Goal: A highly responsive, very quiet computer
Uses: This is primarily for work. On my 3 displays I want to be able to have outlook, 4 large powerpoint presentations, word, excel, and maybe Solidworks and a Microchip CAD program running. The only game I play is EVE online, but sometimes I might want to run that on one display while having lots of that other stuff going as well. Time to open documents and swap applications is important. I want it to be quiet because I sit next to it 13-18 hours a day!
Budget: I don’t want to waste money but I’m not highly price sensitive. If you have a suggestion that will make me feel a dramatic improvement and it costs $1,000 I would probably do it. I’m going with a lower speed processor only because I’ve read that the slower i7s easily overclock up to the higher speed ranges.
Location: USA, Southern California, within driving range of a fry’s but may buy lots online
I might reuse a few random parts from earlier build (floppy drive, DVD burner… definitely my mouse/keyboard/3 displays).
My Tech Level: Extreme. I have sorbothane and 3M damping foil and dynamat sheets right here. My workshop has everything I need to rip into hardware down to the level of cracking open and modifying chips as I run a microchip design and test business.
OS: Win7 – 64bit – RC for now then buy when released
Motherboard:
ASUS P6T Deluxe/OC Palm LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - $200
Reason: I plan to overclock, read some good reviews. (Also I do need a floppy drive for arcane reasons)
Processor:
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - $279
Reason: I hear it overclocks so well there’s no real reason to buy the higher ones. I do plan to overclock.
Memory:
OCZ Platinum 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV12GS - $200
Reason: Tom’s hardware study seems to suggest this stuff overclocks well so there is no real gain going Corsair from here:
Case: I want it quiet
Antec P183 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case – $165 ish
Reason: For quiet computing! I've been waiting for this since I saw it here.
I also have a bunch of sorbothane and 3M damping foil available
Power Supply: Again, quiet is good
ENERMAX MODU82+ EMD625AWT 625W ATX12V Ver.2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active- $160
Reason: Good ratings here in the recommendations. I think this is more than enough power available. Too bad web commenters all say Enermax won’t actually deliver on the advertised rebate
Boot Drive: I’m hoping this will speed up windows and apps
Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G1 80GB SATA MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - (Can I fit Win7, MS office, and a few other apps/games on here?) - $325 ish
Data drive: Dunno, need lots of space and don’t want it to be the bottleneck. Suggestions? Can I get something fast and quiet in 1TB size? It seems to make it quiet I will need to build something. All the recommended drives seem to be 300GB or smaller.
Cooling for processor: Please help on this. I want to overclock but I also want it quiet.
Maybe this one? COOLER MASTER Hyper Z600 RR-600-LBU1-GP CPU Cooler (with adapter for 1366 socket) $50
Thinking: I would be willing to watercool but unless I use the Reserator it would be noisy (from the systems I've visited and research on here) and when the folks on Revision 3 did some test builds the water coolers didn’t beat a good heatpipe-and-fan heat sink for overclocking.
Graphics cards: I run 3 LCD panels but my only game is EVE Online, so not exactly the most demanding. I'll probably just order a couple of whatever is recommended for Solidworks and EVE.
Some questions:
Should I get a bigger SSD drive? Are the OCZ ones going to give the same experience as the X-25M Intel one? (250GB one looks nice but the reviews aren't great)
What should I keep in mind for overclocking?
Do you see an obvious problems here? Will it be the data drive?
A long time lurker thanks you for your help!
System build plan for thoughts- your kindness is appreciated
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Storage - Intel X25-M seems to be one of the best SSDs out now. You should have no problems fitting your software on there.
I'm quite happy with the Samsung F1 1Tb 7200rpm drive I've got in my main PCs as a storage drive. It's fairly quiet. If you were suspending it in your case somewhere, I don't think it would be particularly noisy either. SPCR has a list of Recommended 3.5 inch hard drives in the Recommended section of the main site, a lot of which are large enough hard drives, so have a look there.
I'm also happy with the 60Gb OCZ Vertex SSD I have, but I probably would have gone with the Intel one if I had more cash to spend.
As for graphics cards, I don't know how demanding EVE is, but you could get some passive ATI 4670s in crossfire (or buy 2 stock cards and add Accelero S1's if you have the space) or go with 2 of the passive Gigabyte 4850s if you need the extra grunt. Just make sure you have a front intake fan blowing toward these cards.
As for a CPU cooler, something like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366 or the Noctua NH-U12P 1366 might be better than that Coolermaster one.
You also didn't mention case fans at all. Take out the included Antec ones and replace as follows:
Scythe Slipstream 1200rpm fans at 5V as front intake and rear exhaust, and Scythe S-Flex 1200rpm at 5V as top exhaust. Buy some rubber fan mounts and use these instead of the included screws.
With some damping material on the case, your system has the potential to be pretty powerful and fairly quiet at the same time. Best of luck with your build!
I'm quite happy with the Samsung F1 1Tb 7200rpm drive I've got in my main PCs as a storage drive. It's fairly quiet. If you were suspending it in your case somewhere, I don't think it would be particularly noisy either. SPCR has a list of Recommended 3.5 inch hard drives in the Recommended section of the main site, a lot of which are large enough hard drives, so have a look there.
I'm also happy with the 60Gb OCZ Vertex SSD I have, but I probably would have gone with the Intel one if I had more cash to spend.
As for graphics cards, I don't know how demanding EVE is, but you could get some passive ATI 4670s in crossfire (or buy 2 stock cards and add Accelero S1's if you have the space) or go with 2 of the passive Gigabyte 4850s if you need the extra grunt. Just make sure you have a front intake fan blowing toward these cards.
As for a CPU cooler, something like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366 or the Noctua NH-U12P 1366 might be better than that Coolermaster one.
You also didn't mention case fans at all. Take out the included Antec ones and replace as follows:
Scythe Slipstream 1200rpm fans at 5V as front intake and rear exhaust, and Scythe S-Flex 1200rpm at 5V as top exhaust. Buy some rubber fan mounts and use these instead of the included screws.
With some damping material on the case, your system has the potential to be pretty powerful and fairly quiet at the same time. Best of luck with your build!
Thanks for the great feedback JamieG!JamieG wrote: As for a CPU cooler, something like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366 or the Noctua NH-U12P 1366 might be better than that Coolermaster one.
You also didn't mention case fans at all. Take out the included Antec ones and replace as follows:
Scythe Slipstream 1200rpm fans at 5V as front intake and rear exhaust, and Scythe S-Flex 1200rpm at 5V as top exhaust. Buy some rubber fan mounts and use these instead of the included screws.
I looked up some citations and you've sold me on the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and the better case fans. I didn't even think about case fans, I was assuming that the P183 would come with silent fans. I may order that first and see if I can hear the fans then order replacements if I can hear them.
I also thank you for getting me to look back at the recommended drives list. I had misunderstood the organization of the table and my eyes missed the larger drives. I'm now thinking one of the better brand series' and put it in one of these shells: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article23-page1.html.
Thanks again JamieG, I love these boards!