• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Silent pc

Strahinja

Junior Member
Hi everyone, I can't stand anymore my noisy 5 years old pc. I want to build a new one and I'd like to receive some advices. My principal concern is silence. I seached some informations on internet and this is my idea for a silent pc :

cpu : i5-4690
MB : MSI H81M-E34
ram : KINGSTON DIMM DDR3 8GB 1600MHz
case : Factal r5
supply : Be quiet! Straight Power 10 - 600W

I have an ssd and some hdd. I don't need a graphic card now, probably in the future i will buy one. I don't want to overclock or wait to skylake, the i5-4690 will be fine for my needs. I don't know much about motherboards and I would not like to spend a lot on it, any advise in the same price range? Do I need to change the cooler on the cpu for more silence? Is this power supply silent or there are better choices? What about the case?
 
What are your current specs?
Other than the noise, is your current system performing well enough?
 
Thank you for the reply, I have an amd phenom 2 955 with a gtx460. It's ok. Now I don't have time to play videogames, but i like sometimes to play civ5, eu4 and other games. So I want to build a new one.
 
I don't want to overclock or wait to skylake, the i5-4690 will be fine for my needs.
So apart from gaming, what is it you need processing power for? You could get away with the cheaper i5-4460, it's easily enough for any game out there even if you upgrade your graphics card.

I don't know much about motherboards and I would not like to spend a lot on it, any advise in the same price range?
Don't buy a H81 chipset board, it won't let you take advantage of the case's USB 3.0 ports. Buy a B85 board, e.g. Asus B85M-G (C2), Asrock B85M Pro4, or Gigabyte B85M-HD3 or -D3H. H97M boards are also worth considering if the price is right.

Do I need to change the cooler on the cpu for more silence?

Yes, although not knowing what's causing your current PC's noisiness, it's hard to say whether the stock fan is enough for you or not. I wouldn't call the Intel stock fan noisy - it's just not particularly quiet. Also, not all aftermarket coolers are quiet, so you do need to pick one with a low RPM fan, preferably 120mm.

It'd be good to buy an SSD - you'll have to reinstall the operating system anyway, so now would be a good time to upgrade the system drive. E.g. Crucial BX100.

Is this power supply silent or there are better choices?

Can't find any review of a Straight Power 10, but it does have Gold efficiency and Be Quiet! is known for designing low noise units. It's probably a good bet, but there may be better alternatives. Also, ~500W would be plenty of power for this setup.

What about the case?

R5 is an awesome case but I'm not sure if you need ATX. The board you picked (and the boards I recommended above) are microATX so you could buy a small microATX case as well. Some that focus on quiet operation: Define Mini, Silencio 352M, Corsair 350D, Nanoxia Deep Silence 4.

There are also cheaper quiet ATX cases than Define R5. Some stores still have Define R4 in stock for ~$20 less. Then there's Silencio 452 and even Zalman R1.

FWIW I would probably sell the GTX 460 and upgrade to a card that offers better performance for much fewer watts, e.g. GTX 960 or the upcoming GTX 950.

I can give more specific recommendations if you let us know where you're buying the parts from.
 
Thank you for the reply, your advice for the motherboard is particulary helpful.
I live in Serbia, and there is not a lot of choice for the pc components here, especially for the power supplys. I will buy the r5 also because I like how it looks, except if there is a case significantly more quiet.
 
What about just getting a laptop? From the sound of it, your computing power needs seem fairly modest. Most laptops are pretty quiet.
 
I found an ASROCK H97M Pro4 for a decent price (75e), but I have some problems understanding what is important in a motherbord, except the compatibility. What would be the advantages over a h81 except usb 3.0?
 
I live in Serbia, and there is not a lot of choice for the pc components here, especially for the power supplys.

Are you ordering parts online? If so, can you link to the shop you plan to use?

I will buy the r5 also because I like how it looks, except if there is a case significantly more quiet.

There is no case that is significantly quieter but there are equally quiet cases which don't cost as much.

What would be the advantages over a h81 except usb 3.0?

In general, H81 boards have less connectivity all around - only two DIMM slots, fewer SATA ports, only PCIe 2.0 instead of PCIe 3.0, low end power delivery, fewer fan headers, and so on. For details you can compare the specs at a manufacturer's site, e.g. MSI B85M-P33 vs H81M-P33.

Between H97 and B85, there are few if any differences... The main difference is that H97 boards support Broadwell processors (which are not worth upgrading to, coming from Haswell). Some H97 boards have an M.2 card slot, though it is very unlikely you will ever need that. Some cheap B85 boards (B85M-D3H for instance) have poor power delivery, as a result of which an i7-4790K wouldn't perform to its fullest, but an i5-4460 would.

H97M Pro4 for 75 euros sounds like a very good purchase.
 
Last edited:
Thank you lehtv, i will order online from a serbian site, i think it would be difficult for you to understand something, the presentation is bad. It's not an online shop, it's a site where people or shops offer products. Here it is : http://www.kupujemprodajem.com/Kompjuteri-Desktop-10-kategorija.htm

I have the option of buying a i5-4460 for 160e or a i5-4690 for190e
ASROCK H97 Anniversary, ASROCK H97M Pro4, MSI H97 PC Mate, MSI H97 Guard-Pro, and Gigabyte GA-H97-HD3 for almost the same price (75e-82e)
R5 120e or Corsair 350D 100e (he is also beautiful, probabliy i will go with Corsair)

For the power supply there almost only cooler master, and I read somewhere that they are not that good. I will ask a frien who lives in switzerland to buy me a power supply. I found a list of power supply on TH, and the be quiet is in the thier 2. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
If you can see on this site some options for a power supply it would be helpful : http://www.pc-ostschweiz.ch/fr/Alimentation-de-PC-c11875.htm
 
I found also a Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 and a ASROCK Z97 Anniversary for 80 euros, I'm not interested in overclocking, but it's the same price, and the i5-4690k doesn't cost a lot more than the standard version. I don't need that speed now, but maybe is best to have the possibility to overclock in the future. I never overclocked and I imagine it can be interesting. Does overclocking increase the noise?
 
Strahinja said:
Thank you lehtv, i will order online from a serbian site, i think it would be difficult for you to understand something, the presentation is bad. It's not an online shop, it's a site where people or shops offer products. Here it is : http://www.kupujemprodajem.com/Kompjuteri-Desktop-10-kategorija.htm

It's not confusing thanks to Google Translate 🙂. But I don't know whether you only buy parts you can find near your location and whether it matters if it's a company selling a new product or a person selling a used product.

So I'll just give a general outline of what to look for:

CPU - Any i5-4xxx is fine, get whichever is the cheapest per GHz. Doesn't matter if Tray or Boxed, since you'll probably want an aftermarket cooler anyway.

Cooler - Some examples of very quiet coolers:
Thermalright True Spirit 120M, True Spirit 140, HR-02 Macho, HR-02 Macho-120
Scythe Katana 4, Mugen 4, Kotetsu
SilentiumPC Fera 2
Anything from BeQuiet!
Anything from Noctua, obviously (but they're expensive - maybe if you can find one used?)
Arctic Cooling i30, perhaps also i11

Some less quiet but still decent:
Cooler Master TX3 EVO, Hyper 212 EVO
Enermax ETS-T40
Anything from Zalman

Motherboard - any B85 or H97 with ALC887 or better sound chip and four DIMM slots. Preferably boards with 4-phase power instead of 3-phase, but this is in no way critical.

RAM - Pretty much any 2x4GB DDR3-1600 @ 1.5V kit is fine regardless of manufacturer.

Graphics - GTX 460 is getting quite old but feel free to reuse it if you want. If budget allows, sell it and grab a GTX 750 Ti, R9 270(X), R9 370 or GTX 960, and enjoy the lower power consumption. Exactly which model is your GTX 460? Not all of them are quiet, so if you want a particularly quiet setup you may have to upgrade it anyway. The quietest cards tend to be MSI Gaming and Asus Strix ones, but there are others too. It's best to google a review or two before buying.

Storage - I have no idea how much storage space you need... But you could keep whatever storage you currently have, and install Windows on a new 120 GB to 256 GB SSD (e.g. Crucial BX100, Sandisk X110, OCZ Arc 100, Kingston HyperX Fury). Then reformat the old C: drive and use your old hard disks as data drives.

Power Supply - you'll probably be fine with the FSP-built Be Quiet! Straight Power 10. If you can find a Seasonic S12II-520 or 620, or M12II-520 or 620, those are pretty quiet and usually not too expensive, although they are only Bronze rated. Seasonic SSR-550RM and SSR-650RM are even quieter but typically pretty expensive in Europe. From Cooler Master, the G series units aren't too bad, and actually run very quiet. E.g. check out TPU's review of G550M (gotta love this fan profile).

Case - any of the ones so far mentioned in this thread

Strahinja said:
Sorry for my english, I know I write really bad.

Actually your English is very good. It's not 100% grammatically correct (and neither is mine tbh) but you write better than many Americans I've met... 😉

Strahinja said:
I found also a Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 and a ASROCK Z97 Anniversary for 80 euros, I'm not interested in overclocking, but it's the same price, and the i5-4690k doesn't cost a lot more than the standard version. I don't need that speed now, but maybe is best to have the possibility to overclock in the future.

I don't really see the need for overclocking. You haven't even mentioned anything that requires much CPU power - the games you listed run perfectly with a locked i5.

Strahinja said:
Does overclocking increase the noise?

Yes, overclocking increases power consumption which increases temperatures which increases CPU fan RPM. But with a good aftermarket cooler, temperatures should stay in check well enough that the difference in noise would not be noticeable.
 
Last edited:
You'll want to get some kind of cpu cooler with a giant fan. The big ones are slow and quiet. You will hear the stock cooler even under a single core full load.
 
Thank you a lot lehtv, I appreciate your help.

I plan to buy everything new except the ssd that I have, a one year old samsung 840 240gb, and the hard disk. Do you advise me to buy a new one?
Maybe I will buy a used power supply if I can't get one from Switzerland.
I was planning to buy a 8gb ram, is better to have 2x4gb ram?

Here is the build :

Asrock H97 Pro4
i5-4460
be quiet! Pure Rock 34
8gb KINGSTON DIMM DDR3 8GB 1600MHz
be quiet! Straight Power 10 CM - 500W
fractal r5

I will sell the componets of my old pc, the gtx 460 is the piece that makes the most noise. In the near future i will buy a new gpu.
 
Do you advise me to buy a new one?

No, use what you already have 🙂

Maybe I will buy a used power supply if I can't get one from Switzerland.

I would be very cautious about a used PSU unless it comes with at least a year or two of warranty (which means you need the original proof of purchase).

I was planning to buy a 8gb ram, is better to have 2x4gb ram?

Yes, dual channel RAM has a few percent advantage over single channel.
 
Last edited:
You say that noise is the #1 concern, but you're keeping the loudest part? Why not replace only the GTX460 and see how the existing system does with that? Something like a 750ti or a GTX960 should be close to silent, and you can use it in the new build, if you decide to proceed with that.
 
Thanks to sm625 and Binky, I'm not keeping the 460, I wiil have no time to play in august, and if i play some days I will try the integrated graphics. I will buy a gpu in the future. I know it's better without the 460, but I would prefer to have something more quiet.
 
Back
Top