassis fans or not, if you care.

- what features/components do you want on the mobo?

quest_for_silence
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Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:47 pm

CA_Steve wrote:If the latter, they all (but Intel) do a good job


Lots of Intel (I'm talking of 115X boards to be fair) work flawlessly with Speedfan: anway, you forgot to mention ASUS.

Abula
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Re: New Build, anything to change?

Post by Abula » Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:06 pm

I think Asus, MSI, Asrock and even Intel can work out fine, really come down into how you want to control the fans. I just got an Antec True Quiet 140, and pretty impressive fans for what it costs, imo the easiest and one of the cheapest is just to go with those fans and Asus mobo with fanXpert2, swap the NH-D14 for NH-U14S. As long as you are fine with running Asus AI Suite III for FanXpert2, then you should be fine. Even if you dont go with Antec fans, FanXpert2 should drop the Fractal 140s to around 400rpms where they are not silent but quiet.

Intel is also decent option, you lose a lot of tweaking, but the mobos have very good power consumption, and to what i have tested on 2 intel sandy bridge mobos, all their headers are true PWM, so 4pin is pretty solid on them, the problem is more like nothing fancy with graphs or user define ramp ups, its a little harder to set the fans properly, personally i prefer MSI but out of wanting to run all on 4pin PWM, but all comes down into how you would like to be managed.

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