Quiet fans, power supplies and cases.

[Gear_up]

I am currently putting together a gaming computer with an eye to the future. I am building it around an Asus A8N-SLI SE or Deluxe mother board using an AMD 3700+ chip with the intention of upgrading to dual core in a couple of years when the price is a little more reasonible. The graphics card will be either a 7600GT or a 7900GT if the budget has any spare capacity.

Now the question I have is what power suplies, cooling fans and cases are the quietist? Does any one have any recomendations for any of these items. Thanks in advance for your time.[/b]

 

[CleanOldMan]

I purchased an OCZ PowerStream 520 Watt PSU. I'm extremely happy with it's quiet operation. It is almost inaudible. $130 on the web.
I found some very quiet 80 mm case fans at CyberGuys.com for $20 for 3 of them.

 

[Kodiak666]

I have a seriously hardcore power supply - it's actually silent. It is a Yesico 550 Watt PSU, £123 from scan.com. There is a fan that kicks in when the power supply temperature reaches a point you define, but usually it isn't on.

I've been really happy with mine.

I'm also using sharkoon case fans - very quiet, slow spin speed.

 

[pengwin]

OCZ Powerstream


dude 123 Pounds is very expensive for us americans that over 200 bucks

OCZ powerstream is the best for the money

 

[g-paw]

As for a case, I have an Antec Sonota that is very quiet and I understand the Sonoto II is supposed to be just as quiet. They also sell a line of PSUs that they advertise as quiet. The one that came with my case is pretty quiet but don't know about the others

 

[pengwin]

for a case i would get the P150

it rommy and has decent cooling

 

[Kodiak666]

Pengwin - yeah, it is expensive, but I set about making my PC as quiet as possible . I'm just floating other options for Gear_up. Who say's he's in America? If he is he gets up damn early!

BTW its £100 without tax, we pay 17.5% in tax on most purchases. How much do you pay in the USA? (I know it varies from state to state)

 

[CleanOldMan]

Generally in the states we pay no sales/VAT tax on mail order items.
We only pay the tax if we order in our own state.

 

[pengwin]

yah we dont have to pay tax if its interstate purchase

u want quiet?

Antec Phantom 500w

 

[kitchenshark]

I have a recommendation AGAINST Vantec fans. They're supposed to be quiet, and it was (complete dead silence from the 120mm stealth model)...for two months. Then it fried. Zip, nada...dead. I was severly displeased.

 

[Gear_up]

Thanks guys for all your comments it gives me a place to start looking. I have been away so am only just catching up on the project. It is very useful to hear how products work and your thoughts.

Gear up

 

[tchiwam]

I have a seriously hardcore power supply - it's actually silent. It is a Yesico 550 Watt PSU, £123 from scan.com. There is a fan that kicks in when the power supply temperature reaches a point you define, but usually it isn't on.

I've been really happy with mine.

I'm also using sharkoon case fans - very quiet, slow spin speed.

I'll second that suggestion, My Yesico 550 is just great, power meters also says it is very efficient.

 

[jaguarskx]

For a PSU I recommend the Seasonic S12 series it is really quiet. If your going for an SLI setup in the future then get the S12 500 which is SLI certified. If not then you can go for either the S12 330, 380, or 430.

Seasonic S12 330 has more than enough power to run an Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 7900GTX and 3 hard drives, DVD-Burner, soundcard, motherboard, 4 sticks of RAM. If you were going to build a PC around Pentium 4 then I would recommend the S12 430 since P4s consumes at least 70% more power than a comparable Athlon 64. Prices starts at about $60 for the S12 330, the S12 500 is around $130, and the S12 600 is around $170.

For fans, arguably the best quiet fan to get is the Nexus 120mm for $16 + shipping. Other options includes Yate Loon, Papst, and Scythe all 120mm. Those clear plastic LED lit fan are generally louder than traditional solid color fans because they use hard plastic that do not flex. That can cause air turbulance which will be audible. Regardless what fan you get, you should also by the Zalman Fanmate 2 to control the voltage for reduced RPMs.

As for the case, many people recommend the the Antec P150 because it allows you to suspend up to 2 hard drive (IIRC). Suspending the hard drives reduces vibration noise because the hard drives are suspended by "rubberbands" that absorbs the vibrations. The P150 also comes with the Antec NeoHE PSU which is pretty quiet. However, there is a known incompatiblity issue with a few motherboards such as Asus. Antec has resolved this issue with a newer version of the Antec NeoHE, but I don't know the version number.

Production of Socket 939 Athlon 64 will end this year. Therefore, in the future it will become difficult to find a new socket 939 dual core Athlon X2 64. In fact, AMD may even raise the price on those as they have done with the Athlon XP when production on those CPUs ended to encourage people to switch to socket 754 Athlon 64s a few years ago. If you wish to future proof your PC you should wait for socket AM2 to come out and build your PC around that.

 

[Gear_up]

AAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Just when I thought I understood what was going on some one throws a spanner in the works, thanks a bunch jaguarskx. No in all honesty I thought I was safe with the 939 socket since I could plug in the dual core chip when their price was a little more in the realms of reality or that of the salary of a meer mortal with a mortage,pension contributions,a wife and offspring.

Ok you experts out their, do I stick with the 939 socket and get on with life or wait. Since I am after a future proof system (Ok until some dude invents the latest widget) what way would you jump.

 

[kda]

I can recommend AGAINST Silenx. I tried an 80 and a 92 mm IXTREMA.

Both died within a week after a lot of moaning and noise making.

These are relatively expensive fans to start with. So there went over $40 (including S&H) down the tubes. Major piece of junk.

Supposedly these Silenx fans run at 14 dBA but of course, since they don't run at all, they are a lot quieter than that. Then again, if you want a fan that works, I've had great luck with NEXUS "Really Silent Case Fans".

Seasonic's top line power supplies are also very quiet and "dead on" for power specs. Very nice and I plan to stay with them for future purchases also.

 

[jaguarskx]

Socket AM2 will be released sooner than plan, around 5/22/2006 I can't remember the exact date. If you can wait another month or so you can get that is the way to keep your PC future proof. AMD will be releasing their new CPU next year called "K8L" for now. It will use Socket AM2.

Prices are as follows in lots of 1,000.

AMD Desktop Processor Price List
Processor Socket SSBP
Athlon 64 FX-62 AM2 $1,236
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ AM2 $696
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ AM2 $645
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ AM2 $558
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ AM2 $469
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ AM2 $365
Athlon 64 X2 4000+ AM2 $328
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 $303
Athlon 64 3800+ AM2 $290
Athlon 64 3500+ AM2 $208
Sempron 3600+ AM2 $123
Sempron 3500+ AM2 $109
Sempron 3400+ AM2 $97
Sempron 3000+ AM2 $77
Sempron 2800+ AM2 $67

Here's the link to the article. Note: This was published before AMD announced the revised release date.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1601

Be aware that these CPU requires DDR2, not DDR. The standard RAM will be DDR2 667. Performance wise, it is only expected to have a very, very tiny performance boost over Socket 939 Athlon 64s. DDR2 800 RAM is expected to be released later this year which should increase performance. By how much? People are guessing between 5% - 10%. I prefer to wait until a hardware site actually test what the performance increase will be rather than guess.

 

[jodo]

Well I just bought an Antec P180 case 140CDN, AeroCool 620W ZeroDBa PSU 140CDN, Arctic Cooling VGA cooler and HSF for CPU 30CDN each, and my system is as quiet as a whisper. Had 2 people about 4-5 feet from my machine actually think my computer wasn't on(even though my LCD was on)....silly people.

using the stock 120mm fan in the P180(comes with 3, im only using 1)