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A General 2018 Update on SPCR's Part Recommendations

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:58 pm
by Derek Semeraro
The main page of this website has been less active in the past few years. Many part recommendations are from 2012 and a lot has changed. Generally, PC parts are not as noisy as they were 5+ years ago. The specific parts this website recommended in ~2012 as the most silent parts on the market are still quiet by today's standards of course, but now a lot of parts (even many parts which aren't necessarily marketed for silent PC builds) are just as quiet.

Hard Drive: The main determining factor of hard drive noise is the trade-off between the performance 7200 RPM offers versus the silence that 5400 RPM drives offer. With how available and affordable SSD's are, builds can just run the main OS on a SSD and turn off the hard drive when its not needed. Finding a way to enclose or suspend the hard drive with rubber to reduce vibrations is helpful, but the differences between brands of hard drives are extremely minimal at this point.

Case Fans: Noctua's are great fans for those that want to pay a premium. Be Quiet's Pure Wings 2 fans are good for budget builds. A lot of good PWM fans in general can be set at a low percentage via motherboard or Speedfan to run silently as well.

Power Supply: There are recently released EVGA or Seasonic ones in the $65+ price range that are silent at low loads and don't get very load.

CPU Cooler: This market has evolved a lot since 2012, especially since overclocking has become more popular. Most, if not all coolers, which were the most highly recommended back then offer commonplace performance/silence nowadays. Be Quiet Pure Rock Slim is a solid budget option for builds that are looking to do moderate overclocking or none at all. For those that want to overclock more, Scythe Mugen is still a good mid-range option (<$50); in higher price ranges Be Quiet's Dark Rock Pro and Noctua's D15 coolers are popular though there are diminished returns. Noctua L9i is an option for the very compact machines.

Cases: There are a lot of cases nowadays that are marketed for their noise-dampening qualities. While the parts that are put inside of the case are far more important, more cases nowadays use noise-dampening material. In general, cases with balanced ventilation but not too much air leakage are recommendable. Be Quiet Pure Base 600, Phanteks P400S, NZXT H500/H200, Corsair Carbide, various cases of Fractal Design (Meshify, Define R5, Define C, Focus, etc.) and various others.

Re: A General 2018 Update on SPCR's Part Recommendations

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 10:20 pm
by Alex11223
Derek Semeraro wrote:There are recently released EVGA or Seasonic ones in the $65+ price range that are silent at low loads and don't get very load.
There are many good semi-passive PSU like that, Corsair RMx is often recommended.
Derek Semeraro wrote:CPU Cooler:
Scythe Mugen is still a good mid-range option (<$50); in higher price ranges Be Quiet's Dark Rock Pro and Noctua's D15 coolers
afaik Thermalright coolers like Le Grand Macho RT are also often recommended for silence (in big cases). It's not available in some countries, however. :(
Derek Semeraro wrote: Cases:
Be Quiet Pure Base 600, Phanteks P400S, NZXT H500/H200, Corsair Carbide, various cases of Fractal Design (Meshify, Define R5, Define C, Focus, etc.) and various others.
BeQuiet has Dark Base 700 and Silence Base 601/801 which look more interesting, but I heard that at least their 6xx cases don't have good airflow (comparing to FD R6 etc.), at least with the included fans.

btw for Define the most recent model is R6, and also there is very similar S2.