Completely silent computer

[lesshaste]

[Edited to fix price.]

Can you build a completely silent PC that will be powerful enough comfortably to run Office/Windows 7/modern web browser etc. for under 500 quid? I have no need for many cores or a fancy graphics card but of course it's nice to have the fastest system possible.

I don't need a new keyboard, mouse or monitor.

http://quietpc.co.uk/sys-a43-z77 looks great but is a bit expensive and not home built.

 

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Yep. This build; http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

And this case; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352011&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Computer+Cases-_-N82E16811352011&gclid=CJLR386NmbUCFQaCnQoddCsAPw

Is the first pcpartpicker link missing something?

 

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This; http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Be2h
And that case. Sorry!

Thank!

However... that seems overspecced for a silent PC. It runs at 334W apparently and has an external graphics card with its own fan. Isn't it going to be rather loud.. or at least not silent?

I was really hoping for a home office computer you wouldn't be able to hear. I have no need for an external graphics card as this is only for office use.

 

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This; http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Be2h
And that case. Sorry!

Using the UK pcpartpicker I couldn't find the power supply but the closest I found for the rest is

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Bedd

This is a just over price as well once you add the power supply if you exclude the price of windows.

 

[lesshaste]

You can use integrated graphics if you will not play many games. This sounds like the best idea. Then, It will be extra silent; around 3 Db with the Fractal Designs case. Here is a good UK PSU; http://www.cclonline.com/product/96475/CP-9020047-UK/Power-Supplies/Corsair-CX500-Builder-Series-500-Watt-ATX-PS/2-Power-Supply-Unit/PSU0479/

I am worried about the cpu fan too. I bought an amd fx 8350 recently and the stock fan is very loud. Also, I suspect no more than 2 cores will ever get used as I am not playing games.

 

[mikerockett]

I think this should be a good, close to silent office PC for you.

The case is one of the quietest around, 7db CPU cooler, gold seasonic unit with 120mm fan and fan control will be quiet and an SSD so no noise from HDD.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.80 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCYS-1000 110.3 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£35.74 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-GL Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£47.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.88 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£91.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£51.67 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £502.38
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-03 15:31 GMT+0000)

 

[lesshaste]

I think this should be a good, close to silent office PC for you.

The case is one of the quietest around, 7db CPU cooler, gold seasonic unit with 120mm fan and fan control will be quiet and an SSD so no noise from HDD.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.80 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCYS-1000 110.3 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£35.74 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-GL Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£47.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.88 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£91.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£51.67 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £502.38
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-03 15:31 GMT+0000)

Thanks! I am not sure about SSDs partly because of the price per gigabyte and also because some hard drives are really pretty quiet, especially when in a nice case. Having said that, I don't really know what a good current quiet drive is. Maybe http://www.silentpcreview.com/WD_Red ? Also, I just bought a different ASrock mobo and some people were critical about the choice. Are ASrock mobos decent quality?

 

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ASRock mobos are great. I have the N68-GS FX and the utilities that come with it are great, too. The Red drives are made for servers, and will not function as good as a WD Caviar desktop hard drive.

Thanks that's interesting. Technically, what is the difference between a server hard drive and a desktop one?

 

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Is it possible to make this quiet (and cheap) by just swapping for the Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.98 @ Amazon UK) and adding a new cpu cooler?

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/zb3T
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/zb3T/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/zb3T/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD A4-5300 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor (£34.74 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard (£37.55 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1066 Memory (£17.51 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint M8 500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.20 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£31.12 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W ATX12V Power Supply (£35.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £206.42
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-23 20:56 GMT+0000)

 

[mikerockett]

The thing with your question is that it's very subjective, what one person may consider quiet won't be quiet enough for someone else.

Yes, the change of course will go somewhat towards lessening the sound it produces. What you lose is the quiet CPU cooler and the quiet and very efficient PSU.

What space requirements are you envisaging requiring? I'm sure we can find a suitable solution. Those WD red drives aren't necessarily just for server application, they are utilised for raid arrays most commonly found in servers. On there own they have a low rpm and as such aren't great.

That also applies to the HDD you selected. a regular desktop HDD spins at 7200rpm where as that is a laptop drive and spins at 5400rpm and as such is slower.

Although SSD's are more per GB they certainly make up for it in the performance increase you'll see in load times and file transfers.

 

[lesshaste]

The thing with your question is that it's very subjective, what one person may consider quiet won't be quiet enough for someone else.

Yes, the change of course will go somewhat towards lessening the sound it produces. What you lose is the quiet CPU cooler and the quiet and very efficient PSU.

What space requirements are you envisaging requiring? I'm sure we can find a suitable solution. Those WD red drives aren't necessarily just for server application, they are utilised for raid arrays most commonly found in servers. On there own they have a low rpm and as such aren't great.

That also applies to the HDD you selected. a regular desktop HDD spins at 7200rpm where as that is a laptop drive and spins at 5400rpm and as such is slower.

Although SSD's are more per GB they certainly make up for it in the performance increase you'll see in load times and file transfers.

Yes this is a little subjective and also I didn't really make clear that I would ideally like to spend as little as possible if it doesn't involve too big a sacrifice. Originally I assumed that getting a very quiet PC would just be very expensive so I thought even getting below 500 pounds would be tough. Space isn't too big an issue, it's just I like the look of small cases and it is for the home where looks matter more. I think I chose the hard drives badly as you said. However SSDs are also an unnecessary extravagance for my needs I think.

So how about something like the build I listed but with your case, a quieter CPU cooler and a quiet and very efficient PSU?

 

[mikerockett]

There's no reason it shouldn't, just wont be as powerful but if you meet your needs thats all good.

When i meant space i was talking about how much HDD space. If you don't need much i would recommend the SSD. It makes a great improvement, if however you think it's superfluous then drop it out, it's your build after all.

Made some amendments to the builds, let me know what you think.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A4-5300 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor (£34.87 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCSMZ-2100 55.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£24.98 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard (£39.29 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Patriot Gamer 2 Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£21.86 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.96 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£51.67 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £307.59
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-03 19:24 GMT+0000)

 

[lesshaste]

There's no reason it shouldn't, just wont be as powerful but if you meet your needs thats all good.

When i meant space i was talking about how much HDD space. If you don't need much i would recommend the SSD. It makes a great improvement, if however you think it's superfluous then drop it out, it's your build after all.

Made some amendments to the builds, let me know what you think.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A4-5300 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor (£34.87 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCSMZ-2100 55.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£24.98 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard (£39.29 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Patriot Gamer 2 Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£21.86 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.96 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£51.67 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £307.59
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-03 19:24 GMT+0000)

That's great. I have two clear options now. A 300 pound slower and less fancy option or a 500 pound much more powerful one. Thanks!

Two little questions. First, what's the total number of fans of this option. Three (cpu, psu and case)? And second, why did you go for "Patriot Gamer 2 Series" instead of corsair or crucial?

 

[mikerockett]

It has lower latency and a faster clock speed.

As for fans there is 4 total. 2 in the case and 1 in the PSU and CPU.

 

[douglasw]

[Edited to fix price.]

Can you build a completely silent PC that will be powerful enough comfortably to run Office/Windows 7/modern web browser etc. for under 500 quid? I have no need for many cores or a fancy graphics card but of course it's nice to have the fastest system possible.

I don't need a new keyboard, mouse or monitor.

http://quietpc.co.uk/sys-a43-z77 looks great but is a bit expensive and not home built.

 

[douglasw]

I just built a gamer Pc and I'm really into making my Pc as silent as possible all my case fans are the Antec true quite pro and while I just browse I got the noise down to 7db while sitting in mt chair you can't hear my Pc at all..I bought a db gage and il always trying to improve. But while I'm gaming well that's a different level all together