help building quiet gaming pc

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HiFi
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:55 am

help building quiet gaming pc

Post by HiFi » Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:32 pm

I've been thinking of starting a new build that will be good for gaming and office tasks. Here is what I've been considering so far:

CASE: debating between P150 or P180. (I kind of like how the P180 has the PSU on the bottom.)

CASE FANS: I know the P150 comes with one. But what about the P180?

MOBO: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (has heatpipe)

CPU: ATHLON 4200 X2 (dual core or not? i heard FPS in games is a little lower with dual cores)

CPU HEATSINK: SCYTHE NINJA 1000. (i've also been debating this since most people are saying it needs a fan, which seems to totally defeat its purpose. Then why not just use the XP-120? Atleast with xp-120 you get air blowing down on the mobo as well.)

HDD: SAMSUNG SP 2504C (not sure, i heard some people complaining it wasnt as quite as previous models).

RAM: 1gb crucial ballistix

VIDEO: 7900GT (I'm waiting for it to debut march 9th).

Tell me what you think so far, thanks.

RaNDoMMAI
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 337
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:12 am

Post by RaNDoMMAI » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:58 pm

Having used both the P150 and P180 i gotta say i like the P150 more.
It is ALOT easier to use and just looks better to me

BUT, you probably will have a problem with the PSU from the p150 since you are getting a ASUS mobo on top of the fact that the psu has problems

The P180comes with fans

You dont need dual core to gamebut it is nice to have.

I have the ninja, pain in the asre to install. But it works. Having a fan on it will blow all the heat directly out. which some may see as better then the XP-120

Have you used a raptor? its great for games and the idle noise suspended is gone. but seeks are loud. just dont get a seagate. they suck.

With any gaming vid card you should get the zalman HSF VGA cooler

~RaNDoM

hravn
Posts: 198
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:48 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Post by hravn » Tue Feb 28, 2006 11:57 pm

Looks nice... I'd probably go for the Opteron 165 (or X2 3800+) and overclock instead of the 4200+. The P150 with Ninja plus 1-2 nexus 120mm fans works great. I have no problem with chipset or VRM temps, there is actually airflow across the board even with the Ninja.

Since you are building a gaming rig I'd recommend (I'd do it anyhow) 2GB of RAM, nothing like being able to swap out of Battlefield 2 and doing some task in Windows without any hiccups.

As the previous post stated, you could have a problem with the Asus board and the Neo HE, just be prepared to nag Antec about it (and be prepared to buy a spare PSU).

stupid
Posts: 544
Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2005 2:21 pm
Location: NYC, NY

Re: help building quiet gaming pc

Post by stupid » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:01 am

HiFi wrote: CPU: ATHLON 4200 X2 (dual core or not? i heard FPS in games is a little lower with dual cores)
Depends on the game. Some developers have released patches that will take advantage of dual core. Some games already do support dual cores.

To my knowledge (limited as it may be) the following titles are dual core enabled:

Quake 4
Doom 3
Far Cry (with patch)
Half-Life 2 (I think)
TES: Oblivion

Obvious those are FPS games so if you play strategy games, casino games, flight simulation, etc then no you don't need dual core yet.

Best thing to do is Google dual core games to find out which games are or will be supported. Dual core is the future though.

HiFi
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:55 am

Post by HiFi » Thu Mar 02, 2006 4:12 pm

thanks for the advice. i think i'll go with the P150, it has a lot of nice features and is the perfect size. the only thing i have to decide now is the hard drive. i'd like to have a lot of drive space but not if its going to be noisy. on a side note, we have a seagate 7200.7 inside the DVR box for our tv and it has an annoying ticking sound, which was why i was quite surprised to find that the 7200.7 was actually a recommended quiet drive here at SPCR.

jaganath
Posts: 5085
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:55 am
Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:08 pm

we have a seagate 7200.7 inside the DVR box for our tv and it has an annoying ticking sound, which was why i was quite surprised to find that the 7200.7 was actually a recommended quiet drive here at SPCR.
SPCR does not recommend the whole 7200.7 range; only <2-platter PATA versions. I have a 40GB 7200.7 PATA and can vouch for its quietness.

jackylman
Posts: 784
Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 8:13 am
Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Post by jackylman » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:57 am

You should look at the new Asus RD580 board. The NB only uses 8W and there's just a passive heatsink on it. For comparison, I'd guess the NF4 chip puts out about 30W.

Apparently, the board is also a great OC'er if you're into that.

Here's the newgg link. It's a little pricey right now, but it should drop quickly.

uwbandman
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:35 pm
Location: Madison, WI

Re: help building quiet gaming pc

Post by uwbandman » Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:21 pm

RaNDoMMAI is definetly right about the Raptor...best HD Ive ever owned, and its virtually silent in the P180 - those thick, laminate side panels make it hard to hear even the seek noise
So dont discount the P180 too quickly...
As long as you dont mind spending a little time to think about your cable routing you shouldnt have too many problems. It may take a bit longer to set up - but I think its worth it once you get it done. Def not a case you want to be swapping major componants in and out of a lot tho...
P180 comes with three case fans. The two-compartment design is awesome, it really keeps temps down, and you can easily go with a fanless PSU if you tape off the vent holes in the back of the case around the PSU and leave the fan in the lower compartment. (since youre prolly buying a new PSU if you go with the P150 anyway)
Also, the P180 and Scythe Ninja seem to have been made for each other - especially on an ASUS MB, where the CPU is set up right in that corner where the two exhaust fans are. Ive seen several dual-core setups that didnt even need a fan directly on the Ninja.
Looks like an awesome rig overall...good luck on the build!

Jagdeep
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:06 pm

Post by Jagdeep » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:50 pm

Have you thought about gettin' the silent 7800 GTX from Asus.

It is larger though and will take up two PCI slots or somethin' like that...check out newegg for reviews.

It also generates heat but I mean with no fan, it should be real quiet.

It's also 400 dollars.

I have a question though, I've seen a 6600 GT that is silent as well...is it worth puttin' into a P 150 or will that heat be hard to get out without too much noise?

stupid
Posts: 544
Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2005 2:21 pm
Location: NYC, NY

Post by stupid » Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:12 pm

Jagdeep wrote:Have you thought about gettin' the silent 7800 GTX from Asus.

It is larger though and will take up two PCI slots or somethin' like that...check out newegg for reviews.

It also generates heat but I mean with no fan, it should be real quiet.

It's also 400 dollars.

I have a question though, I've seen a 6600 GT that is silent as well...is it worth puttin' into a P 150 or will that heat be hard to get out without too much noise?
Since the 7900GT will be a 90nm GPU, it will run cooler and may consume less power even though it will be more powerful than the the 7800GT.

I think the 7900GT is worth waiting for. 7800GTs are already starting to dry up; Newegg used to list about 15 different makes and models. Now they only list 8 of them. According to several posts the 7900GT should list for about $330, so online it will probably come out to $300. A 7800GT can be had right now for as cheap as $270. The extra $30 maybe worth the premium if benchmarks are good.

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