Case Upgrade w/ i7-2600K and HD6970

[keltor]

Looking for some case upgrade advance. The owner of the PC is a Part Time Gamer, Part time Developer and wants something much more silent and if possible less dust filled.

Current PC: Older Antec with a TP-550PSU
Has a Gigabyte Motherboard w/ 4HDDs, an LG DVD+RW Drive, a Q9550 w/ stock HSF and a HD6970 GPU

Component Upgrades: Corsair HX650W PSU w/ a i7-2600k, 8GB DDR3 Ram, a Gigabyte Z68 Mbd, the 4 HDDs, a LG Blu-ray burner, and the HD6970.

What I'm looking for is a sufficient case, considering that there are no other needed upgrades (actually trying to get him down to 2 HDDs + an SSD). The budget is rather open, so the default fans can be swapped and water cooling is definitely doable.

Anyone have an good suggestions on how to provide sufficient cooling for the i7-2600k and HD6970?

[ChicaneBT]

Looking for some case upgrade advance. The owner of the PC is a Part Time Gamer, Part time Developer and wants something much more silent and if possible less dust filled.

Current PC: Older Antec with a TP-550PSU
Has a Gigabyte Motherboard w/ 4HDDs, an LG DVD+RW Drive, a Q9550 w/ stock HSF and a HD6970 GPU

Component Upgrades: Corsair HX650W PSU w/ a i7-2600k, 8GB DDR3 Ram, a Gigabyte Z68 Mbd, the 4 HDDs, a LG Blu-ray burner, and the HD6970.

What I'm looking for is a sufficient case, considering that there are no other needed upgrades (actually trying to get him down to 2 HDDs + an SSD). The budget is rather open, so the default fans can be swapped and water cooling is definitely doable.

Anyone have an good suggestions on how to provide sufficient cooling for the i7-2600k and HD6970?

The first step in building a silent system is to pick silent components. Your PSU, your graphics card (which can make a lot of noise), your CPU cooler and the case fans. If money isn't a problem you should choose of every component the most silent one or fit it with after market upgrades which make it more silent. On SPCR there is a separate watercooling section (viewforum.php?f=21). You should check it out . Personally I have no idea about watercooling, but before selecting a case I would do some research on the subject.

[keltor]

I'm not necessarily convinced on the watercooling, but it does seem a reasonable option now. One of my major concerns is most of the silent systems I've build have been fairly warm, i'm not so sure how well that will work with the HD6970. It's definitely a rather warm cooler, though I have noticed that Arctic Cooling now has a cooler that supports the 6970, so that could offer some help. I'd love to know if anyone has a relatively quiet (29dBa idle) system with an HD6970. As far as I know, when the adapter is spun up, he's less concerned with the sound.

[GuyClinch]

I have a 6950 - they seem to put out plenty of heat - and are not that quiet. I doubt your 6970 will fare better.

I don't think you should shoot for quiet silence that kind of set up - just a nice pleasant wooshing sound.. (something under 40db)..

I'd go with a Silverstone FT02. Its pretty quiet - and with plenty of postive airpressure it keeps things very cool and relatively dust free. You can run the fans on low..

There recently was a review that looked at both cooling performance and quiet - and it was the FT02 that came out on top - in front of Fractal Design. I look at those two cases.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rv0 ... 46-10.html