Build for gaming AND music listening.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:16 am

Im considering system like this.

Case: Antec P182 + Nexus Real Silent fans

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 or ABIT IP35 or ASUS P5K

CPU: Intel E6750 + Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme

GPU: Club 3D 8800GT 512M + AC Accelero S1 cooler

Memory: 2x1GB Corsair DDR2 800MHz

HD: Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB SATAII 7200RPM

PSU: Corsair HX 520W

plus few couple of old IDE harddrives and X-Fi soundcard from my old computer.

Now, as an audiophile I want to build a system that is about dead quiet in idle/low stress, as my music system builds around open headphones. I dont care if the computer produces noise on stress like gaming, (I have closed headphones for that) but for music silence is important.

I PROBAPLY do some overclocking, hence the Zalman cooler, but is it noticeably more silent than stock cooler on low stress? Are there better cooling options? Are there other parts that I should considering changing or adding for better perfomance or more silence?

Thanks

*edit* Updated the list

*edit* found a better shop with cheaper prices, but they didnt carry gigabyte products. Motherboard changed to ABIT IP35-E or ASUS P5K

seraphyn · Post by **seraphyn** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:40 am

I would go with the thermalright ultra 120 extreme (lame name, but good performance) instead of the zalman. And you'll need to replace the standard fans in the p182 and buy another to mount on the heatsink i just suggested.

You might want to look in the gallery part of the forum for more case lay-out idea's and several tips to further improve on the p182's design.

As for your other parts, they're all good, though you'll probably hear the harddisks unless you suspend them.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:52 am

No Zalman. Thermalright or Scythe.

Get some Slipstream 800 or 500 RPM fans for the case and maybe CPU (the 800 RPM models start and operate over 400 RPM at 5v, so are undervolting-friendly).

How will the video card be cooled?

How many HDDs, and what models?

If you're looking at that WD for a new drive, are you sure it's what you want? The HDD will be the noisiest idling part once you're done (as long as it's not, you've got the fans too fast

). If it's one of those KS drives that seems to do well, try it, but make sure to research your choices.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:01 am

Im sure my new rig will be the utmost void compared to my current rig built with silence as least important factor. I dont even know what kind of noise HDD makes besides rattling when reading something.

One new sataII drive, and two old Samsung Spinpoint 160Gb IDE harddrives. It doesnt have to be WD one of course, that just caught my eye as being quite cost effective AND its marketed as quite silent.

The videocard cooling is a question mark. If the stock one on Club3D is silent in idle, that can stay. As I said, I dont care about noise in gaming, just in music use.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:17 am

I presume you are speaking about Scythe Ninja SCNJ-1100P Rev.B cooler. Above mentioned Thermalright and Scythe are around same price, but Thermalright doesnt contain fan which has to be bought separately, increasing cost. How much cooling and/or silence difference there is between Thermalright and Scythe?

Also Slipstream fans are not available in Finland. Any alternatives?

*edit* Or does either Scythe or Thermalright even need fans? As I was searching for answers I found that both of those fans would be just in between two exhaust case fans of P180. Good passive cooling would definetly be intriguing.

seraphyn · Post by **seraphyn** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:41 pm

MaZa wrote:*edit* Or does either Scythe or Thermalright even need fans? As I was searching for answers I found that both of those fans would be just in between two exhaust case fans of P180. Good passive cooling would definetly be intriguing.

With enough airflow, probably not. But since MaZa said he would probably be overclocking, running fanless isn't really an option.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:55 pm

seraphyn wrote:
MaZa wrote:*edit* Or does either Scythe or Thermalright even need fans? As I was searching for answers I found that both of those fans would be just in between two exhaust case fans of P180. Good passive cooling would definetly be intriguing.
With enough airflow, probably not. But since MaZa said he would probably be overclocking, running fanless isn't really an option.

But it matters not. If I would end up changing all the fans in that Antec case, I would get the same type of fan for the cooler (be it thermal right or teh ninjah) too for optimal airflow. Searching around this site has been very interesting...

*edit* I'll probaply ad Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 to my graphics card, just to make sure and if it truly fits 8800GT.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:44 am

I have been reading this site and found out that Antec P182, while being silent, airflow is quite sucky. Are there better alternatives? Antec Nine Hundred (around same price here) also caught my mind, but its unclear if its as silent as P182, or can it be made as silent easily.

So, Im also open for other case options.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:24 pm

The P182 is good, if you've got patience. For good results, duct tape is a must

, as is reading all the way through both reviews here of it (well, of it's younger brother). It may not have the best, but its air flow is only bad if left alone, with all fans used, or some used, and no vents covered up. It offers options, and basically requires you to choose among them.

I would go with the Solo as a second. But, unless the door or styling really turns you off, try the P182.

With a fan on it, the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme performs better.

The 160GB Spinpoints will be fine.

Alternative fans, er...Nexus, Arctic Cooling (PWM, framed), Scythe's S-Flex (E and D, especially), Globalwin, Noctua...choose your poison. I've not tried Globalwin's, but of the others, your particular likes/dislikes in terms of noise character will make the biggest difference, IMO. IIRC, the S-Flex are the next best performers in general, though.

Oh, and...if you're not doing this build right now right now, maybe wait for the new 45nm C2D chips, running a wee bit cooler, OCing better, etc. etc..

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:34 pm

I will build this rig on january most likely, so I still have time to finalise the component choices and do some planning what to do with the case. Nothing major as im not a real DIY person. Some MacGyver tape (and ironwire!

) and sharp knife mods will do, and perhaps some rubberbands for HDD mounting...

I have chosen 3x Nexus Real Silent fans, they are widely available here and for decent price too. It should be a good fan, eh? Isnt it SPCR reference fan aswell from what I have noticed? I also have one unused Glacialtech 120mm fan, bought it on accident when I needed a smaller one. It was very silent when I quickly tested it. I guess it might find its home somewhere in the case.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:29 pm

azuztech whatever they are called has a premier gaming and analog out audio card that will blow peeps away...

creative regular is really nice as it is. i dont know if you or anyone mentioned that part

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:41 am

I already have X-Fi Elite Pro and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 soundcards. I have also external DAC coming soon for music purposes so the M-Audio soundcard will be rendered useless and therefore left out of my new upcoming system, and leaving X-Fi for gaming only. Auzentech Prelude would otherwise be very interesting card, but it wouldnt offer anything new.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:47 pm

yeah, it would be if you didnt have those cards, but as it is, you have nice setup that is for certain.

any conflicts ever?

The chip is great, ram fine, all seems good. just make sure no active fan cooling on the motherboard which it probably does not have. S1 is what I am switching to this week if i cant get my zalman WC setup going again.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:19 pm

take good care of your old drives - they could be clanky. 182 doesn't have a suspension so the vibration could be a problem if the drives rattle.

what cans do you have?

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 1:08 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:yeah, it would be if you didnt have those cards, but as it is, you have nice setup that is for certain.

any conflicts ever?

The chip is great, ram fine, all seems good. just make sure no active fan cooling on the motherboard which it probably does not have. S1 is what I am switching to this week if i cant get my zalman WC setup going again.

No conflicts. Cool, I guess this will be it. Now, if only it would be january...

take good care of your old drives - they could be clanky. 182 doesn't have a suspension so the vibration could be a problem if the drives rattle.

what cans do you have?

Most likely I will swap my old hard drives someday. Back up all the important data and buy newer and bigger sata drives.

Currently I have Grado RS1, Beyerdynamic DT-880 and Ultrasone Proline 750. Different cans with different soundsignature and good/bad sides for different kinds of music. Amplified by Meier Audio Corda HA-2 MkII solidstate headphone amplifier or Little Dot MkIII tube amplifier, depending on the mood.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 3:47 am

nice. looks like you got most of the bases covered. i am more into iem's myself; whatever d2 or 818 can power without an amp is good. the last ones i am playing with are triple.fi (with shure olives and es cable) and q-jays (just got them).

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:02 am

I have d-Jays and Etymotic ER-6i IEMs too, for portable use. Not willing to explore that side further cuz inserting them in your ear is always such a fuzz, pain in the ass to get them right.

Too bad since isolation is great, and so is sound whenever I manage to insert them properly atleast. Funky ear shape I guess.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 8:12 pm

that's true; foamies help. i try to put shure olives on practically anything with a sound tube

. could be a hustle sometimes but most times results are pretty good.

but i digress; hijacking the thread and all that.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:07 am

Foamies are also what I prefer, but they have to be swapped quite often, atleast with the kind of earmucus factory that I have inside my head. Blech...

No worries about hijacking, this thread has pretty much run its purpose I think, 'till I get my rig that is.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 7:46 pm

can get tiresome sometimes, the iems...

i got hd25 and hd555 for those times.

as you can see, not exactly an audiophile i am

well, gl with your build; snap some pix when you get it together.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 4:56 pm

I'm sticking with KSC75/35/PPro, myself. Extra detail is cool and all, but I can tell more from sources and opamp swaps than the nicer cans, especially given the CDs and other stuff the money can be used for. Critical listening just isn't fun.

Not counting the Gigabyte, the Abit looks really good for OCing, but you don't get CPU undervolting, and with heatsinks on the voltage regulators, should be good for any silencing setup, too. From what I've read, if you can't get the -E, the plain would be better than the -V, as the IP35-V uses some lower quality components, not just fewer goodies.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 3:21 am

KSC75 is one helluva can for its price, I own one too and it replaced PX100 easily for my ears. Whenever I want fun on my home system I use my RS1. Has the refinement of high quality headphones but also some tweaks in midbass and upper midrange to give some energy to sound, headbangability for extreme music. DT880 for sitting back and enjoying more natural and sophisticated music, perhaps bit analytically atleast it rarely butcher any recording with coloration of its own (which RS1 sometimes does when the colorations "do not match")

One thing I noticed from IP35, it has only one IDE port!

This makes adding both of those two old harddrives impossible. Luckily I also have 500GB external USB drive so backing up the important data and leaving one drive away wont be an issue, but since my old LG DVD-RW drive is also IDE driven, some creative cable routing might be needed to get that and HD on some port I figure... Otherwise it seems one helluva bang for the buck, and reviews state that too.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:53 pm

Yeah, wasn't thinking about that--both are PATA, then you've got a burner. Most of the boards are like this (the Gigabyte has only 1 PATA, too). For data, USB is a decent option. You could also get a PCI card for PATA. Any Silicon Image one should work well. If you have a wide choice of such cards, Koutech and Syba have been marketing such parts for many, many, years, and are solid cheap buys.

I've been thinking of trying low-end Beyers, to test the waters (from what I read, they aren't the crap of low-end AKG--not that that would be hard). I'll leave any more of that back at Head-fi, though, likely months after I get fixed up with a new DAC and another amp.

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:57 am

I'd rather not add any extra cards, so I guess motherboard with standard amount of IDE ports is preferable. And it seems Asus P5K also has only one IDE port. Are there any decent P35 motherboards that has two IDE ports?

If not, I guess I have to start looking for decent DVD burner. LG GSA-H66NRB as black seems good and cheap SATA dvd burner.

seraphyn · Post by **seraphyn** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:15 pm

Pretty much all newer motherboards seem to have only one IDE port, which made me switch to SATA since my last upgrade.

As for the Asus P5K, which one are you considering? I suggest looking through the Asus forums a bit before making a decision on it as I, and another that i know with a P5K series motherboard have had some issues with them (P5K Premium and P5K3 Premium).

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:15 am

Vanilla perhaps. Though since it has only one IDE slot too, I'd rather take Abit IP35-SE over any ASUS. Oh well...

Shizdan · Post by **Shizdan** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:20 pm

i like i like

MaZa · Post by **MaZa** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 8:58 am

All right, I just ordered my package. However, the IP35-e was out of stock and they werent sure when they would receive another batch, if ever. So, I ordered MSI Neo3-F motherboard instead. Arctic Cooling and Thermalright coolers will be ordered after I receive my computer and get it built, they have to be ordered from other place and I want to make sure everything is working properly before doing any modding stuff.

However, 8800GT was out of stock... again. Next batch comes in 06 of February. ARGH! I cant wait, damn it!!!

...and I really do hope they get enough of those 8800GT cards, so my order wont get pushed forward in future...