Quietest case option to date?

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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zerodB
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Quietest case option to date?

Post by zerodB » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:49 pm

Hey guys, I'm looking for recommendations for my upcoming system - and although I'm sure this topic is worn out by now, I'd rather hear some simplified facts rather than reading through a couple hundred posts about cases like the Antec p1** or Silverstone something or other.

My system will contain:
1 solid state hard drive
1 i5 or i7 cpu
2 graphics cards with passive coolers
6gb of memory

I'm going for the lowest noise production possible and I won't be overclocking the CPU. I would also enjoy PSU recommendations (especially if you're recommending the 183, which is optimized for Antec PSUs I hear). Also, I have no problem, for example, taping closed the top fan opening in the p183, for example. Feel free to recommend other combinations of heatsinks, or whatever.

Thanks for your time and help.

bozar
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Post by bozar » Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:32 am

You will get several answers because there is no perfect case for everyone and there will never be.

If you are going to use high-end graphics, HD4850/HD5750 or better, your best bet is probably Silverstone Fortress 2. But with a rig like that you can never expect it to be silent, it's to powerful.

Two graphic cards with no more power than HD5750 can probably be cooled by P183 which I believe would be more quiet but cooling such a rig, including a high power Corei7, with a 5V case fan or two would be tricky.

Considered Water-cooling instead?

zerodB
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Post by zerodB » Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:05 pm

I thought about water cooling before, but I'd rather just not deal with the extra cost (extra couple hundred it seems). Anyway, I'm guessing the cards will be somewhere around Nvidia 9600GT with passive heatsinks. What do you think?

ces
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Post by ces » Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:52 pm

Do you care what size the case is?

Do you care what size the motherboard is?

Oops. you said two graphics cards. That must mean you want a full ATX case.

How many hard drives must the case be able to house?

bozar
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Post by bozar » Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:51 pm

zerodB wrote:I thought about water cooling before, but I'd rather just not deal with the extra cost (extra couple hundred it seems). Anyway, I'm guessing the cards will be somewhere around Nvidia 9600GT with passive heatsinks. What do you think?
9600GT is pretty power hungry, way worse than HD5750, adding to that you'll need a nvidia chipset for SLI and they are only available for S1366 which is rather power hungry and get hot. You are probably going to need a Silverstone Fortress 2 or Raven 2 for cooling to work out.

wouterr5
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Post by wouterr5 » Wed Mar 24, 2010 12:07 pm

Well, according to this:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... html#sect0

The 9600 gt consumes only 60 Watt loaded

And according to the same site, if we say that the idle power of the card is 20W:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... html#sect0

The 5770 consumes about 80-90 watts in 3dmark06.

I know that i can run my 9600 GT w/ Accelero s1 passive with only a front 120mm fan @500RPM, it gets to 60 degrees celcius this way. I wouldn't know for two though, that would seem a bit harder, especially without fans at all. Add to that a higher power consumption, and you would need a fan :x

zerodB
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Post by zerodB » Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:39 pm

What about one enormous fan on the side of the case at an extremely low RPM. Say, a two foot fan going at less than 1000 or even 500RPMs pulling or pushing with a filter. Wouldn't this solve practically every problem?

Also, I'm not stuck on the 9600GT, I just need two relatively new Nvidia cards.

bozar
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Post by bozar » Thu Mar 25, 2010 1:33 pm

wouterr5 wrote:Well, according to this:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... html#sect0

The 9600 gt consumes only 60 Watt loaded

And according to the same site, if we say that the idle power of the card is 20W:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... html#sect0

The 5770 consumes about 80-90 watts in 3dmark06.

I know that i can run my 9600 GT w/ Accelero s1 passive with only a front 120mm fan @500RPM, it gets to 60 degrees celcius this way. I wouldn't know for two though, that would seem a bit harder, especially without fans at all. Add to that a higher power consumption, and you would need a fan :x
I never said anything about HD5770. HD5750 is way more efficient because several editions are available without the need for a extra PCI-E connector, very rare among 9600GT. Besides all chipset supporting SLI draws a lot of power so cooling should never be taken to lightly.

Raven 2 is more efficient cooling solution than a side fan and more quiet. Just don't get disappointed if it's not as quiet as you expect, I myself have extremely high standards acoustically. You need a lot of cooling capability with two gpus that fast.

zerodB
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Post by zerodB » Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:00 pm

I'm also very sensitive to noise, but as an aside, I would like to explore my idea of a window-fan side to a case. Traveling at a RPM where you can almost watch them cycle (like a ceiling fan), wouldn't the huge blades allow for optimal airflow - but at the same time be almost completely silent? Has anyone tried this? Please criticize this idea, so it can either be eliminated or adopted. Thanks.

ces
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Post by ces » Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:26 pm

zerodB wrote:I'm also very sensitive to noise, but as an aside, I would like to explore my idea of a window-fan side to a case. Traveling at a RPM where you can almost watch them cycle (like a ceiling fan), wouldn't the huge blades allow for optimal airflow - but at the same time be almost completely silent? Has anyone tried this? Please criticize this idea, so it can either be eliminated or adopted. Thanks.
Don't forget the speed of the blades of one or those large fans is faster on a cm/second basis than that of a smaller fan operating at the same RPM.

That is even at the same revolutions per second, the fan blades of the larger fan are traveling at higher cm/second. It is the absolute speed of the blade that generates much of the noise.

bozar
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Post by bozar » Fri Mar 26, 2010 2:59 am

There has never been any really big fan that is truly quiet, Antec Big Boy is the best there is but it's never quiet enough, even undervolted.

As you can see with this powerful setup:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1029-page5.html

Cases like Raven 2 provides the best cooling/noise ratio of all cases while cooling powerful components.

I've had a very quiet undervolted papst sidefan in my chieftec case which is of thicker steel than most others at 1 mm but the noise was really bothering, it never got quiet enough. My biggest change acoustically was stuffing that hole with bitumen, even with a totally open front, just a dustfilter in the way, it's a lot quieter.

Sidefans are superior in cooling with a case like P182 or Threehundred but they're no match for a top-down case, natural airflow is king.

Lubb
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Location: IL-USA

Re: Quietest case option to date?

Post by Lubb » Thu Apr 01, 2010 12:26 pm

zerodB wrote:Hey guys, I'm looking for recommendations for my upcoming system - and although I'm sure this topic is worn out by now, I'd rather hear some simplified facts rather than reading through a couple hundred posts about cases like the Antec p1** or Silverstone something or other. .....
My experience/opinions, for air cooling:

....the case makes almost no difference, other than the observation that avoiding front-mounted fans is a good idea.

....rubber-suspended hard drives do help. Use sorbothane if you can get it, other rubbers don't really attenuate vibration.

....fans need to be run slow, either automatic or a manual fan panel. Mounting the fans on sorbothane gaskets will help as well.

....Get a decent brand of fans, but you don't need to spend for the absolute-quietest ones out there. If a paying customer insists on them I will order the $20 ones, but normally I don't. At 25% speed, there's not much difference between the $20 fans and the $5 fans.

....CPU and video need BIG heatsinks, OEMs usually are not nearly as big as the aftermarket ones you can get. I do not like fanless components***

....it helps to stick to lower-performance CPU and videocard choices, and to not overclock.

The ONLY stuff I bother messing with is in this list.
~

***(-The problem with fanless components is that you have no way of concentrating more cooling on them if they need it; the only think you can do is dial up the airflow through the entire case--which makes more noise than just dialing up the fan speed on one single component would. Components with fans let you target more cooling where its needed-)

ces
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Location: US

Re: Quietest case option to date?

Post by ces » Thu Apr 01, 2010 9:14 pm

Lubb wrote:
zerodB wrote:My experience/opinions, for air cooling:

....the case makes almost no difference, other than the observation that avoiding front-mounted fans is a good idea.

....rubber-suspended hard drives do help. Use sorbothane if you can get it, other rubbers don't really attenuate vibration.

....fans need to be run slow, either automatic or a manual fan panel. Mounting the fans on sorbothane gaskets will help as well.

....Get a decent brand of fans, but you don't need to spend for the absolute-quietest ones out there. If a paying customer insists on them I will order the $20 ones, but normally I don't. At 25% speed, there's not much difference between the $20 fans and the $5 fans.

....CPU and video need BIG heatsinks, OEMs usually are not nearly as big as the aftermarket ones you can get. I do not like fanless components***

....it helps to stick to lower-performance CPU and videocard choices, and to not overclock.

The ONLY stuff I bother messing with is in this list.
~

***(-The problem with fanless components is that you have no way of concentrating more cooling on them if they need it; the only think you can do is dial up the airflow through the entire case--which makes more noise than just dialing up the fan speed on one single component would. Components with fans let you target more cooling where its needed-)
Good stuff. you should post it in a new thread and see if anyone can add to it.
Lubb wrote: "Use sorbothane"
How do you even know what that is or if they are using it|

I see you are from Illinois. Where is your store located?

Lubb
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:11 am
Location: IL-USA

Re: Quietest case option to date?

Post by Lubb » Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:40 pm

ces wrote:
Lubb wrote: "Use sorbothane"
How do you even know what that is or if they are using it|

I see you are from Illinois. Where is your store located?
Sorbothane is priced higher than other kinds of rubber, I'd think if they were using it the case manufacturer wouldn't hesitate to say.

The website shows they make it in different colors, but all the raw material I've ever seen for sale was black. In the US, you can order it from McMaster-Carr online (where I get it).
~

Spotswood
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Re: Quietest case option to date?

Post by Spotswood » Sat Apr 03, 2010 5:57 pm

Lubb wrote:
zerodB wrote:
....the case makes almost no difference, other than the observation that avoiding front-mounted fans is a good idea.
That's because they're all terrible for silent (or nearly so) computing. lol

ces
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Location: US

Re: Quietest case option to date?

Post by ces » Sun Apr 04, 2010 3:00 am

Lubb wrote:
ces wrote:
Lubb wrote: "Use sorbothane"
How do you even know what that is or if they are using it|

I see you are from Illinois. Where is your store located?
Sorbothane is priced higher than other kinds of rubber, I'd think if they were using it the case manufacturer wouldn't hesitate to say.

The website shows they make it in different colors, but all the raw material I've ever seen for sale was black. In the US, you can order it from McMaster-Carr online (where I get it).
~
Thanks. that info will eventually come in handy. You didn't answer the store part of the question. Is it that you just do this on the side as opposed to through a store?

Lubb
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Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:11 am
Location: IL-USA

Re: Quietest case option to date?

Post by Lubb » Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:16 pm

ces wrote: ... You didn't answer the store part of the question. Is it that you just do this on the side as opposed to through a store?
Ahh, I thought you wanted to know where to buy the sorbothane.

No, I don't do this professionally--just for relatives and friends.
~

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