Edit: I added prices and reworded stuff.
A buddy of mine is trying to put together a very quiet PC. He'll use it for email, web surfing, office products, movies, music, programming, but no gaming whatsoever. He has the monitor/mouse/keyboard already but needs the rest. The most important requirement: the PC needs to be as SILENT as possible and he's willing to pay extra to get it that way, although nothing ridiculous.
Here are the parts that have been picked out for sure:
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
* RAM: 2x1GB DDR2-800
Here are the parts that I need advice on and rough amounts he's willing to spend on them:
* Motherboard: socket 775, preferably the 965P chipset, but the northbridge has to be passively cooled. ~$120 - $150.
* CPU HSF: socket 775, preferably something that can cool without requiring a fan. I've heard the Tuniq Tower (which is out of stock everywhere) and Scythe Ninja are pretty good, but would like to hear real world experience using passively cooled heatsinks. ~$40.
* Video Card: PCI-E x16, passively cooled (or can be if you buy a 3rd party GPU heatsink), from the last generation of cards (x1300 or 7600gs). Optionally, if it has a nice HD-TV tuner, i'd like to hear it. <$100 w/o tuner, up to $150 with a tuner.
* Case: mid tower ATX case that has good airflow, 2x120mm fan mounts (at least in the front and back), and good sound dampening. Up to $150.
* Case fans: if the case above doesn't come with quiet fans, recommend some quiet 120mm fans that move a decent amount of air. Up to $20.
* PSU: the power requirements aren't too extreme on this rig, probably a quality 350-400W PSU will be plenty. I believe Seasonic makes some quiet PSU's, but I would appreciate some advice. Up to $80.
* Hard drive: obviously, WD Raptors are out of the question
He needs a hard drive that is 7200rpm, 200-300GB, 16mb cache and is as quiet as possible. Up to $100.
thanks!
A buddy of mine is trying to put together a very quiet PC. He'll use it for email, web surfing, office products, movies, music, programming, but no gaming whatsoever. He has the monitor/mouse/keyboard already but needs the rest. The most important requirement: the PC needs to be as SILENT as possible and he's willing to pay extra to get it that way, although nothing ridiculous.
Here are the parts that have been picked out for sure:
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
* RAM: 2x1GB DDR2-800
Here are the parts that I need advice on and rough amounts he's willing to spend on them:
* Motherboard: socket 775, preferably the 965P chipset, but the northbridge has to be passively cooled. ~$120 - $150.
* CPU HSF: socket 775, preferably something that can cool without requiring a fan. I've heard the Tuniq Tower (which is out of stock everywhere) and Scythe Ninja are pretty good, but would like to hear real world experience using passively cooled heatsinks. ~$40.
* Video Card: PCI-E x16, passively cooled (or can be if you buy a 3rd party GPU heatsink), from the last generation of cards (x1300 or 7600gs). Optionally, if it has a nice HD-TV tuner, i'd like to hear it. <$100 w/o tuner, up to $150 with a tuner.
* Case: mid tower ATX case that has good airflow, 2x120mm fan mounts (at least in the front and back), and good sound dampening. Up to $150.
* Case fans: if the case above doesn't come with quiet fans, recommend some quiet 120mm fans that move a decent amount of air. Up to $20.
* PSU: the power requirements aren't too extreme on this rig, probably a quality 350-400W PSU will be plenty. I believe Seasonic makes some quiet PSU's, but I would appreciate some advice. Up to $80.
* Hard drive: obviously, WD Raptors are out of the question
thanks!