quest_for_silence wrote:
I don't understand/agree with your (semi)final choices: IMVHO you're taking the risk of a not so quiet and hot system for a considerable amount of money with those parts. But it's your money and it's your call, so I hope to be wrong (my thought is simple, you know: to run quietly, you need relatively small parts, a neat cabling, and the lowest heat, so the right way for a really quiet rig is going with the Corsair RM with a GTX 750Ti, maybe passively cooled with an Accelero S1 Plus).
myselphabet wrote:
If you guys have anything to say which could comfort me (122W, easy heat handleing - 122W? Are you crazy, that will be really hard to control!), do so, please.
Well, I came to this forum so I get your advice and I appreciate it. Since I tend to be a
man of word and you delivered a reason to drop the R9 (in fact two with the PSU) then I should do so.
I am/was (depends on the day) just afraid that framerates will drop really low in teamfights. I had a test @ 1080p where fps dropped about 25%. If I apply this on 60fps average @ 1600p this would result in 45fps minimum which shouldn't be noticeable. Everything (but the cost efficiency for the performance) is in favour of the 750 Ti.
quest_for_silence wrote:
Stay slim, do not overcrowd the available space with either a larger heatsink or big cables. Slim fans would help also.
Then the Noctua NH-U12S should be sufficient and not taking too much space?
quest_for_silence wrote:
If you dig into the quoted OCN thread, there are lots of people pairing 160mm PSU with 25-28cm long video cards (
just one of the many examples).
Director9 wrote:
Some points :
the RM is too long, in the normal position, fan down, it's too long
The 160mm aren't the problem here, the modular cables are.

I don't like the idea of not screwing the PSU in place, it is rather a
least choice if everything else seems to fail. Also I would like the PSU to have its own air flow system meaning, fan facing down.
ggumdol wrote:
I suggest that you reconsider Cooltek U2 and Cooltek U3 (for triple or quadruple slot graphics card possibly with aftermarket coolers). I once researched about Cooltek U3 for quite a long time and I believe it's one of decent options for small builds with Haswell i5/i3 CPUs. As you know, they are made by German company and may be sold at lower prices in Germany.
I could only consider the U3 since the 750 Ti 250mm long. I would have decided for the U3 if there wasn't the silver power button and a nice incomming airflow. I will force myself to reconsidere.

Director9 wrote:
I have built myself a system :
Asus Z87i-Pro in a Node 304 case, Scythe Mugen 4, RM450, and Ballistix VLP
So quite interesting hardware for me.

Even big coolers fit and no matter what, working in the case will be kind of a pita.
Director9 wrote:
My experience with this new build. But do take a look in the OCN thread that has been mentioned, lots of good things to read.
Yes I am looking into the OCN thread now and then but it is really hard for me to stay focused in there and it has 320+ pages

Hard to find what really interests me.
quest_for_silence wrote:
Definitely a 160mm modular PSU should - in case - be paired with short cards (like the GTX 750Ti: IIRC the PCB should be about 17cm, just around the motherboard PCB), in order to not incur in some clearance issues.
At least the PCB of the MIS GTX 750 Ti Gaming is nearly as long as the cooler resulting in a 250mm length:
pictureThere are 750 Ti up to 170mm in length but I like the MSI one the most:
Out of the Techpowerup review wrote:
Wow! I'm speechless. I think MSI's GeForce GTX 750 Ti Gaming is the quietest graphics card I have ever reviewed. Just a step removed from the card, I could only barely make out the fan in a quiet room without any other sources of noise.
24dBA idle and 25dBA load. That should be sufficient I think.
Source: Techpowerup reviewI know I could buy a <170mm long card and get a aftermarked cooler. I will lose warranty and end up with an expensive solution. I will consider this if either the card is really too loud or there are just no other possibilities in the first place.
Director9 wrote:
The C-link will also not be availalbe, but don't know how far that connection sticks out.
One of the most interesting features of this PSU.

Director9 wrote:
For the fans, the 4 fan channels, they are all able (Z87i-Pro) to treat all fans as PWM fans, and controllable.
Now let's cut down to the... mainboard: I searched and found some things. Some say they only are PWM connectors and don't behave like the CPU PWM connector. Fact is at least until mid April it was not possible to get the chassis fans below 40% speed. A Asus coworker wrote that this is due to some users who don't know that some fans need a minimum voltage to start rotating. Seems legit but could be easily fixed (run 100% and then slow down to the speed the user wants).
Is it possible to controll the fan speed neither via bios (minimum 60%) nor fan xpert 2 (minimum 40%) but via SpeedFan?
If not I have to reconsider switching every case fan with other fans and a "silence adapter".
I am not yet sure to switch to a
ASRock Z87E-ITX. Can I controll all fans (3 case fans and 1 CPU fan) with this board from 0%-100%?
I really like the ASUS and am kind of gridlocked with this choice.
I know ggumdol likes ASRock the most:
ggumdol wrote:
Let me just reiterate this: It is now indisputably clear that Asrock motherboards for Haswell chips are superior to all the other candidates from the acoustical viewpoint. All the same, I am really disappointed by the revelation (at least to me) that fan control functionality in Asus BIOS is rather mediocre in stark contrast to their lofty price range.
I'm truly glad to have converted all of you to the denomination of Asrock.
And Abdula is tending to ASUS and likes to
work around the
fan control issues.
I personally like the layout of ASUS and the quantity of USB ports very much. ASRock seems to have the better fan control and the better W-LAN (not confirmed by my researched nor this forum).