Personally, I don't care much about how "leaky" the case is. A component should be quiet regardless of how much damping the case has. It could also be said that a more ventilated case will result in lower temperatures and therefore fans running at lower speeds. A computer can definitely be quiet wit...

Seems to me that the 130W setup is still of value for anyone overclocking a current 77 or 95W Intel (or sadly, about any decently performing AMD). Though it is easy to argue that isn't this site's target audience. I can't say I see a real need to drop past the 95W setup at this point. Perhaps that ...

My personal maximal threshold for fan speed (I own a Scythe Slipstream 800rpm), is ~500 rpm. My harddrive is turned off completely when idle, so it's quite reasonable that your threshold is a bit higher than mine.

You could also use an aftermarket passive heatsink and then strap a 120 mm fan on it. It's a very efficient way to cool the GPU!

An alternative to the Akasa: The Arctic Cooling Alpine 11. Very small and very cheap. Though it will be quiet during idle and low loads, it will probably be noisy at high loads: The AC Freezer proposed by Lodestar would fit your needs.

I seem to recall that the stock fan of the Thermalright Macho isn't quite that good. If this is true, you should buy another fan, preferably a PWM fan. The only reason that the 3770s has a lower TDP is simply because the top speed has been artificially lowered in order to reach the low TDP. So the 3...

I've read somewhere in the forum that the Sea Sonic PSU suffers from a buzzing noise. So perhaps you should choose a KingWin PSU. They also make high-quality and silent PSU's. If you are really serious about silence then you could spare one or two of the three fans. That CPU, and at low to moderate ...

A Crucial m4 is also a reliable and cheap SSD. You should consider that one too.

I share the same view as CA_Steve and Spoon Boy: Definitely get an SSD. I recommend any Intel SSD, Crucial m4 and the Samsung 830 or the new 840 for their reliability.

There's no need to upgrade to i7. The major feature of the i7 CPU's is the hyper-threading which is only beneficial for those who rely on heavily threaded software. This isn't case with watching blu-ray movies. To prevent any hiccups simply ensure that no unnecessary applications run in the backgrou...

Well, I dind't have any specific MB in mind. I just noticed that you chose an expensive motherboard (for an AMD FM2 motherboard) and thought that you could save some money by going with a less feature-rich MB. But remember to check the number of controllable fan headers.

The 180 mm fan in the Temjin TJ08-E can't be made quiet enough for the most demanding silent enthusiasts. The PS07 has the advantage that all the fan mounts are compatible with 120 mm fans which means that you can just swap them if you don't tolerate their noise level, unlike the 180 mm fan. The PS0...

Well, your CPU is a 55 W CPU i.e. it doesn't dissipate much heat. If you don't push it a lot the GT version should suffice. It only has a 80 mm fan opposed to the other two which have 92 mm fans. If you game the additional cooling performance of the Pro version becomes beneficial. The min. fan speed...

There's also the Cooler Master Silent Pro M 500W. A guy named Andy in the forum has it and has been very satisfied with it. The 700 W version has been reviewed and received the "Recommended" award by SPCR.

A very cheap option would be the Arctic Cooling Alpine 11. It has the same thermal performance as a stock intel cooler, but it is much more quiet! It is practically silent in my built when cooling a triple core 95 W AMD Athlon II 425.

The Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 fits your needs perfectly! It's small, cheap, and though it's unable to cool a powerful CPU quietly, it can cool a low-power CPU at light loads extremely quietly. At 500 rpm, and being a 92 mm fan, the fan is practically inaudible. The GT version of the Alpine 11 (the lo...

I don't see the need for you to change the PSU. The one you have is a quality product. Since your components are quite power-hungry you'll need a case with a good thermal performance. This rules out the NZXT H2. I also don't consider the R3 a contender if you can get your hands on the R4. The Cooler...

What about an aftermarket hard drive suspension system such as the Sharkoon Vibefixer?

http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/node/915

If the settings in the BIOS don't work then try using the Windows application ASUS FanXpert which can be found in the ASUS AI Suite. And if that doesn't work you physically need to undervolt the fans either with a fan controller or a 12-to-7 volt resistor (can be bought in some hardware stores). I'd...

We're very much looking forward to that.

Listening to music and web browsing are very light tasks for a computer so a Pentium or Celeron Sandy Bridge CPU will easily get the job done. And whatever CPU you choose will only dissipate a very little amount of heat so you won't need a tower cooler. A tiny cooler like the Arctic Cooling Alpine 1...

If you find the PSU too noisy, and you're up for it, you could try to swap the PSU fan with a quiet one. I did that with great success! My Corsair CX400W (originally reasonably quiet but still audible) is now completely inaudible.

If not the Seasonics then perhaps an old classic, the Nexus Value 430 W? Only 125 mm in depth (most small PSU's are 140 mm in depth) and extremely quiet. Once received the Editor's Choice award at SPCR but later degraded to being "recommended". Still good though.

The Seasonic G-360 is a great PSU. It's reasonable cheap, has great electrical performance, 5 years warranty, and it should be quiet enough for most people, save for a number of die-hard silent PC enthusiasts.

Have a look at the review that CA_steve linked to.

Thank you both, I expect that I will get the Hyper 212 Evo (hopefully before Christmas) and swap the fan with an AC F12 running via Speedfan. I will report back with my findings. Andy I am very much looking forward to it. Could you do us all a favor? Many SPCR enthusiasts repel the stock Cooler Mas...

HD: I'm now having second thoughts about getting an SSD because of all the reliability issues. SSD issues have only been an issue for a number of SSD controllers such as the Sandforce 1xxx and 2xxx. a JMicron was also known to have major issues back in 2008-2010. But other controllers have not had ...

Though the fanless option might sound tempting, fans running at about 500 rpm or below are extremely difficult to hear i.e. they are inaudible in practice. So I would go for the first option that you are mentioning.

- Do you need the GT240 for some apps or will the HD3000 iGP work? Delete the GTX-> less heat ->better airflow in the case. The P67 chipset doesn't support the use of the integrated GPU, sadly. - case fan: replace the rear stock case fan with a low rpm fan hooked up to a fan controller (Speedfan ut...

If the CPU cooler is more loud than three hard drives combined then this should be your number one priority to replace. Fortunately, there are many quiet CPU coolers out there such as the Scythe Mugen 3 and the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (and a good PWM fan). The only major contributor to heat is t...

What is going here?! This is the message that you're greeted with when visiting www.scythe-usa.com "To Customers and Users Scythe USA Inc. has been a supplier of Scythe products for the past several years. In November 2012, Scythe USA had to make a difficult decision to end its operations as a resul...