Silent as Possible Gaming Build, Opinions Please...

[crockman]

1. PC Use: Mainstream Gaming, IE...Various Online MMO's, Star Wars Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, EVE Online, plus a few others. Fully Modded out Minecraft. General Everyday Tasks (Web Surfing, Bill Paying, Etc..)

2. Budget: Trying to spend $1200 or less on the Parts I still need.

3. Country: All Parts will be bought in the USA

4. N/A

5. Brand Preference: For this Build I'd prefer an Intel CPU, AMD/ATI GPU.

6. Current Parts Reuse: Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse and for the Time Being my HD 7850 2GB GPU.

7. OC: OC'ing will not be done.

8. Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 is what I use at this time.

9. Build Date: As we speak, I've already Purchased the 500GB SSD.

10. Software: 64-Bit Windows 7 or 8 is needed.



My Current PC Parts Choices: I'm within a Short Driving Distance to a Micro Center(MC), so I'm MC Biased. I'm as well Biased to buying from Newegg. I do buy Parts from other Companies as well.


PC Part Picker


I prefer as Silent as Possible PC without suffering any Gaming Performance Loss.


Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Titanium ($110 at Newegg)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352050&ignorebbr=1

MB/CPU Combo (Micro Center): ASRock Z97 Pro4/ i7-4790k ($330 at MC)
http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/intel-processor-bundles.aspx

CPU Cooler: Arctic Alpine 11-Plus ($10 at Newegg)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186070

Cooler Options: Arctic Freezer i11 ($23 at Newegg)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186093

Raijintek Aidos ($23 at Amazon)
http://www.hardwareslave.com/review...re-reviews/raijintek-aidos-cpu-cooler-review/

No Overclocking will be done so an Elaborate HS/F is not needed. My Nephew has an Arctic Alpine 11-plus on His 4790k, with it the Idle temps are around 35C, Load temps he has not checked yet.

Memory: Crucial Ballistic Sport DDR3-1600 (2x8GB) ($120 at MC)
http://www.microcenter.com/product/...l_Desktop_Memory_Kit_(Two_8GB_Memory_Modules)

Storage: Crucial BX100 500GB SSD has already been purchased from MC

Video Card: For the time being I plan to reuse my HD7850 2GB. 1 reason why is I really don't know what would be a Wise/Substantial Upgrade to a 7850 ?

Power Supply: I do not plan to OC nor do I plan more than 1 Video Card. Considering Ill be upgrading to a more power hungry Card than my 7850 fairly soon, What Watt PSU should I buy ?, any Brand preferences ?

Many Thanks in Advance

 

[mfenn]

Asking for a build to be "silent as possible" doesn't make much sense. "Silent" is binary, either it is silent or it is not. "Quiet" on the other hand has degrees to it.

Also, building something that tries to be silent "without suffering any Gaming Performance Loss" is impossible as the statement is self contradictory. Either you are willing to accept compromises in performance, or the goal of "silence" means nothing.

So what we need is some clarification. Which of these best describes what you're looking for:

- Absolute silence
- Quiet during gaming
- Quiet during non gaming activities but louder when gaming
- Maximum gaming performance

 

[jime1]

I always dreamed of a PC which made no noise, It would be Quiet at any and every situation and do all the wok quietly....
of course, I want it to be quiet during gaming and other heavy works on it, that's the dream ! every 1s dream !

 

[OlyAR15]

Actually there is a way to make a silent and fast gaming pc, just depends on how extreme you want to go.

One idea I thought about and almost built was to build a watercooling system, and plumb the radiator, pump and fan into another room (or in my case, the crawl space). This way, all the noise-making components are in another room.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Does anyone remember a 92x38mm fan called the Vantec Tornado?

Everything today is silent by comparison. There is "constant noise," "intermittent noise," "barely perceptible noise" -- an entire range. And there is an entire range of tolerance for any of it.

Like death and taxes, it is certain that one needs airflow for electronic components and any cooling strategy -- water or heatpipes. Airflow generally means fans, and fans introduce an increase in the noise level.

I had almost become a noise-reduction obsessive, until I realized that the noise I was reducing any way I could only occurred at stress-test temperatures. If you ask me, I got rid of any noise -- to speak of. Even in the stress-tests. But airflow had the priority.

 

[Termie]

If you want silent, invest in a power supply with a hybrid fan mode that shuts off at idle, like the seasonic models (550w is enough for you), plus a much better heatsink than what you are considering, like an arctic i30 or better yet a Noctua 120mm model.

As for video cards, an R9 290 Tri X is quiet, but an MSI GTX 970 is quieter, especially at idle when it shuts off its fans. Both are twice as fast as your card.

 

[Essence_of_War]

If you want silent, invest in a power supply with a hybrid fan mode that shuts off at idle, like the seasonic models (550w is enough for you), plus a much better heatsink than what you are considering, like an arctic i30 or better yet a Noctua 120mm model.

I agree with this. I would not waste money on 92mm fans for cpu coolers. As a rule of thumb, small fans usually have to spin faster than larger fans to move the same amount of air. Faster spinning fans generally create more noise.

My usual recommendations are the scythe kotetsu, the scythe mugen max, or the acfz i30 (as Termie recommended). All of those are only modestly more expensive, but they perform very well, and have excellent acoustics. If you're willing to spend a bit more, you get into striking range of some of the nice Noctua models that Termie alluded to. The NH-U14S, for example, performs very well, and is very quiet.

 

[DSF]

Asking for a build to be "silent as possible" doesn't make much sense. "Silent" is binary, either it is silent or it is not. "Quiet" on the other hand has degrees to it.

Also, building something that tries to be silent "without suffering any Gaming Performance Loss" is impossible as the statement is self contradictory. Either you are willing to accept compromises in performance, or the goal of "silence" means nothing.

So what we need is some clarification. Which of these best describes what you're looking for:

- Absolute silence
- Quiet during gaming
- Quiet during non gaming activities but louder when gaming
- Maximum gaming performance

No need to sugarcoat it mfenn, tell us how you really feel!

@crockman: For what it's worth as someone who enjoys both games and building quiet machines, I think the third option above is the most satisfying on a budget like yours, which is roughly what I spend on a new machine as well.

If you wear headphones while gaming I would absolutely go for #3. There's not much sense in overspending on noise reduction if you can't hear the fans over the sound of Battlefield 4 anyway. Building a computer that's quiet at idle is pretty simple now, so you're not really having to compromise much at either end of the spectrum. Trying to hit #1 or #4 (and to a lesser but still noticeable extent #2) is where you really have to start distorting your component choices and/or spending more.

 

[Ketchup]

A 4790k is definitely not the CPU to buy if you want silence. If you want to stay up there in performance, try a 4790s at most. A T would be even better, but $500+ for just a CPU is hard to swallow.

 

[aigomorla]

Asking for a build to be "silent as possible" doesn't make much sense. "Silent" is binary, either it is silent or it is not. "Quiet" on the other hand has degrees to it.

Also, building something that tries to be silent "without suffering any Gaming Performance Loss" is impossible as the statement is self contradictory. Either you are willing to accept compromises in performance, or the goal of "silence" means nothing.

So what we need is some clarification. Which of these best describes what you're looking for:

- Absolute silence
- Quiet during gaming
- Quiet during non gaming activities but louder when gaming
- Maximum gaming performance

I half agree with this post..
It is possible to be totally Silent without suffering any gaming loss, but the price on it will be staggering....
Were talking about a liquid cooling setup on a massive scale where every last heat sink you have is replaced with a water block, on a very low FPI radiator with a near passive state, or very slow spinning fans.
The PSU would need to be passive cooled, or a watercooled PSU as well.

Then the machine will be SILENT.
I have built one machine like this for my friend who is a musician, and well, the price tag on it was enormous just on the cooling....

Silent is binary... its either silent or not...
Quiet has many different shades, from quiet, quieter, and quietest.

like i would like something as quiet as a dell....
or I would like something quieter then a dell...
or i would want the quietest machine my budget can afford. :biggrin:

The cost of quiet is also exponential, meaning the quieter you get, the more it costs on the cooling end.
That is due to the cost of:
1. Heat sink (both cpu / gpu)
2. the Fans (as they can get really pricey in the range of 25-30 dollars)
3. the noise reduction mats.
4. The PSU....

 

[mfenn]

Actually there is a way to make a silent and fast gaming pc, just depends on how extreme you want to go.

Not on $1200 there isn't. I should have been more explicit in my post about this, but it basically boils down to:

- Silent
- Fast
- Inexpensive

You can have any 2 out of the 3.

 

[crockman]

Thank You for all the Replies.

mfenn -

Quiet during non gaming activities but louder when gaming

I'll go with that option.

With the PC I have now, listed in my Sig., It's loud enough to cause my Ears to constantly ring. I'm trying to nullify that ring.

My Antec 300 Case, bought a few years ago for less then $30 on sale, is a good performer but is not at all quiet. I think that Fractal Design Define R5 case will help a lot.

I will definitely be buying an R9 290 Card, it's equivalent, or greater for sure. Getting a real quiet 290 or greater is probably not possible, but quiet as possible is a Goal.

How much Wattage do I need to supply this PC Build and add on some Watts for Future Proofing ?

Termie

If you want silent, invest in a power supply with a hybrid fan mode that shuts off at idle, like the seasonic models (550w is enough for you),

550 High Quality Watts from a Seasonic is enough Watts (I'll only be using 1 Video Card) ? I do agree about your choice of buying the Hybrid Fan type, was reading about those yesterday.

Any specific PSU Models you suggest ?

Termie

plus a much better heatsink than what you are considering, like an arctic i30 or better yet a Noctua 120mm model.

Your right about that, problem is I'm not real good at installing an HS/F. I tried installing the Arctic Freezer i11 on the PC I built for my Nephew. I built it with the i7 4790k/ASRock Z97 Pro4 bundle from Micro Center (Micro Center is only a 20 minute drive from me). It's a decent price and is performing very well, so would really like that same bundle, quiet or not.
Anyway, on the i11 I could not figure how much to tighten the 4 Screws into the Back Plate. I definitely didn't want it too loose, but what I did was tightened it too much because 1 of the 'Nuts' in the Back Plate spun inside the Plate not allowing the screw to turn out (decided to change the Air Flow direction on it is why I took it back out)(New Back Plate from Arctic was only $2, new bag of screws $1). Then just bought and installed the Arctic Alpine 11-Plus on it for it needed no back Plate. He does not OC so figured the Alpine would be enough.

On my PC, your right, I'll go with a bigger HS/F for the less noise. Am not sure which to exactly buy of yet, but am reading Lots of reviews about HS/F's. Again though I'm crappy at HS/F install, I use to be an AMD Fanboy since the 1990's, my Nephews Intel was my very 1st Intel HS/F install. Btw I feel the Intel Stock HS/F is not a secure enough attachment.

DSF

If you wear headphones while gaming

I do not wear them for they drive me nuts , I don't even like wearing Hats.

So in Short:

A R9 290 for $350 or Less ?
An easy enough to install HS/F for $50 or less ?
A PSU ? I'll probably have to be pretty adjustable on the price.

Didn't mean for you to think "absolute silent" for I do enjoy a performer PC in games. Just trying to pick out the quietest Parts in a Given Performance Range. The Budget can be adjusted to save my Ears.

Thanks again for All the Replies.

Btw. Water Cooling, which is quieter, Is not in the plans. I'm not the most talented PC Builder, I've been faster then the Speed of Sound, Mach 1.3 to be exact, Solo in an Air Force T-38, but I can't build a PC for crap

 

[DigDog]

my standard build from 6 months ago is practically silent, and i didn't do anything special to it.
just because a haswell + 770 driving a 1920x1080 monitor just never make enough effort to heat things up.

 

[inachu]

Agree talking about fan noise but so far nobody has brought up the topic of killing the noise with pc case padding. Also if you do not have carpet in your room then you could place your pc on the floor even though many times that is the best place to suck up dust.

 

[Ketchup]

If you haven't looked already, reviews right here at AT can be very helpful for this.

For example, currently Nvidia is going to give you the lowest amount of noise for a high performance card, unless you are planning on getting your own cooling solution for these:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8568/the-geforce-gtx-970-review-feat-evga/15

They also consume less power, which means that you can go with a lower output (less expensive) power supply, or a higher output power supply that would be quieter, due to the fact that is would not operate near its max output.

 

[kiriki]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is what sort of FPS you are expecting and what image quality settings you use. The reason I mentioned this is because living with a slightly lower FPS would mean a lower GPU horsepower requirement, therefore lower fan speeds on a GPU. For example, WoW has a minimum and maximum FPS slider in the options. As a quick test I locked the max FPS to 50 instead of unlocked. My GPU temps dropped from mid 50's to ~50 due to the lower load and slightly slower fan speed.

 

[Essence_of_War]

A R9 290 for $350 or Less ?
An easy enough to install HS/F for $50 or less ?
A PSU ? I'll probably have to be pretty adjustable on the price.

1) I think you can do better. The Sapphire Tri-X R9-290x is at $310 right now.

2) As I mentioned above, the Mugen Max hits the cycle of "quiet", good performance, in your price range, and straightforward to install. You can check out the SPCR review here (they also review the DeepCool Lucifer in this article):

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1443-page1.html

Page 4 has some notes on mounting, page 6/7 have performance/dB notes. At full speed (~1300 RPM) you produce ~32 dB, but it's a PWM fan and if you're willing to drop the speed to ~800 RPM you only give up 5C of cooling under load while dropping the noise by a full 16 dB (!). Outside of an anechoic chamber, I'd be shocked if that was audible.

 

[mfenn]

Thank You for all the Replies.

mfenn - I'll go with that option.

Thank you for clarifying that. Most of the parts you have picked out will be good for that task. Here's my comments:

- Case: Good
- CPU/mobo: Good
- HSF: Check out the Scythe Mugen 4 for $50 at Amazon. They're extremely quiet and cool pretty well. They are kind of huge though, the mounting system isn't that bad.
- RAM: Good
- SSD : Good
- GPU: A 7850 is a quiet card, but it isn't the fastest card anymore. It should be fine for MMOs at 1680x1050 though. If you do want to upgrade, the GTX 970 is the card to look at in terms of high performance and low heat/noise.
- PSU: The Seasonic S12G 550W is a unit to look at for $70 AR. It's plenty of power for a single GPU system.

 

[MongGrel]

Not on $1200 there isn't. I should have been more explicit in my post about this, but it basically boils down to:

- Silent
- Fast
- Inexpensive

You can have any 2 out of the 3.

This.

NM, looks resolved.

 

[MongGrel]

Agree talking about fan noise but so far nobody has brought up the topic of killing the noise with pc case padding. Also if you do not have carpet in your room then you could place your pc on the floor even though many times that is the best place to suck up dust.

I'd never pad a PC case myself, just as a side note.

That's like putting insulation on something you want cool, unless you were water cooling it pretty seriously at the same time and would increase the price all over.

 

[crockman]

Hello,

On the HS/F: Arctic Freezer i11 that I had purchased for my Nephews PC but decided not to use, I'm going to mount that on my PC. It's 74 CFM Air Flow at only 23 Decibels w/ A 6-Year Warranty. You cannot put any 92mm Fan you choose on this thing, but a New Fan Direct from Arctic is only $3.

http://www.arctic.ac/us_en/freezer-i11.html

If I do decide to buy an HS/F I will purchase the Noctua NH-U9S.

Noctua NH-U9S

Reasons why:
Might as well use that Arctic i11 for I already own it, it is a good quiet performer and is of smaller size to as not interfere w/ RAM or PCIe Slots. I just need to figure out how much to Tighten the 4 Long Screws that Screw into the Back Plate.
If I Buy: The Noctua NH-U9S of any other HS/F is smaller so as again to avoid Interference w/ RAM/PCIe and doesn't suffer a lot of performance for being of smaller size.

The PSU:

mfenn

Seasonic S12G 550W

I like your choice.

My Choice, if there are no strong opinions against, is:
The Rosewill Capstone 550 Watt.

Rosewill Capstone 550W

Main reason: Atm that Rosewill has an Excellent price of $40 After Rebate on what appears to be an Excellent PSU. Plus hard to overlook a 7-Year Warranty.


Video Card: For now I'm going to continue using my HD 7850.

It should be fine for MMOs at 1680x1050 though

mfenn
I agree for now it should be fine for MMO's

When I do decide to upgrade it:

the GTX 970 is the card to look at in terms of high performance and low heat/noise.

mfenn

I Agree. I was looking at Tech Reports of the GTX 980, 970 and R9-290. It does appear the 970 is the Sweet Spot of Performance per Noise/Price Ratio.

Any Ya's or Nah's on the Rosewill Capstone 550 ?

Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[mfenn]

The Capstone 550W is an excellent deal at $40 AR and is not especially noisy.

 

[gsilver]

My PC isn't silent but it's pretty quiet:

CPU Cooler: SILVERSTONE HE02 (passive)
VGA cooler: Arctic Accelero Xtreme III
VGA card: GTX 970
SSD (no HDD)
Case fan: Noctura NF-S12B
PSU: Seasonic SS-760XP

It rarely audibly spins up under gameplay, and the lone case fan is directly above the CPU HSF, blowing up. It keeps the CPU cool enough that I don't need a fan monted onto it.

Though I will mention to make sure that you have a case which lets you vent the PSU up. I'm using a Silverstone FT-03, which vents down for some unfathomable reason. which makes it so that I cannot run the PSU in the semi-passive mode that I paid extra for. On the plus side, I have a powerful gaming PC in the mATX form factor that rarely audibly spins up.


...Not gunna lie. I think about building a fully passive system for web browsing sometimes.

 

[crockman]

The New Build is up n running.

I made a few changes to my original Parts List.

Parts I Chose:

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Very Nice Case, much Larger then I had expected. Lots of room behind MB for Cable routing. Removable HDD Racks are nice and the tons of interior room provided for installing parts is great, will not again purchase a small case, this Large R5 is definitely the way to go.

MB/CPU: ASRock Z97 Pro4 / i5-4690k Combo from Micro Center. I wanted the Define R5 case but had decided to accept buying the Corsair 100R Silent Edition case because it was 60$ cheaper. By choosing the cheaper i5 instead of the i7 it freed up the cash to buy the R5 case.

CPU Cooler: Arctic Alpine 11-Plus At Ambient Room temperature of 72 degrees(F) w/ only the 2 provided fans of the R5 running at Medium speed. My i5 sits around 31(C) & MB temp 28(C)(Temps via ASRocks A-Tuning APP) while websurfing. Have not done any gaming yet so do not know Load temps yet. Later If I decide to do some OC I'll look into a better HS/F

RAM: Crucial Ballistic Sport ddr3-1600 2x8GB

Hard Drive: Crucial BX100 500GB SSD

Power Supply: XFX XTR 550watt Modular Decided in favor of the XFX over the Rosewill Capstone due to the Capstone was not Modular. The XFX had a $20 MIR, $60 end price is not bad for a Gold Rated PSU with a 5 year Warranty.

Optical Drive: $15 Samsung DvD Burner from Micro Center(MC). I don't use Blu-Ray so simply bought the best bang-for-buck DvD writer at MC.

Operating System Windows 8.1 64-bit OEM Been running Windows 7 since it launched, so figured I'd try out 8 until Windows 10 Launches.

Video Card: Atm I'm reusing the Powercolor HD7850 2GB I bought a year ago at Newegg. It's definitely the loudest thing in my PC, plus my particular 7850 has Fan-Rattle. A known flaw of my Powercolor 7850 is a loud persistent Fan Rattle.
When I do upgrade this 7850 it's going to be to something quiet. R9-290's have some very nice low prices atm but I'm guessing they will be quite Loud. The GTX 970's are a bit expensive at this time.

Thanks much for all of your inputs.

PS Please feel free to chime in with any closing opinions or questions.

 

[mfenn]

Glad it worked out and you like it!