Need a good quiet computer (1700 budget)

[Bacon]

I'm out of my field when it comes to noise reduction, so any advice would be appreciated.

I'm looking to use this as a heavy gaming rig, but since its going to be in my room I'd like it to be fairly quiet.


I've got mouse, keyboard, monitors and speakers already, all I need is the desktop.

Also have the OS and I may be interested in going the water cooling route..not sure if that would be more quiet or not..again I'm out of my field here

 

[Bodaggit23]

Don't need much more than this, but it leaves plenty of room for another
graphics card and/or water cooling if you so desire.

Not needed in my opinion, and neither is a secong GPU, but hey...

$1279.91 before rebates.

Core i7 920 ($288.99)

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 ($289.99)

CORSAIR 850W ($139.99)
($119.99 after $20.00 Mail-In Rebate)

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 ($179.99)

XFX Radeon HD 4890 1GB ($199.99)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache ($54.99)

COOLER MASTER HAF 922 ($99.98)

Sony Optiarc Black DVD/CD Rewritable Drive ($25.99)

 

[Bacon]

I was thinking about a SSD, I heard those were pretty much silent and fast load up times is an added benefit.

Oh and what would be a good cooler if I were to go for the air cooling route vs the water cooling, since after some reading I found out that they can be just as loud if not louder with the pump and the radiator fans


Edit: Exactly how important are Processors in gaming these days? It seems like its 80% reliant on how good of a graphics card you have.. I'll google it, but if someone already knows, I'd love to hear it.

 

[tlarkin]

I have a HAF 932 case, and it is pretty quiet. In fact I can hear the HDs spinning over the case fans.

How quiet we talking? If you want near silence you will have to go SSD with liquid cooling most likely.

 

[Bacon]

I have a HAF 932 case, and it is pretty quiet. In fact I can hear the HDs spinning over the case fans.

How quiet we talking? If you want near silence you will have to go SSD with liquid cooling most likely.

I always figured liquid cooling was just as loud as conventional fan cooling, since you still need fans for the radiator and then the noise from the pump.. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't really know a lot about water cooling.

I was thinking about a Prolimatech Megahelm with some low speed fans, but then I'd also, more than likely, need to get an aftermarket cooler for my video card.. Was looking at a 5850 or 5870..depends on how the budget turns out after everything else is figured out.

and to answer your question, I'd like to keep relatively quiet, not sure of a good referance. Look at it like this, I'm willing to buy a SSD over a higher performance 7200 RPM hard drive, just because of noise. Granted the better access time is a nice bonus, but I'm really more about it being quiet. Also looking at a 1TB caviar green WD drive, looks like those are pretty quiet, perhaps the combination of both, since SSDs have low space.

 

[tlarkin]

This is going to be used for higher end computing and gaming? My computer is probably on par with a ceiling fan as far as noise goes. The only downside to the HAF 932 is that the LEDs on it are super bright. You can change those out, but by default they really light up a room.

 

[Bacon]

This is going to be used for higher end computing and gaming? My computer is probably on par with a ceiling fan as far as noise goes. The only downside to the HAF 932 is that the LEDs on it are super bright. You can change those out, but by default they really light up a room.

Looks aren't really a major concern, I still want it to look stylish, but it doesn't need to have LEDs and all that fun stuff

Keep in mind, there's 1700 dollars to use here, could probably use 2 to 300 of that for a very nice case, I just don't know what to look for.

Perhaps a Lian-Li? I don't really know

 

[Bodaggit23]

I considered an SSD but some of them have long write times and I'm not up on them.
Basically once you get everything installed, they're fast, but it takes a long time to install
software and the OS.

I know the Intel X-25 is the best to get, but they came out with a new one, and I'm not sure which one it is.

Sorry I forgot the cooler. Here's what you want for air cooling.

I don't know if the pumps on water cooled systems make noise or not. I don't think it's necessary really.

You'll get lots more input during the day today to help you spend up all that money.

 

[Bacon]

Well, this is the SSD I am looking at.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233087

 

[Bodaggit23]

Well, this is the SSD I am looking at.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233087

The model I was looking for is the Intel X25-M G2
(there's a "G2" in the model number, like SSDSA2M080G2R5)

If I was going to get an SSD, I would get this one for my OS and apps, and get a physical drive for storage.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023

You're going to pay a bit more for one of these, but they're the fastest
drives out right now.

Like I said, the app load times may be faster with most SSD's, but
installing will take longer than physical hard drives. A lot longer.

We have SSD's in our work computers and installing anything takes forever.

Here's a good article and some benchmarks for a few SSD's.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=4

 

[diduknowthat]

If you want a really quiet computer go with a P182 case and replace all the fans with Noctua SF 12 800rpm fans. Those fans are pretty much the best quiet fan that moves a good amount of air money can buy - no joke, they are the reference fans used by silentpcreview.com.

Next you'll want to grab a passive heatsink, I think the Prolimatech Megahalem cooler actually does quite well going fanless or with low rpm fans.

For hard drive, either use an SSD or use the rubber vibration dampeners in the P182, the former works better but the latter is cheaper.

For powersupply, go with some well built Corsair or Seasonic model for cheap, or go with a fanless silverstone model.

Graphics card, if it's anything more powerful than the 8800GT, you will not be able to use passive cooling. Try to find a model with a non-reference heatsink that has a large fan. I think Saphire makes some pretty quiet models. If you're using a relatively cool running card you can slap on a Accelero X1 heatsink for passive cooling.

And finally, don't use watercooling. Water cooling requires a pump and fans, often more fans than a good air cooling system. I don't know why people always think water cooling is quite...

 

[Jamin43]

FOund a hot case deal 60 bucks A/R - Free Shipping for an Antec 900. Enough people on this site can tell you if it's quiet or not - but it's got a good reputation - and a TON OF REVIEWS on Newegg.

Free Shipping to boot

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...129021&cm_re=antec_900-_-11-129-021-_-Product

 

[funkysnair]

The model I was looking for is the Intel X25-M G2
(there's a "G2" in the model number, like SSDSA2M080G2R5)

If I was going to get an SSD, I would get this one for my OS and apps, and get a physical drive for storage.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023

You're going to pay a bit more for one of these, but they're the fastest
drives out right now.

Like I said, the app load times may be faster with most SSD's, but
installing will take longer than physical hard drives. A lot longer.

We have SSD's in our work computers and installing anything takes forever.

Here's a good article and some benchmarks for a few SSD's.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=4

"The more important values are still random read/write performance"

the raptor is urinated on by nearly all ssd's apart from a few when it comes to moving around 4gig files....

you do realise that not all ssd's are the same?

 

[Bodaggit23]

you do realise that not all ssd's are the same?

Of course, as I stated.

My point is, do some research and find the best, because not every SSD will be faster than a physical drive.

My Velociraptor in my i7 rig at home smokes the i7 rigs we have at work, and the ones at work have SSD's in them.

 

[Bacon]

The model I was looking for is the Intel X25-M G2
(there's a "G2" in the model number, like SSDSA2M080G2R5)

If I was going to get an SSD, I would get this one for my OS and apps, and get a physical drive for storage.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023

You're going to pay a bit more for one of these, but they're the fastest
drives out right now.

Like I said, the app load times may be faster with most SSD's, but
installing will take longer than physical hard drives. A lot longer.

We have SSD's in our work computers and installing anything takes forever.

Here's a good article and some benchmarks for a few SSD's.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=4

Odd, the specs on that SSD list a 70mb/s write, yet the one I was looking at lsits a 200mb/s over double the speed. Unless theirs some sort of marketing trick going on there.

 

[funkysnair]

Of course, as I stated.

My point is, do some research and find the best, because not every SSD will be faster than a physical drive.

My Velociraptor in my i7 rig at home smokes the i7 rigs we have at work, and the ones at work have SSD's in them.

i would put mine up against yours

Intel X25-M 80gig made both my raptors homeless, intel is the way... stear clear of samsung drives unless you want to buy there high priced slc

Odd, the specs on that SSD list a 70mb/s write, yet the one I was looking at lsits a 200mb/s over double the speed. Unless theirs some sort of marketing trick going on there.

the speeds they list is just a gimmick, the random reads and writes is the ones to look at, you will write and read more small files than you will large thats why they call them real world performances

 

[funkysnair]

i would also like to point out something more serious about these drives!!

the space is a real killer, i have got 25gig left although i do have a 1tb drive as secondary you will want your games on the ssd to take advantage of the load times-how many games do you have?

what you need to think about is what you have that you want on your ssd and how much space it will take, my windows 7 instilation took up alot of space

i have 2 games installed all my music is on the secondary so all i have on my ssd is os,2 games and all my programs and thats taken up about 50gig

im looking into another 80gig ssd for raid0 just for the space issue, oh and the increased speed

 

[Bodaggit23]

i would put mine up against yours

Intel X25-M 80gig made both my raptors homeless, intel is the way... stear clear of samsung drives unless you want to buy there high priced slc

There's a communication breakdown somewhere here, because I agree with you, but we seem to be arguing.

I agree, all SSD's are not created equal, and I recommended the X25-M...

My Velociraptor smoked a Patriot SSD. Some cheap junk our IT guy thought
would be fast.

I have no doubt an X25 would leave my Velociraptor in the dust.

 

[konsole]

Modern HHD hard drives create little to no noise especially when there inside the computer case. The case fans are what create a majority of the noise. I find the case fans with the enlobal bearings or magnetic barometric bearings to be real quiet. Slower moving large fans arent a bad choice either.

 

[funkysnair]

There's a communication breakdown somewhere here, because I agree with you, but we seem to be arguing.

I agree, all SSD's are not created equal, and I recommended the X25-M...

My Velociraptor smoked a Patriot SSD. Some cheap junk our IT guy thought
would be fast.

I have no doubt an X25 would leave my Velociraptor in the dust.

i am not arguing, you are arguing lol...

no i just misread your post thats all-!!

i did buy a crucial ssd for £160 and i sent it back next day, put my raptor back in.....