Question Can anyone suggest a case with these specifics please?

[Daynhg]

Hi.

I wonder if anyone can help please.

I am looking for a case that is as silent as possible. I do not need glass, or any windows. As padding / silence is more important.
That will be large enough to take an RTX4080
With really good ventilation. The CPU will be air cooled.
3 fan slots at the front.
If possible, more than one USB port at the front of the case.
And If possible that doesn't cost a fortune.
Sorry to be so specific.

With room for at least 3 SSD drives. (not including M.2's)
And a HDD drive.

Also, recommendation for the best (affordable fans)
I was looking at.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/quiet-Pure...1477&sprefix=be+quiet+fan,aps,81&sr=8-17&th=1

But don't mind paying more is these aren't that silent.

The build would be something like.
• ASUS TUF Gaming Z790 Plus WiFi (But I am not sure about this mobo, I'll be asking questions in another thread.)
• Intel® Core™ i7-13700K
• be quiet! BK022 Dark Rock Pro 4 or Noctua NH-D15
• Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 64GB
• be quiet! BN309 Straight Power 11 Platinum 1000W or Corsair CP-9020139-UK HX1000 1000 W 80+ Platinum
• MSI GeForce RTX 4080 16GB SUPRIM X

I'm not sure if the speck was needed for the case recommendation.
But its been a long time coming, as my old rig is ancient. So really want to get it right.

Really appreciate any help, and suggestions.

Thank you.

 

[Lutfij]

Perhaps look into the Fractal's range of Define chassis'? You could just save on the cost of buying case and recycle the one you currently have, use Noctua fans to aid with a silent fan operation. The thing with silence is that premium prices will land you on a premium quality in terms of materials used, it's why the higher tier fans from Noctua are pricey as is the case with Phantek's T30 fans, it's due to the material's used.

What sort of a budget have you set aside for the case?

 

[Darkbreeze]

How quiet the system is IS a lot more dependent on the model of fans you use AND the fan profile you configure, as well as the capabilities of both the CPU cooler and PSU involved. If you have a PSU that is only minimally able to cover the requirements of the hardware but does not put you in the "PSU only using about 60-70% of total capacity" range then it's likely you are going to have a noisy system because the PSU fan is probably going to be running at full speed at times. At 1000w, so long as it is a high quality model, you should be fine in this regard. While there will certainly be transient spikes that make buying a 1000w unit a good idea, they shouldn't be frequent enough to have any effect on the fan behavior so you are on target with this aspect at the least.

Either of those CPU coolers is plenty for that CPU model IMO. I have no concerns there.

Often, the reason people's systems are noisy is because they do not understand how to properly configure the case fans for quiet operation. A lot of people will either set a fan curve similar to what you'd want to see for the CPU cooler, which is not helpful, or set the "source" for the case fans to the CPU thermal sensor, which is also not useful. You want to set the source for the case fans to either the motherboard thermal sensor or the GPU thermal sensor, or a combination of the two with perhaps only the front lower fan set to the GPU source in order to provide more ambient air to the graphics card when it's under load. In any case, a lot of noise can be eliminated by fine tuning the case fan profile and configuration. But starting with good quality, low noise fans, is a necessity otherwise the rest is probably a waste of time.

If you want good quality fans with the best noise profile in the industry it's pretty hard to do any better, if it's even possible, than the Noctua NF-A14 or A14 chromax.black.swap fans. Even the NF-A15 fans are a good choice but I've found that the "tone" of the A14 fans at 3/4 to full speed is much less annoying than the one on the A15 fans.

If you want "pretty ok" fans that aren't terribly noisy and are really inexpensive, the Arctic fans are almost a no brainer. They work well, move a good amount of air, look decent and are not terribly noisy. They aren't Noctua, but they are like half the price or less too.

As for the case itself, you mention not "needing" glass or windows, but the majority of cases come with them these days so I have to ask, are you "against" those features, or simply don't need to include them if a model has everything else you need for less money?

 

[geofelt]

You would appreciate the quality of lian li cases.
Look at the lancool216 which includes two 160mm front intake fans.
Larger fans turn slower and move more air with less noise.
https://www.newegg.com/p/2AM-000Z-000A7

 

[Daynhg]

I'm really sorry I have not replied to all of the superb feedback on here.
I genuinely thank you all.
It's been a rough couple weeks so not been on, or thinking about the new build.

I am now looking into everything you guys suggested.

Lutfij​

I had a define years ago, it was good case, the Define 7 XL I just looked at would be a good choice, but I really didn't want to pay 200 pounds for the case if I didn't have to.

I can't really reuse my existing case, as it's a complete system and even old, it's not bad. And can run most games, so would be good as a backup, or give away.
But if not for that it was great idea. Thank you. 👍🏻

Darkbreeze​

That was some great around advice, thank you, on fan settings, as well as fans I will definitely be looking at.

I was a little unsure about getting an 850 or a 1000,
Part-Picker says the system would have an estimated wattage of 748w.
I have looked online, and seen conflicting thoughts on "would a higher power PSU use more electricity."

📌 The logical reasoning, being no. No matter if it was higher power It would draw only what it needs.
And also on this point.
I have read that, if you have a much higher threshold between what the system needs, and what the PSU is capable of pushing out, its actually advantageous to power usage.

📌 But I have seen others saying, "as standard if it's a higher power PSU, then even idling," none gaming, 3D sculpting etc, it uses more power/electricity.

But I am honestly not sure which of these two is true.

Also, if the Noctua NF-A14, are that good I would be looking at those.
Great suggestion.👍🏻

geofelt​

Some nice looking cases thank you. The lian li wide ones look awesome, but as I'm mostly about noise, and not really aesthetic, eg, LED's, seeing the parts etc, those wide ones are mostly glass.

The lancool216 looks very nice, and even though I was thinking of 3 front fans, but because they are 1600 that would be cool (pun intended) with 2, I'm thinking. 👍🏻

Because of where the PC is placed across the room a little from where I sit, and not on a desk next to me, I really would have liked more front USB ports.
As I find that sometimes there can be signal interption, but I could always get a hub.

And I realise, the "across the room, why do you need a silent case/fans etc. I live in a pretty quiet house. 🦉

Thaks guys. I'll be researching all you said.

I would like to know about the PSU power usage if anyone knows.

I really appreciate the help.

 

[geofelt]

A PSU will operate most efficiently in the middle third of it's range.
An overly strong psu will be less efficient at the lower power levels.
OTOH, A good psu will not run the fan at all when operating at low levels.
The psu fan only needs to spin up and make noise when it needs to cool itself.

If you are a bit distant from the pc, a usb hub is probably a good idea.
A usb mouse or keyboard controller may have limited range which can be fixed by mounting in a hub.
As a plus, if noise is an issue, a bit more distance will reduce the perception of noise.

FWIW, I find it better to set case fans to run at a constant speed.
That is less noticable to me than constantly varying fan speeds.

 

[Darkbreeze]

A PSU will operate most efficiently in the middle third of it's range.

This. You really want the PSU, when running under a full load, to be hitting in the 40-75% of it's capacity in terms of what it's actually pulling from the PSU. So basically if you KNOW the system is going to be using about 700-750w under a full load, then you probably want to target a 1000w unit and that is standard PSU advice. It doesn't even factor in the fact that modern graphics cards have a much higher tendency for power excursions, better known as transient spikes, that can trigger protections and cause a system to shut down if there isn't enough headroom in it's capabilities or if it's protections are poorly tuned. Having a very good power supply that is not commonly going to see more than 75% of it's full capacity put to the test under a full system load is a good way to avoid that. Getting an ATX 3.0 power supply that has support for the PCIe 5.0 standards is an even better, but entirely 100% necessary, way, since those have to be able to handle up to 3x the peak capacity of the unit's advertised capacity for brief periods of time to accommodate those power excursions.

But getting a good unit with enough overhead will avoid that problem too.

The NF-A14s are the best case fan on the market in my opinion. When somebody shows me something better, that can offer the same amount of airflow, with the same high rate of static pressure AND do it while offering as good or better noise levels as the Noctua fans, then I'll change that opinion. So far, that hasn't happened and aside from something newer that Noctua releases at some point, I'm highly skeptical that it's going to.

There are a number of not terribly expensive cases that are very good and worth considering. On a short list, I'd recommend looking at the Corsair 4000D, Cougar MX330-G Pro, Fractal design (Any of the Define series cases are always good choices), and to be honest, my older Define S with a completely modified front panel that is full mesh from top to bottom and does not have the stock padded side panel anymore, but instead has the optional FD tempered glass add on panel, is so quiet you cannot hear it even under demanding loads from 2.5-3ft away. I realize that having a case designed for quiet operation WILL increase the success of it being silent, but I think it's FAR, FAR more important to put the money into fans that are very quiet and then properly tune them.

As well, an air cooled system, provided it's one with a sufficiently capable air cooler, is also going to be quieter, than any water/liquid cooled system simply because those radiator fans are going to run at faster speeds than you'd normally need or want any case fan to be running at AND because there WILL be pump noise as well.

I have a 12700k running on the same older Noctua NH-U14S I've been using since about 2014, and it has zero problems keeping this CPU cool under a full Prime95 Small FFT load with AVX disabled so I have no doubts at all that any of the better air coolers, especially any of the larger or twin finstack models (Since mine is a single finstack model) will have no problem at all with that 13700k.