Silent computer build...how does this look?

[996GT2]

A friend of mine wants a machine that is up to date and powerful enough for video editing + gaming, but he also wants something that is as close to silent as possible. I know this is hard to do, but I suggested the following. How does this look?

Case: Lian Li PC7B Plus II
CPU: Core i5-2500 w/Thermalright HR-02 (fanless)
MB: Gigabyte GA-P67X-UD3-B3
RAM: 2x4GB DDR3
GPU: 2xGigabyte Silent Cell HD5770 (fanless) in CrossfireX
Main drive: Intel 320 series 80GB SSD
Secondary drives: 2xWD Scorpio Black 500GB 2.5"
PSU: Seasonic SS-460FL (fanless)
Case fans: 2xNoctua NF-S12B ULN 700 RPM (1 intake, 1 exhaust)

 

[JBDan]

I think it looks great actually. Only thing I would do different is case....I would get the Antec SOLO for about the same price as the Lian Li you have listed. It will be quieter, but might not fit the dept of "classy looks" like the Li

Well maybe 2 things different....with the 5770's and your other components you might want to give him the option of a little better cooling....throw in a fan controller or set him up with Speedfan and grab 2 higher RPM nice silent fans around 1000RPM. I have several Noctua's they are excellent, but there will be some heat dumping into that build and I think it's good to give him a wider range of cooling potential when running the rig hard like long gaming spurts.

Just an idea

 

[Doclife]

Antec P183 case for silence, good airflow, roomy for crossfire setup with long video cards, filters in front to minimize the amount of dust entering the case.

 

[beginner99]

I suggest the fractal define r3 case. Very similar to the antec one but it has sound dampening included.

Personally fanless gpu in xfire and fanless cpu will lead to extremely hot parts without crazy case airflow. I would prefer a faster single card but a custom one (quieter). As example I have a Powercolor HD 5850 PCS+. very quiet even when running milikway@home.

About the hard drives, WD green drives are inaudible in above case. Really it freaked my out first, no hdd sound at all.

I would not take the noctua fans. I hate their mounting system. Didn't really work for me. I have a Noctua NF-S12B FLX and it must lie 100% flat or 100% vertical else it makes annoying sounds. And with that mounting system, almost impossible.

 

[Zap]

Personally fanless gpu in xfire and fanless cpu will lead to extremely hot parts without crazy case airflow. I would prefer a faster single card but a custom one (quieter).

:thumbsup: Get a faster card with one of those dual or triple fan coolers. Those should be reasonably quiet when idling.

 

[deimos3428]

Running a passive CF and staying quiet is hard. (I just spent the last few months getting mine working, and TBH I'm still playing with it.)

You get a lot of heat building up, and without any GPU fans at all it can get trapped between the cards. You need superior case flow. I'd recommend a single card if you can help it for that reason -- it's just easier.

Definitely get a fan controller so you can turn up the case fans while gaming, and down while not.

 

[tnt3k]

Antec P183 case for silence, good airflow, roomy for crossfire setup with long video cards, filters in front to minimize the amount of dust entering the case.

I have an antec p182 and it houses i5 2500k with a h60 push pull and a gtx 460 and it is really quiet. I really love it.

 

[ElFenix]

I suggest the fractal define r3 case. Very similar to the antec one but it has sound dampening included.

the antec side panels ply construction damps them fairly well.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

i wouldnt run fanless unless its a monstrous cooler like a Noctua NH D14. That thing is like 900g alone... lol

 

[996GT2]

i wouldnt run fanless unless its a monstrous cooler like a Noctua NH D14. That thing is like 900g alone... lol

From Xbitlabs' HR-02 review:

The HR-02 is the best cooler available today in fan-less mode as well as with a single low-speed fan.

Specs: Size: Length 110mm x Width 140mm x Height 160mm

Weight: 860 g (excluding fan and bracket system)

Heatpipe: 6mm sintered heatpipe *6 units

Copper base: C1100 pure nickel plated copper base

 

[SickBeast]

I would be nervous running a pair of fanless GPUs in Crossfire like that. The AMD GPUs run hot even with a fan.

I'm sure you could set up a GTX 460 to run passive in 2d mode, which is probably all that your friend would care about anyways.

If you want to cut the noise back even more, you could probably get away with only the one exhaust fan (forget about the intake), provided that you only use the one GPU.

Another thing you can do is to suspend the hard drive with special elastic bands. It dampens the vibrations completely.

 

[Blain]

From Xbitlabs' HR-02 review:

Specs: Size: Length 110mm x Width 140mm x Height 160mm

Weight: 860 g (excluding fan and bracket system)

Heatpipe: 6mm sintered heatpipe *6 units

Copper base: C1100 pure nickel plated copper base

The nickel layer isn't as thermally conductive as copper.
A good lapping job is in order to get through it to the sweet copper underneath.
No reason to buy a nice cooler just to end up with a layer insulating it from the heat source.

 

[ohfor]

You might want to leave that nickel on there. That layer is only about 0.001" or 0.002" thick and isn't insulating much at all. You might have more insulation with the copper oxides that form on the bare copper. Also the nickel makes the surface extremely smooth allowing the surfaces to mate well and greatly reduce any micro air bubbles on the heat sink surface which are really good insulators.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Don't like the fanless PSU, doesn't seem worth it. Would go with either the Seasonic 560w...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...soic%20560
or Kingwin Platinum (which would run silently in a system like that).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...in%20platiunum

Agree on the passive 5770's being risky. Just go with a single 560 ti, 6950, maybe 570 with a good heatsink probably dual fans and setup a custom fan profile in Afterburner to keep the fan from revving up. It'll still run fairly hot, but will be very quiet and perform better than dual 5770's.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

i wouldnt run fanless unless its a monstrous cooler like a Noctua NH D14. That thing is like 900g alone... lol

Even overclocked, the HR-02 + 2500K would be just fine.

 

[bridito]

Years ago I saw a photo of a mod case somewhere that was in two sections. One case was the "main" one with motherboard and optical drives, then it was connected by a long cable to another one that had an USB external video card, hard drives and PSU. I've always been intrigued by that since it would place most of the noisy elements away from the main user part of the PC. The question I have is that each wire from the PSU to the motherboard would have to be lengthened at least 8 feet, so what (if anything) would that do to electrical losses/resistance, etc. Plus is there any modular PSU cable setup with such overlength wires to avoid a whole day's soldering? With SSDs you could place them in the "main" case, and only have the external video and PSU far away. So I'm intrigued!

 

[996GT2]

Years ago I saw a photo of a mod case somewhere that was in two sections. One case was the "main" one with motherboard and optical drives, then it was connected by a long cable to another one that had an USB external video card, hard drives and PSU. I've always been intrigued by that since it would place most of the noisy elements away from the main user part of the PC. The question I have is that each wire from the PSU to the motherboard would have to be lengthened at least 8 feet, so what (if anything) would that do to electrical losses/resistance, etc. Plus is there any modular PSU cable setup with such overlength wires to avoid a whole day's soldering? With SSDs you could place them in the "main" case, and only have the external video and PSU far away. So I'm intrigued!

You could do the same thing today with any case, just stick the case in a closet and use a wireless keyboard/mouse and either a really long DVI cable or a wireless HDMI transmitter.

 

[bridito]

You could do the same thing today with any case, just stick the case in a closet and use a wireless keyboard/mouse and either a really long DVI cable or a wireless HDMI transmitter.

Fair enough. I'd feared long DVI cables as I'd heard some bad things about them, but a wireless HDMI with similarly wireless input devices would work fine. The only time you'd have to go into the closet would be to turn the system on or insert an optical drive. Is there a device to wirelessly turn on a computer?

 

[Fallen Kell]

You are going to have overheating issues with the crossfire setup. While they are "fanless" you still need good case airflow and 2 120mm fans running at only 700rpms just won't cut it as they will not generate enough pressure to move air between the two crossfire boards.

 

[gevorg]

A friend of mine wants a machine that is up to date and powerful enough for video editing + gaming, but he also wants something that is as close to silent as possible. I know this is hard to do, but I suggested the following. How does this look?

Case: Lian Li PC7B Plus II
CPU: Core i5-2500 w/Thermalright HR-02 (fanless)
MB: Gigabyte GA-P67X-UD3-B3
RAM: 2x4GB DDR3
GPU: 2xGigabyte Silent Cell HD5770 (fanless) in CrossfireX
Main drive: Intel 320 series 80GB SSD
Secondary drives: 2xWD Scorpio Black 500GB 2.5"
PSU: Seasonic SS-460FL (fanless)
Case fans: 2xNoctua NF-S12B ULN 700 RPM (1 intake, 1 exhaust)

The two Scorpio Black drives will be the loudest components of this build. If you go with the Solo case instead, it has a nice way to dampen hard drive noise. Also consider "green" drives (i.e. under 7200RPM).

For PSU, go with Seasonic X-660 or higher. They're semi-fanless (i.e. fan doesn't start until around 20% load, and only gets noticeably loud at over 50% load).

I wouldn't trust a fanless HD5770, especially in Crossfire with another. Do you need it to be silent during gaming? If not, find a card that runs at/under 1000RPM when idle/2D. I have Saphire 6850 and cannot hear it at all when not gaming.

 

[fuzzymath10]

Depending on the physical setup, it should be fine. Both my machines are built to be quiet, but have only one video card (of a similar TDP to a 5770).

In order to achieve quiet performance as often as possible, you need to undervolt. You're mixing a non-K CPU with a P67 board, so you'll have limited OC options, and undervolting has improved my load temps by around 10C. My i5 2400 runs relatively cool with an average HSF so with a high-quality one, you'll be fine as long as your exhaust fan is nearby.

As long as one of the 120mm fans pushes fresh air by your video cards, they should be stable, if hot. My Lian-Li case has a pair of the same Noctua fans and they are quiet, but seem to work better as intakes rather than exhaust.

 

[gramboh]

Does your friend know that all modern video cards spin down to near silent when not gaming? As long as he doesn't buy a hairdryer card, the noise when gaming is not heard over headphones or speakers unless you are playing some really really quiet games

Get a decent card (MSI's Twin Frozr series with dual fans are great - silent at idle, still very quiet at GPU 100% - both ATI and NV).