Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
opinion on quiet PC
so, i've been looking at the silverstone FT02B case and considering a near silent build. the ideal build for this attempt is to have only the 3 bottom fans on the FT02B running at low speed(500rpm? each) and the external exhaust GPU fan running as low as possible when gaming
i'm considering the seasonic x400 powersupply, but, what would you guys think as the most powerful build that can fit under the 400w power budget? another thing i've been looking at is the scythe susanoo in a fanless configuration. basiclly a vanilla build w/o any OCing attempts.
considering the sound proofing material in the case and the 3x 180mm fans on the bottom I think i should be ok on the heat side, however i'm not sure what kind of machine a 400w powersupply can push that gives relatively good gaming performace. would it make more sense to wait for ivybridge on the power budget?
Comments
If you're going to pull enough power that you'd question whether 400 W is enough, then noise from the power supply fan would be drowned out by other components, anyway.
You can have a completely silent computer with stuff like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131732
and an SSD with no hard drive, in addition to the fanless power supply. But that would make a nettop, and not something interesting for gaming. It sounds like you're more interested in something quiet with good performance rather than completely silent.
The Seasonic X-400 fanless is basically just this power supply with the fan removed and some extra heatsinks added:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151098
(Or maybe it's the 650 W version rather than the 560 W. It's something like that, anyway.) And that power supply will shut down the fan below about 40% load, and then have it kick in slowly if needed. That's cheaper than the 400 fanless, too. It's also got a very nice fan, so that even if the fan does kick in, you're not going to hear it over the rest of the system.
The trick to building a quiet pc is to realise that the noise level of the computer is based on the loudest component. Often this is either the cpu fan or the gpu fan. Though a cheap psu unit can be noisy but assuming you buy a decent psu then the next thing to look at is buying a decent large fan, large heat sink cpu fan. Basically a small fan or faster turning fan generate more noise. So if possible replace all fans than come with anything (case, cpu etc) with decent low noise large fans. Also get a unit that allows you to control the speed of your fans. However you do things, get a piece of software to monitor the temp so that you know the pc isn't overheating. As for sound proofing a pc, this will have the side effect of raising the internal temp which could in turn require greater air flow, ergo needing fans to spin faster and thereby generate more noise.
Forgive the generic reply but I hope it helps a litte
well the loudest component in the machine will definately be the GPU fan which i dont really have much choice over if the goal is a gaming based machine. as for the PSU, i was thinking about the fanless mainly because I may end up unhooking 1 or 2 of the bottom fans on the FT02 depending on thermal performance. I simply want to remove as many noise source out of the equation as possible. granted the x650 may be the better solution but I'd like to explore the possibility of the fanless option before falling back onto the "tried and true" solution. If i have to fall back to fan based powersupply, i'd go with a 80+ platnium rather then a 80+ gold.
the FT02 is about the quietest case i can find with acceptable thermal performace to handle a gaming based "quiet" machine. here is a review of it http://www.silentpcreview.com/silverstone-ft02
with 3x 180mm filtered intake fans, it has enough airflow volume to attempt a quiet build. with its vertical thermal design, i shouldnt need to hook up any other fans to have acceptable thermal performance(heat flows up afterall:p)
the only issue i'm afraid of on this case is the harmonics that the 3 fans may generate operating at the same speed. i've had cases where frequency harmonics from the fans increased the overall noise level of the system. but i think the noise dampeners inside the case may help with the harmonics.
With a 400W power supply, it's all about the video card, as you can get any CPU to fit in that with stock clocks. Waiting for Ivy Bridge won't do you much good with that, as the desktop CPU envelope is probably going to stay around 90W/125W areas for a good while. Waiting for next generation video cards, however, may be a consideration.
The easiest/quietest bet would be a 6850, it runs at peak around 108W, and nothing else comes close to that much horsepower while using that little electrical power. The next generation update to this from ATI shouldn't be too far away (I would guess inside of 5-6 months), with the competition from nVidia probably a month or two beyond that (unless they hit a breakthrough soon, they are lagging ATI by a bit) and it may be worth waiting for to see what kind of horsepower advancement they can make keeping the lower power constraint. Right now the closest thing to the 6850 in terms of power use that nVidia has in the desktop market is the 550Ti (116W), and the 6850 is noticeably faster than a 550.
Other, more powerful cards can fit inside of that envelope as well, but they will use considerably more power (and consequently, produce more heat).
If you are really wanting a silent build, and are willing to put forth extra money for it, you may want to consider liquid cooling. With something like a Zalman Reserator for your CPU (which is totally silent), and a 2x or 3x120MM radiator for a video card water block, you'd have the same 3 120mm fans running, but all of them dedicated to just the video card, and you could place the radiator outside the case entirely so you wouldn't have to worry as much about case ventilation. It would be pretty darned quiet. A setup with a 3x120 radiator could run a GTX580 near silently.
the reason i shy away from liquid cooling solution is that it's a single point of failure. most liquid solutions are hinged on a single water pump and when the 1 moving part (water pump) goes, so does your entire system. also i have very limited choice when it comes to memory for liquid cooling(few manufactures and generally wider then heat spreader.)
I may be wrong, but i dont believe there is currently a liquid solution that offers redundent array of water pump to prevent a single point of failure from becoming catastraphic. with a heatsink, fan failure is commonly gradual, water pump on the other hand is fairly suddent. granted the chances are low, but i still consider the risk unacceptable.
as for ivybridge, a TDP reduction generally accompany a die shrink and when looking at a fixed power budget, i thought it might be an option. maybe i should looking into when the next die shrink is due for GPU's:D
also, i've never built a desktop with mobil chip before, how would that work out in a build like this? hehe maybe i should wait a week or so for that Llano review afterall:D
anyway, not really looking for a killer game box. specs i'm looking for is 1900x1200 resolution with ALOT of the blings turned off. never cared much about shadows, hate bloom effect, can live w/o HDR, never found a need for AA on my resolution. would be interested in seeing tessellation but can live w/o considering i dont play much flight sims anymore. i do enjoy high textures and some simple stuff, but those generally dont require that much horsepower to push. my current gear is a 275gtx so it's not like i'm into the latest and greatest anyway:D
moderate performance for near term forseeable game releases, silent and cool running is more of my cup of tea since i tend to use my machine 12+ hrs a day in a room that wasnt meant to accommodate extensive electronic equipment thermal output:D. (part of the reason i'd like to stick with the 400w power budget rather then letting loose with a 650+w. bigger the powersupply the more reason to put more heat into the box:D)
Your entire computer is nothing but single point failures: your CPU fan stops, computer is done. Power supply dies, computer is done. GPU fan stops, computer is done. The list goes on: unless you have server class hardware with redundant components and buffered RAM, or a mission critical embedded PC, your entire system is made up of nothing but single point failure possibilities. A pump is no different, and no more or less likely to fail than any other mechanical part of your computer.
You don't need liquid cooling for memory. In fact, you don't need anything special for memory at all. Sure, you can buy water jackets for them, but that's just because some people will buy anything... The heat spreader that comes on them is more than enough (and most of the time they don't even need that unless your really trying to overclock them).
Older liquid kits offered multiple pumps, if that is something you are really worried about. But that was before there were really any reliability numbers, and now pumps have proven to be just as reliable as fans, so generally kits only ship with a single pump any more, and I generally see them running for years with no problems under high run time environments (ranging from several hours a day to 24-7). In fact, there's nothing stopping you from just adding a second pump to any custom liquid cooling you build, if your still worried about it. You could have as many pumps as you wanted, and as big/small/loud/quiet as you want.
And, if something does happen (because it can), it's not catastrophic. A liquid system can run at 100% load for several minutes with no pump (you still have a lot of water in the water block to heat up - and trust me, I've tried it before). CPU's and GPUs have excellent over-temperature protection now that they didn't used to, and motherboards have much better monitoring and alarming now.
A fan failing is just as bad, and just as likely - after all, the only difference between a fan and a pump is that one has a seal. But if you don't like liquid, you don't like it. But you can't beat it when it comes to trying to set up for a silent option, because it allows you to move the heat outside of the case, and spread it out over as large of a radiator as you want - so large even that you don't need any fans at all if you wanted to.
Die shrinks do generally come with power reductions, but chip makers usually account for that by boosting the stock speeds, so you end up with a generation-to-generation stagnant power use (and subsequently, heat load). Of course, you could always underclock to bring it back down, but on the other side of that, you could underclock a current generation CPU as well, it's just a matter of how much performance you think you can live with.
You can use a mobile chip in a desktop, but your going to need the motherboard that has the proper socket, and find the heatsink that mates up. No real difference other than that. Motherboards that accept mobile CPUs exist but are hard to find but not impossible, as are heatsinks, but CPUs themselves are pretty easy to find. You would have a lot less heat (mobile chips are on the order of 30-45W, desktop chips are 90-125W), but your also going to sacrifice a lot of speed to do it (both stock speeds and turbo boost speeds). You could accomplish the same thing, really, just by underclocking a desktop CPU - because that's all that a mobile processor really is these days. Then you would have the full range of motherboards and heat sinks to work with.
well, yah but i'm talking about salvage. if your powersupply goes, it doesnt usually take out the cpu/gpu with it. (usually
) when your waterpump goes, it has the potential to cook everything including the board. I guess i'm paranoid about it from my early experiance with "overcooking" AMD cpu's:D granted as you mentioned, thermal monitoring and safeguards are much more advanced these days, but i'm still just not very comforable with the idea of all cooling hinged on a single moving component. with fans, heatsinks act as a buffer while the safeguards kick in. with liquid, i really cant see the thermal capacity of a few grams of water inside a waterblock can buffer even an idle cpu....
as for the pump array, i was thinking more of a failsafe/failover type system where the 2nd pump would automaticlly kick in after primary pump failure is detected. I'm not aware of any liquid system that include such setup on the market today. as i said, i realize the chance is small and pumps are generally reliable these days, but it's not something i perfer personally. I guess i'm biased towards what i see in the rack servers we had in the office:D maybe thats why i like the FT02 design, the fan configureation reminds me of how servers are built. but they are oversized for lower RPM operation.
I have considered liquid systems in the past, but it's more of a heatpipe/passive design. a alcohol based solution and maybe 50 feet of copper tubing was involved in the design:D didnt follow through with it due to logistical issues. (cant really move a machine with 50 feet of copper hanging out of it:D)
anyway, if i get a 125 watt cpu + a 200 watt gpu, that "might" leave me enough headroom to fill that 400 watt budge if i can find a miser board and go easy on the memory. most games doesnt really pull the full power of the system anyway so the 400 watt budget shouldnt be reached even duraing gaming. besides, a quality 80+ gold unit generally has another 50 watt or so headroom in the design anyway:D
You know I had the same desire. A nice quiet machine.
I bought a Gigabyte x58a-ud3r MB and a Corsair H50 cooling system. Unfortunately the cooling system doesn't fit on the board
I will try without the cooling system and see what happens =/
A couple of teaspoons of water plus the metal in the waterblock has much much more heat capacity than even a very large heat pipe heatsink. After all, those heatsinks are mostly aluminium fins with little actual density to them, and the only real thermal capacity they have is in the copper block.
Water has an amazing heat capacity (the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of the material). In fact, if you actually look at heat capacities:
Copper: 3.45 J/(cm3 K)
Aluminum: 2.42 J/(cm3 K)
Air: 0.001 J/(cm3 K)
That's your basic heat sink, and why it takes so much air flow in order to cool off your components. Keep in mind, you have very little actual copper (just the base plate), and the fins have low density (to keep them light), so you don't have a whole lot of actual metal there.
Now take that same amount of metal, and turn it into a water block, and add in that few grams of water
Water: 4.22 J/(cm3 K)
The water actually will absorb more heat than the metal will... and by a good amount. It's more than 4,000 times better at absorbing heat than air.
And that isn't even mentioning thermal conductivity (the capacity for a material to conduct heat):
Copper: 401 W/(m K) (this is why the baseplates are copper, but it's heavy and expensive, so we use aluminum in the fins)
Aluminum: 237 W/(m K)
Water: 0.6 W/(m K)
Air: 0.025 W/(m K)
Water is again more than 20 times more effective at conducting heat, which means you can transport/pump/move the water 20 times slower and achieve the same overall thermal performance.
If the pump fails, you'll start to get temperature alarms in a minute or two (you still have to heat up all that water, which it can absorb a lot of heat), and there is also the possibility of thermal driving head depending on your tubing arrangements (where the difference in density between the hot water in the water block and the cooler water in the radiator can actually cause the fluid to flow without a pump), and in my testing at 100% load, you have about 2-3 minutes before you get temperature alarms, and 5-6 minutes before the computer will shut itself down on overtemp. I've never seen a component "fry" because the pump stopped, but I concede it's possible.
Salvagability, your much better off with water, because you get minutes, rather than seconds, to react. And that extended time allows for automatic protection to be more likely to prevent additional component failure, because temperatures spike much more slowly (more than 4,000 times slower) with a water block than with an air cooler.
If you don't like the math, go ahead and try it yourself, run your computer at 100% load, and pull the plug on the CPU fan. See how long before it starts throwing up errors.
Of course, again, if you don't like liquid cooling, you don't like it. I'm just pointing out that your reasons are largely false myths so far. It is much more expensive, and there is the possibility of a leak (depending on how good a plumber you are). It isn't for the feint of heart.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
You can do it yourself or buy a kit.
http://www.google.com/search?q=pc+in+mineral+oil&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
if you want a quiet game machine, I dont think there is a case better then the fortress2 (FT02) or the raven2 (RV02) by silverstone right now. they are basiclly the same case with some cosmetic differences. all 3 air intake fans are filtered, and with 3x 180mm fans @ 700rpm, it's both quiet and push enough air volume to keep the system cool w/o any additional fans. the only down side for me is the price:D but it's still cheaper then the zalman TNN500AF which they dont make anymore:D
agreed. i'm not doubting your recommendations and facts, i'm just not very comfortable with moving parts that can have such large of an impact on the system. granted fans are moving parts, however moving at 700rpm, given its size and the nature of its construction, it's very unlikely that the fan would fail especially w/o warning. even if 1 should fail, there are still 2 more fans in the case, and the susanoo heat sink is no slouch even as a passive heatsink:D I guess all this fear stem from the days back when they didnt have much/any thermal protection built into the chip/board and if you cook something, it's cooked:D
anyway, the heatpipes has very little thermal capacity, however it does offer exceptional thermal transfer. the theory behind heat pipe is the heat of evaporation and the physics behind that is what makes heatpipe the standard thermal solution for computers. as stated, water has excellent thermal capacity, however once it evaporates (in the closed reduced pressure system of the heatpipe) it carrys all that heat to the cooling side of the pipe where it is transfered to the fins. the fins then (under a fanless system) would heat up and generate a very slight convection current removing the heat. the net result is effective thermal solution in a reduced mass/cost system. in the case of heatpipes, the need for thermal capacity is replaced by superior transfer rate. so "technically" a heat pipe system IS a liquid cooling system with a passive phase change pump
currently, the issue i'm more concerned about is how to fit a game system under that 400w budget:D howeverm i do appreciate your help in your knowledge and recommendations
If you're going to spend a fortune on a power supply to make it quiet, you could also try this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121080
That is designed to run well while very hot, so the fan is very reluctant to kick in. That's about as close to fanless as you can get without actually being fanless. It's also extremely high energy efficiency, so it won't put out much heat itself. And it's excellent quality all around.
The drawback, of course, is the price tag.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133089
thats the exact unit i had in mind as the backup unit if i cant get under that 400w budget:D I guess i showed my hand when i mentioned 80+ platinum:D it's starting to look like i'm gonna have to go this way tho. the new mobo's arent really as much of a miser as older boards are if i want the usb3/sata3 features
Seasonic, Enermax, and Super Flower have some additional 80 PLUS platinum power supplies coming, and they're likely to all be very good. It sounds like they're all going to be very high wattages, though. Or at least that's what is listed on Ecos Consulting right now, as they generally want to get the power supplies tested and certified well before launch, so that they can put the proper logos on the packaging in time.
cheers, my power budget has been raised to 500w instead:D
http://www.techpowerup.com/149968/SilverStone-to-Release-Nightjar-500W-Silent-PSU-Later-This-Week.html
now that power problem is solved, i'm wondering if the gpu cooling problem can be solved by the silenx IXG-80HA2 running passive cooling with some creative ducting by routing the air penetrator fans to blow directly onto the heatsink and exhaust out the top. the fin configuration of the IXG-80HA2 should allow for a easy airflow ducting. still tho, cooling a 260+ watt card isn't going to be easy w/o a fan attached directly onto the heatsink:D at least i hope southern island wont go above 260 watts. zambezi should be easily cooled with the number of high surface area heatsinks avaliable so thats not really a concern. (still hope my old infinity would do the job tho:D)