Silent, But Deadly: Build Your Own Gaming-Ready 0 dB PC

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A very interesting experiment, and yes this would be a rocking office system. Dead quiet with just enough guts for that Sim City lunch break.

I'd really like to see this idea taken to an SBM. How much machine can you get that operates under 15 dB at idle and 30 dB at full load?
 

Ro0ster

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Man, I was cringing to see the photos of the mobo placement inside that case. My fat sausages would have come out bloody. I think I would have opted for a case with a bit more space; if only not to keep ripping the wires out as they obviously had issues with.
 

TheGoyWonder

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I had uBTX computer with a 64 X2 CPU. The fan never became audible, or to my knowledge even turned on, even at sustained 100% load converting video files. However this combination is a real oddity.
 
What would be AWESOME:

"Gaming" PC the same width/length as the Mac Mini but about 3x the height. The extra height would be a heatsink + Noctua 140mm fan.

The main other difference would be a 680M or similar. (Look at how thin laptops are compared to how much cooling this idea could have).

DVD would be an optional USB device and Power would likely be an external laptop AC adapter.
 

g-unit1111

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Silverstone is incredibly underrated as a case manufacturer. I used their GD05B in my HTPC and I was amazed at how well constructed their cases are.
 

pyro226

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Overall, I was happy when I built my PC. Unfortunately though, my power supply rings when my computer is suspended without being fully powered down. Also, I picked up another type of unexpected "noise" of static on my inbuilt audio line (I'm guessing it's my graphics card causing it somehow, idk. It seems to be on the front line, the back audio line doesn't carry much static, but it's always hooked into my stereo). I've sort of given up on the line static after putting a choke on the audio line did nothing. For now I just use a cheap external USB sound card for the front audio line since it doesn't pick up the static.
 

quas

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I thought about building a 0 dB PC once, but then I realized that the air conditioner in the room do not operate at 0 dB, so there's no point to that.
 

royalcrown

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You can do way better than a 650. An Asus GTX 680 direct cool 2 makes so little noise, I literally cannot hear it in an open case at full load much less with the side on. Put this stuff in a define xl or r4 and add a good fan like a Noiseblocker Eloop on a dark knight 2 and call it a day, dead quiet. All my stuff is active, but silent, but then again my wallet cried a lot.
 

royalcrown

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@Igor: if you want to I will post benches of mine with everything turned up to ultra and record it for you. I bet it will spank that system all while being almost as quiet. The secret, good fans and turn down the case fans, no need to go passive if one doesn't want to. I'm serious btw and will post my system at load if you want.
 

royalcrown

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[citation][nom]quas[/nom]I thought about building a 0 dB PC once, but then I realized that the air conditioner in the room do not operate at 0 dB, so there's no point to that.[/citation]

Your air conditioner, my wife's snoring..you got the better deal..lol.
 

FormatC

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I've always tested the Asus GTX 680 DirectCU II and I have it in the archive :)

But I can hear the card. Another DirectCUII problem: the temperature of the VRMs. Under longer heavy load conditions the low fan speed of this card is really dangerous. In this small case this can be problematic.

And finally: the question was not to build a quiet system. I wish to hear nothing and it works. ;)
 

ojas

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[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]There are 2 problems with liquid cooling that are quite problematic.1) The pumps on most liquid coolers (while quiet) have a particularly harsh/grating/annoying tone to them.2) To get good enough of a cooler to do a typical CPU+GPU is going to cost you a fair amount of money, and is still going to use fans to help the process along. To get a liquid cooling setup that does not use a fan, and has a particularly quiet pump then you are talking about serious cash for a custom setup with monstrous rads and high quality pumps. Not saying the cost is too much for what you are getting, but for most people (myself included) this is far too much effort/money.But then again, if you want something silent (or very quiet) that has performance then this is the only way to go.[/citation]
Hmmm...i see. Nah didn't really mean GPU+CPU, just for the CPU, since it would have removed that massive cooler.
 

JeanLuc

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On the subject of semi passive devices you could have used a Corsair/Seasonic Gold series PSU, the fan on these devices only spin up when they reach 50% load which for the type of hardware your using in this article a 650 model would be ideal.
 

ruban71

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Interesting stuff. Let’s say I want to build a quieter PC rather than a completely silent one, which were the least noisy components? For example, how much noise does a passive PSU save once installed relative to the heat it generates and the increased cost? Similarly how noisy and effective is a case fan relative to adding a fan on the cpu cooler?
 

ecarus

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I would suggest ditching the fan and going with a 35 watt CPU like the 2.8GHz Intel i3-3220t (Amazon $128) and a Nvidia GTX 650 Ti (Newegg $130) with the Arctic Accellero S1 Plus VGA Cooler (Newegg $40). The Ti version of the 650 has the same peak power draw as the non-Ti version and is a much stronger videocard than the AMD 7750.
 
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