Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gaming?

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mrabraa
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Location: Galway, Ireland

Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gaming?

Post by mrabraa » Sun Jun 12, 2016 11:27 am

Hi everyone,

It has come that time after 6 years when I want to upgrade my PC again. I was thinking of getting something on a budget of 500 euro that would be able to run The witcher 3 on high details at 40FPS. I looked through SilentPC diy builds section but newest article is for 4K computer and that's way above what I really want, so would like some advice please on components to use. I want to keep my current case which is Antec Three Hundred - it was recommended in one of previous SPCR build and I like it's estetics. Other than that it's fair play guys. The builds I was trying were all around 700-900 euros with i3 or i5 intel processors, but don't want to go that high in price. Will you help please?

P.S. I will not be overclocking computer, so MB's and processors that allow that are not a necessity.

Regards
Mr Abraa

CA_Steve
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Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:18 pm

Welcome back. 500 euros is tight for a gaming build.

Are you gaming at 1080p?

What's your PSU model and wattage? Maaaybe it can be reused. Although I'd lean toward replacement at 6 years.

Are you planning to use your existing HDD? What is it?

I didn't find the CPU cooler height clearance for the Antec Three Hundred - do you know/can you measure?

Here's a placeholder build. I used UK pricing. So, pounds rather than euros and a tad higher than you were looking for.

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£182.57 @ More Computers) (i3-6100 is £95)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Kotetsu 79.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£32.88 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170 Pro4S ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£83.54 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£33.34 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card (£178.99 @ More Computers)
Total: £511.32

Witcher 3 is a gpu pig. At 1080p and High settings, the GTX 960 gives 49fps, Ultra drops this to 30-41. A GTX 970 High mode gives 80fps. It's fairly light on the CPU - an i3 > 2.5GHz will work fine. So, if you wanted to tune for just Witcher 3 you could go i3-6100 and a GTX 960 or GTX 970.

However, having an i5 will be a more rounded build for other games. Also, we've entered the season for new GPUs. AMD promises a midrange $200 gfx card, the R9 480, intro at the end of the month. Don't know when it'll be avialble for purchase. Nvidia's GTX 1060 is due out ~September.

mrabraa
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:37 am
Location: Galway, Ireland

Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by mrabraa » Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:56 pm

Wow, nice to be welcomed back ;) I'm still living with 17 inch 1280x 1024 adn Full HD I can play at my regular 32" TV I guess, but probably won't. Witcher 3 is for my wife and is probably the most resource eating game i will play for the forseable future. My PSU is still Antec 380 W, just changed it's 80mm fan for noctua to silence it a bit. The clearance in ANtec three hundred should be similiar to nine hundred, but will check. I'd leave existing HDD and get some cheap SSD later just to get windows to start faster. I had one SSD 128 GB bought, but I moved it to my laptop, since that's what I use for everyday computing (it's an old Thinkpad T61 with Intel graphics). Your proposed build was nearly exactly same as what I got for myself, except I was looking at Asus MB and Kingston HyperX RAM. That is still around 700 euro together, so a bit to high. I can leave with a bit lower resoultion than FullHD, especially on 17" screen. I usually play some Lego games, or Batman Arkham series, so lower specs than Witcher 3, but I'd love for my wife to be able to play in nice details. Also as I upgrade computer every 6 years (when some new games start giving me trouble) I guess I want some power on a budget. I'm based in Ireland by the way so am really limited to elara.ie, komplett.ie and Amazon.co.uk.

P.S. Just measured the clearence - looks like it's about 6 inches free space.

CA_Steve
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Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jun 12, 2016 4:20 pm

Ok, if you plan to game at 1280x1024, that's only 63% of the pixels that a 1080p screen needs to push. So, a GTX 960 will give 75+fps for Witcher 3 with High settings and 45+ in Ultra. The GTX 950 should give ~50+fps with High settings at this rez if you need to save money. The MSI GTX 950 2G card is £140.

Also, given the screen resolution and the other games, go with the i3-6100.

CPU cooler - yeah this is where actual dimensions are important as most of the decent tower coolers run in the 155 to 160mm range and "about 6" " could be 152mm or 150 or 160 or...However, if you go with the i3 and you really want to save on costs...try the stock cooler. It might be ok with this 51W CPU.

mobo: Asus is fine...as is MSI. I went with this particular Asrock mobo because:
- it has an Intel networking chip
- it has at least the Realtek 892 audio chip rather than the 887.
- while you aren't OCing, I went with a Z170 chipset for the sole purpose of supporting higher RAM speed profiles vs the 2133 speed on the H series boards.
- good customer reviews.
- reasonable price

RAM: There are some slight performance improvements when you go with >2133 speed RAM...and these days there's little price difference between 2133, 2400 and 2666. Ok, you won't see these benefits with an i3 and 1280x1024 gaming. But, I throw it out there if you plan to upgrade the CPU/gfx card a few years down the road.

CA_Steve
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Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jun 12, 2016 4:23 pm

PSU: Is it an old Antec Earthwatts?

mrabraa
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Location: Galway, Ireland

Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by mrabraa » Sun Jun 12, 2016 4:45 pm

Hi Steve,

This sounds great, looks like I can squezee in with this changes, PSU is Earthwats alright. Height was a little more than 6 inch less than 6.5 defo. I squeezed in a sewing ruler I had at hand inside there to check ;) not very precise method I know. I'm not overly worried about cooler, they're a drop in the ocean of cost, with Scythe costing like 50 euro tops, I can always buy it after a month or two.

If PSU will last with the set You suggested I can change it later to some quiet 450W model maybe.

Thanks

CA_Steve
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Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jun 12, 2016 7:17 pm

PSU: i3 (51W) + GTX 950 (90W) + everything else (<50W) = <200W stressed load. So, 380W is fine. Due to it's age, it might not be compatible with the CPUs new low power states (short version: PSU needs to derive all the other DC voltages from the +12V rail). So, if you are running Win8 or newer, you may have to disable some of this in the BIOS.

Enjoy your build.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:36 pm

mrabraa wrote:Height was a little more than 6 inch less than 6.5 defo. I squeezed in a sewing ruler I had at hand inside there to check ;) not very precise method I know.

The height clearance should be 170mm for that venerable 300.

BTW, stock cooler, Earthwatts... I feel that build could be somehow quietish, not silent or nearby. Check also your case fans, if you hooked up them to the mobo: IIRC ASRock mobo needs PWM ones (check the mobo manual).

ggumdol
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Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by ggumdol » Sun Jun 12, 2016 11:25 pm

I must say that you are absolutely reasonable in targeting 40 fps for the witcher 3 on high details. Most rpg games are very playable from 40 fps although there are some discernible differences up until 50 fps. In light of your monitor resolution, even GTX 950 will deliver. However, in light of longevity of the gpu and ever higher graphical prowess demanded by recent games, I would recommend GTX 960, preferably 4GB version.
mrabraa wrote:It has come that time after 6 years when I want to upgrade my PC again. I was thinking of getting something on a budget of 500 euro that would be able to run The witcher 3 on high details at 40FPS.

mrabraa
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:37 am
Location: Galway, Ireland

Re: Can anyone please help me with building quiet PC for gam

Post by mrabraa » Mon Jun 13, 2016 3:55 am

Hi, thank you all for tips. I came up with this so far which is slightly over my budget, but I figure I can do upgrade of MB, RAM and CPU first and buy GPU and PSU later to kinda spread the costs. I guess this should be as good as I need it to be. Thanks for your help again.

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