Silent PC Build Questions

[bobmendon]

I am building a silent PC and using the F51 case from Thermaltake - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YCX0Y52/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am installing a miniATX AM3 board running a Phenom II (95wt) processor and initially 16GB of memory with an eye to move up to 32GB. I am using a Corsair H55 watercoolor-http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hydro-series-h55-quiet-cpu-cooler

The case has a 200mm front fan and I am putting 2 x 200mm fans in the top. The PSU mounts in the bottom and I am positioning it with the fan blowing into case with a 120mm bottom fan next to it. I will be running 5 3.5 in HDs and one SSD system drive. I plain to raid 10 four of the 2TBdrives and use a spare 2TB as a scratch/vm drive. This machine will be used for photo editing as well as a near line storage machine that is also backed up to the cloud.

I have a couple of questions regarding the configuration:

1. Is 2 x 200mm top fans overkill?
2. Do I mount the radiator so its fan acts as an exhaust fan?
3. My PSU is 500 watts. Will that be sufficient in that I am not running any high end video card? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005ILWY9G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[rhysiam]

First off, it's probably better to call this a "quiet" build rather than a silent one. Anything running a mechanical HDD or any fans whatsoever isn't technically silent. Nitpicking aside...

As a general comment, those H55 coolers aren't particularly quiet at all. I would think that in relation to one of those and 5 mechanical HDDs chugging away, a few decent quality fans aren't really going to make any perceivable difference.
Your also going to need a graphics card as the Phenoms are CPU only. Some cheap cards can be noisy, so choose that carefully.

There's no way you need multiple 200mm fans, but if you feel like it, fine, it won't be a problem. As long as they're decent quality they should be quieter than the H55 anyway.

Are you sure the case supports a 200mm front intake? Because that wasn't a listed option in the case-specs I read.

RE Intake vs Exhaust, I honestly don't think it's going to make any real difference with your excessive case airflow, mid-range processor and (I'm assuming) entry level GPU. If you've got a power hungry system, or a tiny little case (or especially if you have both) then you need to be mindful of heat and airflow. But that's a massive case with probably well under 200W of power draw... it's just not going to matter.

 

[bobmendon]

The case came with the 200mm in front and a 140 mm in the rear. The case itself is fully sound dampened so I will be surprised if the sound levels will be great enough to notice. The board and processor are older tech but the board does have onboard video. For my purposes, I just need a passive video card that has maybe 2GB of memory. I don't even care if it has DDR2, DDR3, or DDR4 memory. Since it's not a gaming rig, all I care about is the quality of the card's performance when it comes to color rendition and image work.

I might go with a single top fan. I will see how well that works and decide from there. How about the cooler fan? I am currently set to use it as an exhaust fan.

 

[rhysiam]

Yes, exhaust is fine for your setup. As I said in the first post, there's just not enough heat coming from that rig to make any real difference.however you set it up .

The sound damping helps, but it's far from perfect and got will still hear fan and possibly pump noise from the computer. I have a Fractal Design XL R2 which has very good sound damping, but I can still clearly hear the fans from a few yards away. It's not unpleasant, but it's definitely audible.

 

[bobmendon]

Well the rig is built and literally sitting a foot from ear and the fan on my mini-pc is louder than the new box. I can live with that. The HD tems are stable at 28C and the CPU temp is at 25C. I can live with that.

 

[rhysiam]

Well the rig is built and literally sitting a foot from ear and the fan on my mini-pc is louder than the new box. I can live with that. The HD tems are stable at 28C and the CPU temp is at 25C. I can live with that.

Good good. Glad you're happy with the build.