Hi, I am looking for an easy to cool cpu...

[ManuTOmanU]

It is time for me to build another computer for college... My needs are:

1st it needs to be scilent!!! and 2nd stable!!!

I do not game at all, but want to use it for office applications, programming, and MULTIMEDIA purpus...

Since my room is ruther small and the PC is probably running 24/7, serving as a musicbox, TV, workstation, and whatever - it needs to be quiet (still remember my first Athlon with goldfinger and 2 8000RPM fans sounding like a Jet)...

I am totaly not in the market for computer parts and technology at the moment, so I was hoping to get some help from you guys...

Which CPU would be good, is there something like the Pentium 4 M for notebooks?

Thank you for the first...

 

[Chaotic42]

What kind of multimedia? You could use a Cyrix processor. Those new ones, Nehimia I think they are called, don't even need fans.

 

[RalfHutter]

Here's an Intel solution to a quiet computer.

1) CPU - P4 Northwood 2.4C. This is the brand-new Hyperthreaded, 800MHz CPU. This CPU plus a Thermalright SLK900U heatsink and 92mm Panaflo L1A running at 7V, or a Zalman 7000 HSF will be near-inaudible inside your case. No more jet-engine fans here.

2) Motherboard - Something without a fan cooler on the northbridge. For non-OCing an Intel 875PBZ or 865PERL would be great. Both are fast, stable boards. Maybe an Asus P4P800 or P4C800 is you wanted to leave the door open for OCing later.

3) Videocard without a cooling fan, one of the ATI 9000 series of cards without a fan. You can go from mild to wild here depending on how much performance you want.

4) Quiet HDDs. Seagate Barracuda IV is the King. Seagate Barracuda V, Samsung 7200rpm Spinpoints are a very close second. Seagate 7200.7 series and IBM 180GXP come in third.

5) Quiet PSU. Nexus 3000, Seasonic Super Silencer 400, SilenX 14dB 400W are all top of the line quiet PSUs. The Antec TruePower series is also good but noticeably noisier.

6) Case with a couple of 120mm fans for ventilation. This lets you run the case fan(s) at 5V or 7V for low noise but still have excellent airflow. I recommend the Antec SLK3700 or one of it's clones like the Compucase 6A19 from Newegg or the D8000 form Coolcases.com. Another more expensive choice would be the Antec Sonata. All of these cases use 120mm case fans and use rubber grommets to mount the HDD(s) for less vibration and noise.

7) Case fans. One or two 120mm Panaflo L1As. These are some of the quietest fnas you can get. THese fans, running at 5V or 7V will do a great job of keeping your case and hardware cool and will be almost inaudible.

That's my 2¢.

An excellent resource for info on Quiet PCs is SilentPCReview.com. They have a Recommended Components section that's invaluable for configuring a quiet system. Their forums are also a very good source of information.

 

[bjc112]

Is there a budget involved?

If so,

You absolutely cannot beat a 1700+ / nForce 2 chipset...

 

[leeperpsu]

although i don't own one, i think the P4 chips would be your best bet.

the 2.4C or even the 2.66C aren't extremely expensive anymore
and seem to stay fairly cool. check out prices at newegg.com

but if buget is a issue, i'd say you should look at a AMD barton 2500+ or a AMD 1700+ tbred B

 

[jswjimmy]

i say buy a athlon xp-rip out the stock heatsink/fan put in a heasink that holds a 80mm fan, replace fan with a 80mm stealth fan. you will only hear a low hum

 

[ManuTOmanU]

Thanks you all and excuse me for beeing late, I don't really have a buget, I do not save on computer parts which I enjoy a couple hours a day.... But also do not waste my money buying things I don't find usefull...

@ RalfHutter, good job right there... I am personally running the Antec TruePower at the moment, so I know. To my videocard, I am sticking to a Matrox G450 still flying around. The HDD I think is going to be the Seagate 7200.7 plus (I think... parallel and 8 MB) or there was an Maxtor DM+9 advised on StorageReview... I probably have 8 Panaflos in all sizes flying around, so no problem....

The case I don't know yet and the motherboard/cpu,... I am going to figure that out today and the next couple days...

Thanks again for all the info, and I would be happy if there were some more opinions on the cpu...

 

[ManuTOmanU]

P.S. A couple years back, when I was living in the US, people said check out prices at www.pricewatch.com, now it is newegg LOL...