Moderately Quiet Audio Workstation - comments & criticis

pedro · Post by **pedro** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:22 pm

Long time reader - first time poster.

First up, great site/forums. Silent is the way forward I'm certain. I really, really hope manufacturers have at least one person on the payroll solely to read this site every day taking note. I get the feeling that there is a market, albeit small, for quiet, more expensive components. Enough of all that.

I'm about to build a system that will be primarily used for Cubase SX sequencing & other audio work. I also love listening to classical music and thus, low noise levels are a must. I'd like readers to pick apart my build. My aim is to have a fairly quiet (not silent) rig that won't cost me huge amounts of dosh. I'm not interested in paying $100 for one degree cooler but I don't want my box to sound like the space shuttle being put into orbit either.

Here it is:

DFI LANParty nF4 Ultra-D
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
OCZ OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K
Leadtek WinFast PX6600-TD256
M-Audio Audiophile 192
Western Digital WD360GD Raptor
Samsung TS-H492
Lian Li PC-7 Plus
Seasonic S12 430W
Thermalright XP-90
Papst 3412 NGL

OK. The LANParty is the way to go for me. I pretty much can't change that. Does anyone know how loud the northbridge HSF is on this baby? Should I be replacing it? The northbridge sits just under the graphics card slot, therefore it may not be possible to replace the HSF with a Zalman one. Does anyone have any experience with this. See here: http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/ ... dfiultraD/

The Leadtek WinFast PX6600-TD256 looks good in that it's passively cooled. I certainly don't need anything faster than this for what I'll be doing. In fact, this is probably overboard as is. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good passively cooled GeForce 6 card? 6200 is fine but I don't want to be delving into shared memory versions.

The Lian Li PC-7 Plus is a nice case from what I've read. I'd like an Antec P180 but it's far too heavy/expensive for my tastes. Has anyone on this board had any experience with the Lian Li. What's good/bad about it? Is it very noisy?

The Seasonic 430W looks like a great PSU. However, after much reading on this site and others I am very, very confused. They seriously need to get someone onto sorting out their nomenclature policy. This will be a stupid question but do I need the 6-pin PCI-E rail, i.e. a 500/600W version as opposed to the 430W for my PCI-E graphics card? Or do you only need that for very fast PCI-E graphics cards? I'm confused.

I like the look of the XP-90. I'll never really OC my rig so I think this HS will do an adequate job. I just hate using stock coolers - they are far too noisy. I could use an XP-120 or a Scythe Ninja but I'm worried about compatability issues with the LANParty and the Lian Li. Can anyone enlighten me on this. The Thermalright website says that the first PCI-E slot is blocked when using the XP-120 (see link above). I take that to be the short slot, not the graphics slot. Am I correct? I know of no information about compatability for the Ninja.

I've read/searched for hours on end about all sorts of things and I still can't answer these questions. I hope some people on here can.

Great site. Keep up the good work.

Pedro.

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 8:47 am

Your raptor will be the loudest component of your system besides the northbridge. Also, the nexus real silent case fan (120mm) is well.. really silent.

You might have to mod a zalman nb47 to make it fit, but it's very easy to do - just use pliers and bend the fins.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 12:10 pm

-Why do you need the DFI board, especially if you're not OC'ing? Of course that little fan is going to be loud. Get the ASUS premium or Abit heatpipe board.

-Only the real power hungry cards need that 6 pin power connecter. My X700 and X300 didn't need one. You won't even need 430W either. 380 should do you nicely. 330 would probably work just fine as well.

-It looks like the XP-120 will block the PCI-x4 slot on the DFI board. I'm not sure what you would use that slot for anyway.

pedro · Post by **pedro** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:41 pm

jackylman wrote:-Why do you need the DFI board, especially if you're not OC'ing? Of course that little fan is going to be loud. Get the ASUS premium or Abit heatpipe board.

-Only the real power hungry cards need that 6 pin power connecter. My X700 and X300 didn't need one. You won't even need 430W either. 380 should do you nicely. 330 would probably work just fine as well.

-It looks like the XP-120 will block the PCI-x4 slot on the DFI board. I'm not sure what you would use that slot for anyway.

Thanks jamesm & jackylman...

I want the DFI board because when it's a couple of years old I'll be able to OC it and squeeze a few more months out of it. (Sorry, I didn't make this clear.) Also, dfi-street.com is a really, really good support forum. I also like fiddling in BIOS. The DFI lets you do this better than any other board I know of. Still, I'll look into the Abit & Asus. Cheers.

Thanks for the info on the graphics cards. Re: the PSU - I've read about power consumption on this site and I understand that often 300 W is plenty but out on dfi-street.com they are saying 480 W at least. Why?

I'm not too bothered by the 4x slot being covered by the XP-120. In fact, I'll be putting my graphics card in the 2nd graphics slot at x8. I think this renders that blocked slot pretty slow or completely inactive.

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 4:59 pm

Most quality 300watt and 350 watt power supplies are more than enough to handle today's midrange systems. Emphasis on quality and midrange.

Of course, dual processor, SLI systems do not qualify as midrange

. However, a quality 350 psu would power a single athlon 64 and 6600/6800/7800 easily, whereas a poor quality 350 would have problems with that setup.

I guess other boards try to overcompensate for this by recommending 480watt+ power supplies, as seemingly random problems can be caused by a poor or weak power supply.

I'm using a seasonic s12-380 with an athlon 64 3700+ and 6600 gt as well as a raptor, the MSI nforce 4 board, 2 optical devices, and more, and I do not have any problems with my power supply.

pedro · Post by **pedro** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 7:52 pm

jamesm wrote:I'm using a seasonic s12-380 with an athlon 64 3700+ and 6600 gt as well as a raptor, the MSI nforce 4 board, 2 optical devices, and more, and I do not have any problems with my power supply.

Excellent!

This is exactly what I want to read.

Cheers for all your help.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:22 pm

I would check out the ECS KN-1 Extreme mobo. Why? The PCI "extreme" slot-a pci slot with an especially clean-low electrical noise connection for a HIGH END SOUNDCARD. MSI also has a mobo with a special soundcard "clean" slot. On many mobos some,or all,slots have some extra noise factors,Mobo noise coming via the circuits. The ECS has a rather large heatsink on the NF4 chipset,with a too loud fan. Some say that sink-minus the fan can handle a non-OC rig. However there IS ample room on this board for an aftermarket-the Coolermaster BlueIce,the one with heatpipes,but with it's fan removed. ECS also has a Duct/vent/fan on the rear,near the CPU. AS-is it's an exhaust. On the system I helped with,we pulled that fan to make it an INTAKE. We used a flipped fan,blowing the heat OUT from the CPU heatsink and a doormount 120mm Coolermaster (the 720 rpm model) as a main exhaust. It's on a fanmate and so can run as slow as probably 500 rpm-VERY quiet. In the rear we used an Artic Cooling 80mm TC,thats a sweet fan for just $5,min speed is 1000 rpm,and its temp controlled

For an audio rig,you want a lot of GB. Samsung Spinright 200gb SATA 2-at about the price of the raptor is QUIETER than the original Spinright SATA's-and they were the leader. The SATA 2 adds a bit of speed.

At Newegg,the 200 was the only SATA2 Spinright in stock a week ago. 120 and 160 sizes should show soon. There can be an advantage to having a pair of 120's. Work with music means the system must deal with the OS,the Application-and the music file itself. When the music files are on a seprate HD,its heads can just read/write the music files without interuption,while the main drive is handling the software. Not having to jump from one task to another makes each drive far more efficient.

The 3000 Venice is the best pick for a cpu,nice price,more than enough power-and she runs cool. My friend could not resist the power lure of a 3500. Audio apps gain little from the extra horsepower-better he'd spent the extra $150 on a fancier soundcard. Meanwhile a 3500 puts out a bit more heat,which means more noisy rpms to cool stuff.

I'll be doing my A64 Audio build maybe next winter,figure to do a desktop homemade case,Wood with the mobo mounted on a big cast aluminum "tray" which was the finned case to a car stereo amp. It will use a Passive on the CPU,Ninja? Sonic Tower? with a cool air duct,perhaps using a peltier to chill the inlet airflow. Plan so-far is for the Coolmax CR450 PSU,which has a huge 140mm fan,3 speed-with the low speed very quiet yet giving good flow.

xarope · Post by **xarope** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:33 pm

I'd also add that for MBs using the Nforce4 Ultra with the really buzzy NB fan, you can just stick a zalman fanmate (or equivalent undervolter) on it (at least, until I decide to change the cooling solution on that!).

I did this with my MSI Neo4, it was REALLY buzzy at the 8000rpm or so that it defaults to, and just kept turning the fanmate lower and lower until it got to just above 4000rpm, at which point in time the next loudest thing I heard was the whooshing from the lower 120x38mm Antec tricool (set to low; NB this is a P180 case). FYI the lowest setting for the fanmate still gives around 3700-3800rpm for the NB.

Haven't noticed the NB being too hot due to this, I think it's amazing how just a "little" breeze would cool otherwise way-too-hot components.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:53 pm

As to the case,there's some plus to a music PC being semi-mobile. The consensus seems to be that noise will resonate and transmit through the case more. suspending HD's becomes very important-as does keeping internal fan noise to thae absolute minimum. The ALU case is another reason to pick a quiter HD.

For AUDIO a Venice 64 3000 is near overkill on power/speed,but is SO cooland quiet that there's no better choice. Overclocking will add power-but add heat/noise too. IF you figure to do some games,really need extra,You might try that Crystal CPU program that is like cool + Quiet with some added flexibility in that,as I heard it-you could have a mild OC,that down clocks to medium and low power when the full power is not needed. In AMD speak-your 3000 can get OD'd up to a 3500- but if you don't need the power-it self underclocks to,say,a2400,and if you don't need all that,it underclocks down to about a 1200....and the more it underclocks the cooler it runs and your fan controls get to hush the fans-you have your cake and eat it. My details on that are general-theres a technically accurate thread elsewhere

The DFI board is neat looking and if you want a max OC gamer-it's the one. However-the chipset is notoriously crowded,so a passive is more hassle. The DFI also lacks the dedicated soundcard slot...yet is $20 more than the ECS. I understand liking a brand of mobo,I like my NF2 Asus,but ASUS didn't do the ideal Aud Workstation board for NF4-so I'm gonna switch.

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:06 pm

Don't get the Seasonic S12 430, get the S12 380 instead. 430 is overkill. My old Seasonic 300 can run overclocked Prescott [email protected] and Geforce 6800GT no problem at all. But once you silence everything else, you do realize that even the Seasonic PSU is not quiet. That's why if you know what you want, go for an Antec Phantom 350 instead.

Also I agree with some of the posters that the Raptors have too loud seek if you want really quiet. Why not get 5400RPM notebook drives and dampen them? Much quieter. You can put them in RAID to speed things up.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:04 am

With Audio files you have big wave files living on the HD and constantly getting accessed ,moved,processed,and the difference between an SATA2 Spinright at 7200 rpm and any 5400 rpm notebook HD is big.. Further,the 200 gig Spinright is about the same $ as a 60gig notebook unit. 2 notebook drives in raid = twice the price+twice the noise.

For an audio workstation rig,some gamer type hot-rod stuff has no advantage. No need to get the deluxe RAM sticks,to OC or even get the really fast CPU-but the HD is a place where you want to fuss a bit.

Space permitting-a dual monitor setup is nice. Many vid cards support dual monitors. Audio software tends to take up a lot of screen. It's handy to have a second to have your source + destination windows open,or for multitasking while a big file is working.