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Silent Gaming PC - Tips?

Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:45 am
by Casseia
Well, my very first post, so hello to everyone! :D

This is the second time I put a PC together, and the second time I come to SPCR for ideas, and this time I even come for suggestions. :wink:

The PC I'm running now is still OK I guess, it's about 4 years old. But it's making a whole lot of noise during gaming (and not even high end games), and I'm getting tired of the constant buzzing. I'm mostly using the PC for work. I'm a beginning teacher so lot's of Office applications and Photoshop during the week, but when I have the time I want to game. So I don't need a top-notch high end gaming rig, but I do want to comfortably play without worrying about anything, and of course in silence. Overclocking is not something I'll do very soon I think, if at all.

So this is what I have thrown together, and I hope I did an OK job. :)
  • Bitfenix Shinobi Window case
  • Asus P8Z68-V-Pro mobo
  • Intel core i5 2500k cpu
  • Noctua NH-C14 CPU cooler
  • MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC graphics card
  • G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 8GB PC1600 CL9 (2x4GB) memory
  • Corsair PSU Gold AX850 Watt PSU
  • OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD
  • Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB storage
  • NOCTUA NF-S12B 120 mm side fan
I just love the Shinobi case, and it gets good grades. You do need some extra cooling, so that's where the side fan comes in. The Noctua NH-C14 cooler is there because there's only 158 mm, and this one is only 140 mm high. The D12 just would be a really tight fit, and I don't think you can go wrong with Noctua, if I read the reviews right. The MSI N560GTX got good remarks, and it also ran relatively cool and quiet, so I choose that one. The price is also right, I think. I'm not sure about the PSU: it may be a bit of overkill, but I don't know if that's a problem. There's also some CL7 memory (as opposed to the CL9 I mention here) I could buy, but for 50 € extra, I don't think it's a good deal, but I don't know...

My budget was 1500 €, and now I'm at 1340 €, so I have a little room to play around with other stuff. Any comments or suggestions are welcome! :)

Re: Silent Gaming PC - Tips?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:54 am
by Casseia
Well, I've been doing some more research, and I've come up with another case and graphics card. Any thoughts on these?

Case: Cooler Master Storm Enforcer:
A more in-your-face kind of case, but I like the design (and I'm finding it hard to find a design that I like with today's cases). It's available in the shop where I want to buy my other components, and the Shinobi one is not. It has usb 3.0 build in, good construction, good cooling, although the rear fan is a bit noisy apparently. So I opted for a different rear fan: Noctua NF-S12B FLX

Graphics card:
MSI Radeon HD 6870 Twin Frozr II
Not as good as the GTX560-Ti (if I read correctly), and very hard to find an in-depth review. But on Tom's Hardware it's one of the low noise cards, which gives a good performance (although I read here that the noise measurements of those guys are not really consistent). On other sites I did find that they run cool and silent, only a few people reported problems. It's not sold in my shop, but I can get it somewhere else at practically the same price as the MSI GTX560-ti twin frozr I picked before.

Any advice for my build?

Re: Silent Gaming PC - Tips?

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:44 pm
by tzhu07
Casseia wrote:
  • Bitfenix Shinobi Window case
  • Asus P8Z68-V-Pro mobo
  • Intel core i5 2500k cpu
  • Noctua NH-C14 CPU cooler
  • MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC graphics card
  • G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 8GB PC1600 CL9 (2x4GB) memory
  • Corsair PSU Gold AX850 Watt PSU
  • OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD
  • Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB storage
  • NOCTUA NF-S12B 120 mm side fan
How quiet are we talking about? Because there can be some additional optimizations. Your computer case is not built for quiet (none of the windowed cases are). Look into the Fractal Design R3 Define case. It's a quiet case that looks very elegant.

You can also look into the Powercolor 6850 passive card, which is the most powerful passively cooled card on the market.

Instead of the Corsair, you should look at the Seasonic X750. The fan on it only spins when necessary.

Finally, you said this computer will be mainly for work purposes. So that means you'll likely save important files on it and need it to be reliable. So instead of the Vertex 3, get the Intel 510 or 320 series. Even though it's slower, the defective rate is much lower.

Re: Silent Gaming PC - Tips?

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:46 am
by Casseia
Nice suggestions, thank you!

I'm looking for something really quiet. I spend a lot of time at the PC, and although I live at a fairly busy road (with great acoustic qualities! :roll: ), the noise from the PC bugs me more. It's the constant sound of the PC instead of a car every few minutes/seconds. And I do get quite irritated by sound, easily...

I did have some reservations on the Bitfenix case, the more time went on, so I looked at other cases again. I came up with the CM Storm enforcer. A more of a right-in-your-face case, but I like it. But it's the windowed model, so I guess that's out of the question too. It did have some USB3 support from the front, but I hardly use my USB ports, so using the ones at the back of the case, isn't really going to be a problem.

I did see the R3 case, but in the first few reviews I read there was some complaint that the cooling wasn't up to par. And it made sense to me, with all that sound proof padding: the heat would just stay in. But now that you mentioned this, I did some more research and it's hard to count the gold awards this case is getting! And I like the design, so the case is definitely going to change. It's a little bit hard to get the case here at a decent price, but I have found a shop. But maybe the computer shop I will be ordering from, can get it as well... I'm going to change the Noctua CPU cooler back to the NH-D14 then again, and do I still keep the third fan? Or is the case that good that I can just try it as it's shipped?

Good call on the SSD too! I didn't really read a lot on those OCZ drives apart from reviews, and they were so enthusiastic about it. User reviews can be a benefit sometimes, and the real world difference is hardly noticeable, so the Intel 320 120 GB it is!

About the power supply... The shop has the seasonic x760, which is basically the same, only a new generation, I think. It does get great reviews, and everyone seems happy (except on Newegg: 2 out of 4 dead, but 4 reviews is hardly anything), but there also is the Corsair AX750. The price difference is 50€, which is a lot, for basically the same PSU, if I read correctly (SPCR and Bit tech). Is the price tag then really worth it?

I'm not too sure about the graphics card though. It kind of seems odd to have a passively cooled card... I don't know, but I just get the feeling I can't game for more than 20 minutes before I have to stop, or it will melt down. I know it's totally irrational, but it just doesn't sit right. I'm not too happy with my earlier choice either though. The MSI GTX560-ti Twin Frozr also gets mixed reviews on Newegg: a lot of dead cards. Also the load or idle state is a bit noisy (depending on which review you read). I did come across another GTX560-ti here on this forum, and it does deliver very well it seems: Gainward nvidia GTX560Ti 1GB PHANTOM. And some German acoustics test too. I can get it for the same price as the twin frozr. So this is my favorite at the moment...

Any thoughts?

Re: Silent Gaming PC - Tips?

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 8:14 am
by _MarcoM_
+1 for SSD Intel 510 or 320 series, it's a more reliable choice.