Recommendation on [quiet], powerful and small Corei5 system?

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:18 am

Hi everyone,

Building pc's is all about compromises, something that's not really my forte it seems, as I've been pondering over this setup for quite a while! (also encouraged by the impending arrival of the radeon 5xxx series

)

Here's my current draft:
case: Lian Li PC-V351B
psu: Arctic Cooling Fusion 550R (or Antec Value 430 if it's enough?)
mobo: MSI P55M-GD45 (haven't really looked into this yet)
cpu: Intel Core i5 i5-750 / 2.66 GHz
gfx: big question mark, I'm torn between a silent VAPOR-X 4870/90 or a newer 5xxx card, any idea how long before vapor-x editions of these cards will start appearing?
ram: +/- 4bg of any brand, doesn't really matter AFAIC
hd: samsung spinpoint F3, 1TB, 3.5" (granted probably not that silent, but I'd like it to be fast and have lots and lots of free space. Two hard disk setup may be a better idea though)
optical drive: samsung SH-S223Q
cpu cooler: stock?
total cost would be somewhere around â‚¬800-900 (no monitor)

How noisy will it be? It will be used for standard home use and gaming. Any comments, recommendations, radical new setups, ... are welcome!!
Thanks!

Meato · Post by **Meato** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:02 pm

The Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 got very good marks from Anandtech. Do you really need CrossfireX? If so, you might consider an mATX X58 board with i7-920 CPU. Also, the Arctic Cooling S1 heatsink is said to do a fine job on an HD 5850.

KyonCoraeL · Post by **KyonCoraeL** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:06 pm

What type of fans are you planning on using?

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:30 pm

Default Lian Li fans?

No I don't need Crossfire, but I do seem to recall the UD2 board only supporting up to two case fans (lian li has three). though not sure if I actually will need all three? Core i7 would up the price tag considerably no?

reddyuday · Post by **reddyuday** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:56 am

Meato wrote: If so, you might consider an mATX X58 board with i7-920 CPU. Also, the Arctic Cooling S1 heatsink is said to do a fine job on an HD 5850.

i7's are 125W CPU's compared to 95W i5's. So, they need significantly more cooling. I would bet that no cooler with a 96mm fan would be able to satisfactorily cool an i7. The Lian Li case can only fit tower coolers with 96mm fans. (Well, Noctua NH-C12P can probably fit in the case but it depends on the motherboard's CPU placement. There is still the problem of competition for air between the CPU cooler and the power supply.)

Small cases with big CPUs is a circle that cannot yet be squared.

Uday

Meato · Post by **Meato** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:25 am

reddyuday wrote:
Meato wrote: If so, you might consider an mATX X58 board with i7-920 CPU. Also, the Arctic Cooling S1 heatsink is said to do a fine job on an HD 5850.
i7's are 125W CPU's compared to 95W i5's. So, they need significantly more cooling. I would bet that no cooler with a 96mm fan would be able to satisfactorily cool an i7. The Lian Li case can only fit tower coolers with 96mm fans. (Well, Noctua NH-C12P can probably fit in the case but it depends on the motherboard's CPU placement. There is still the problem of competition for air between the CPU cooler and the power supply.)

Small cases with big CPUs is a circle that cannot yet be squared.

Uday

Yes, I completely agree with that statement. I only suggested the X58 platform if the OP required CrossfireX, as you are taking a performance hit using a P55 board with such a configuration. That said, and after looking his case selection over, the i5 would be the maximum TDP you could run relatively safely in that case.

It really is the same old story. You have to use sub-optimal coolers because of space limitations, therefore you have to run the small case fans faster to compensate. My son uses a SSF case with a 90W TDP CPU and its far from ideal.

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 1:47 pm

But the I5 would work? Or am I already stretching the silent&cool part of the pc with it? The case has 2 12cm fans (front) and a 8cm fan in the back, so not exactly small except the rear one.
Thanks for all the replies so far!

Meato · Post by **Meato** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:20 pm

jordos wrote:But the I5 would work? Or am I already stretching the silent&cool part of the pc with it? The case has 2 12cm fans (front) and a 8cm fan in the back, so not exactly small except the rear one.
Thanks for all the replies so far!

I wanted to provide some evidence that your setup would in fact work and not just site my personal experiences with a couple SFF systems. So, I did some searching here on SPCR and came up with a couple good threads you should read.

EG45M-UD2H Q9550 v351 now (mostly) complete
Help me cool an E8600 in a Lian Li PCV350
^which was taken from..
CPU Cooler for Lian Li PC-V351B, LGA1156

In the first link, Gallery Thread, JoeTheZombie states that his Q9550 CPU (95W TDP) is running around 54* C under load cooled by the Scythe Ninja Mini.

hybrid2d4x4 · Post by **hybrid2d4x4** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 7:25 pm

I built an i5 system in the Antec 300 using the GigaByte P55 UD2 board a weeks after the i5 was released with a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus (120mm tower), and it runs semi-passive (using the nearby top case fan, rear 120mm fan moved to front, added extra 120mm fan @5V). The vid card is a 4770 (didn't think that the 5 series was gonna come out with anything for the lower-mid end so soon). All Antec case fans on low, the extra front fan is @ 5V (~600-700RPM if i had to guess). Runs fine so far but I haven't had the chance to really push it to its limits. Bioshock is the systems most strenuous workout so far.

gyasi56 · Post by **gyasi56** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:07 pm

My signature rig uses an i5 and Lian Li's PC-V350. I can't attest to the noise and heat generated by your video card, but I have a NH-C12P on my processor with a PWM fan on it. It idles around 30c and never gets to 60c. The only thing I can hear from my computer is the hard drive.

Edit: I have the Kama PWM pulling air through the heatsink and blowing it directly into the PSU and have never heard the PSU's fan spin up.

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:54 am

Hellow y'all,

today my parts arrived, almost the same as i wrote in my first topic

i5 with p55m ud2
4890 toxic
4 gb ddr3 ram (ocz)
scythe mini ninja
spinpoint f3
nexus value 430
scythe kaze q 3.5 fancontroller
lian li v351 case

it took me quite some time to assemble all this and then when i tried to power it up, it failed me. The fans spin up for 1 second and then the system goes dead for five seconds, after which the fans spin up again for one second, and so on.

I tried the psu in another (older) system and it worked, i removed the cpu, and it does the same, i removed the ram, still the same, i removed the gpu, still the same... I cant help but to think the motherboard is dead on arrival! or perhaps is it possible that there is to much cooling pasta on the cpu?

any thoughts or help is very much appreciated!

grtz

protellect · Post by **protellect** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 11:33 am

Reseat memory. try single sticks, etc. try replacement ram. had the exact same thing happen, turns out my memory wasn't seated properly.

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:08 pm

i've tried to reseat the ram, but no difference, and i don't have other ram at my disposal...

i also don't hear the sound of the peeping of the bios...does this mean my main bord doesn't boot?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:12 pm

Try it with just the CPU and one stick of RAM and the video; nothing else. Try this with each stick of RAM you have.

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 7:17 am

owkay, fixed, turned out the cpu power connector on the main board wasn't plugged in correctly

So far the good news, just when you think everything works fine, and you try to mount the psu in the case, the psu-fan starts making noise. As soon as you put the psu in its standard position, the fan starts hitting the metal grille of the psu, if you put it on its side, it doesn't have this problem...sigh... i woud like to bend the grille or something like that but i am afraid to void my warranty...

reddyuday · Post by **reddyuday** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:13 am

jordos wrote:As soon as you put the psu in its standard position, the fan starts hitting the metal grille of the psu,

By the "standard position" you mean fan at the bottom? It looks like you need to RMA the psu.

Uday

jordos · Post by **jordos** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:24 am

Yep that's what I meant. I'm returning it ASAP. Also had an occasion where one of the temperature sensors on the mainboard measured -xx degrees, though it seems to work fine ATM