A lot of that recommendation depends on your unspecified audio/video encoding software. I do a lot of DivX encoding. For that, a Core2 Duo does an excellent job. When it hits the video encoding leg it pegs out 100% on both cores and finishes faster. I think Tom or Anand had articles comparing encodi...

I believe parts of this process should be: Convincing people to USE the power-saving features already at their command. You have no idea how many PC's I see people using that have that stupid Windows screen-saver function running, instead of letting power-save do it's thing. Or that fail to use the ...

Answering the original question: Yes, you can get a "table-PC" to be at least as quiet as most laptops. What you have to do to achieve that is typically, read Silent PC Review! As you didn't even list what kind of "table-PC' you have, it would be impossible for anyone to guess what you need to do, i...

I find it much eaiser to achieve CONSISTENTLY QUIET operation in a non-laptop build. By this I mean I can build a system with a big enough heatsink, and good ducting, and fans on constant low RPM. I build my systems such that at FULL LOAD on CPU, GPU, and disk they are adequately cooled without incr...

I built a similar Intel-based system recently and I'm very pleased. The Antec Solo is quite nice to work with. I went with a 7600GT though with a ZM80D-HP fitted to be silent yet give me some more headroom on the graphics. On balance, your list looks like a good low to middle build. It's not really ...

I like my 7600GT a lot. It's raw performance versus it's wattage puts it at the top of the list. It's idle power usage is not much more than a 7600GS. It's also nice being able to run it on any old PSU and not worry about a special power-connector just for the video-card and other craziness, I refus...

Well I don't know the specs on your card, but the XFX "XXX" runs at 590/1600 from the factory. The price after rebate from TigerDirect was quite a bit cheaper than the "Fata1ity" passive card with the same specs. Also I liked the idea of trying to fit the ZM80D a lot more than supporting Mr. Fata1it...

Returning to the last point of original post, there is no way that OC'ing won't raise the heat/power requirements. Whether how much it rises, is acceptable to you is another matter. My E4300 system uses about 75 Watts at idle. When I overclock it, it uses 15-20 Watts more. Heat does rise. For me, th...

I'm not sure what you mean by "doesn't do a very good job". The heatsink only has to keep temps within a safe range. You may notice in the software it doesn't throttle until temps hit 130C, so 60C is definitely safe! I was getting temps of 60 and 70C with the factory heatsink/fan which is quite a lo...

No Core2Duo is the "ultimate" quiet build CPU.

But if you confine yourself to the Core2 Duo the E4300 has the lowest power consumption of that line.

For me the choice of PSU was never a matter of Wattage. The Corsair is quieter, and has the modular cables. If you read the power-supply forums you will also read people having trouble with the NeoHE units for coil whine and for being unreliable at starting the system if you don't have enough load o...

I just built a very similar system and I'm pleased with it. I think the Antec Solo is a better choice though, as you can find them cheaply and you aren't stuck with paying for a PSU you are just going to replace. Fry's had the Solo with a rebate recently. The Corsair 520HX lives up to it's place on ...

@ Vincent. You could probably get lower V if you did all yourself. You also don't need to lower multiplier. That is what a divider (memory) is for. I believe some use multipliers, other use divisors when referring to a setting that will affect what speed your RAM runs at. I didn't touch the CPU mul...

Overclocking the E4300 is criminally easy, with a motherboard that is friendly to that. I have a DS3, and I kept cranking up the FSB, while adjusting the memory multiplier to keep my RAM around it's rated DDR2-800 speeds. I went to 266, then 300, then 350 MHz which puts the CPU at 3.15 GHz, without ...

I neglected to specify in my original post, that my XFX card is the PCIe version. If you look at my signature though you'd see it was with an E4300 CPU on a DS3 which implies PCIe. I make no claims about all such cards, just that mine fit quite well. I imagine that very few NVidia cards vary much fr...

I'm not sure I see your point about the E4300. If you run Allendale at it's' rated setting of 200 MHz FSB then sure it's a bit handicapped. However running it at 266 FSB is pretty much a no-brainer with this CPU. 2.4 GHz on a lower-cost and lower-power CPU is nothing to sneeze at. It's not abundantl...

Intel E4300 is probably more than adequate, cheaper, and lower power. System in my signature uses 75 Watts idle, 120 Watts peak and is pretty quiet.

Hmmm, perhaps the "Search" button would reveal previous discussions on this topic?

Your subject line was evocative, how low can you go, usually indicates taking the extra steps like Yonah/Merom, etc. For an E43000-based minimal setup, basically take my setup and subtract off the diff from 7600GT-7300GS, and the hard-drive. You might be able to shave off a few more Watts with integ...

Concur. Seagate was the Quiet King in the days of the Barracuda IV. Oh how far they have fallen. I wouldn't buy one now.

That HR-05 looks quite interesting, I will try that. Thanks!

My psychic powers must be blocked by sunspots today, I cannot discern what type of RAID hardware/software combination you are intending to ask about.

What I did once in your situation, was use a spare Zalman fan-bracket I had. These hook on using the screws at the top of the card that hold it down. I mounted a large fan on it, at low-voltage, blowing down across several cards. One big fan is always better than several tiny ones.

I suppose there are probably a few psychics here, but for the rest of us you might want to spell out your requirements in a bit more detail.

Are there better options for the DS3 chipset cooling? The DS3 chipset heatsink seems quite small and during operation gets hot enough that I can't touch it for more than a second or two. Just thought I would look into options to upgrade it to something ridiculously oversized like the Ninja atop my C...

I don't know much about how the o/s manages memory, but I imagine it writes to the swap file often. Ordinarily, if you aren't running out of RAM, it's not swapping. Swap is supposed to be the slower backup area for handling the situations where you have exceeded real memory requirements. Then inact...

The flash-write limit is over-blown in my opinion. Most people discard a flash-drive as too small, long before it gets old enough to run into it. Anyhow, the larger problem is if you are going to have a paging/swapping occur why would you want it to go onto such a slow device? Any why do you think y...

Instead of posting a new thread, search through existing ones.

Like this one:

viewtopic.php?t=37472

My E4300-based build with a full-sized hard drive and 7600GT idles at 75 Watts, tops out around 130 Watts, for comparison.

Yes Seagates are now very noisy. Sad, considering the Seagate Barracuda IV used to be the Quiet King! WD in my Antec Solo, suspended using the cloth straps provided, is very quiet. Don't care about 3-year vs 5-year, I consider a hard-drive expendable after 3 years.

Quite similar to the system I finished building a few days ago.

However, I'd ditch the Seagates. I got a new WD SE16 250-gig drive and it's noticably quieter than the Seagate it replaces.