It seems to have potential to be one of strong candidates for ITX builds. However, I think Lian Li should have released PC-Q10 earlier because there does not seem to be much demand for middle-sized ITX chassis when it comes to living room use, i.e., light gaming and home theater. With the advents of...

As CA_Steve mentioned, it's down to the CPU and graphics prowess required by games which you intend to play. Also, it depends on whether you have financial room to move upward because, for example, I would recommend anyone to go for i5 rather than i3 which can bottleneck lots of games' performance t...

In terms of thermal performance which might be associated with acoustic performance, MSI 970 (Gamig) achieves lower GPU temperature than ASUS 970 (Strix): http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_970_strix_review,9.html http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-geforce-gtx-970-gaming-rev...

Hi, I have been using several Lian Li chassis and SilverStone TJ-08E for a few years. I think you need realize that you can't have all of them and should strike a balance between: 1) sturdiness and longevity: TJ-08E is incomparably sturdy due to its steel-like material while Lian Li chassis are a bi...

Hi, I think it's now quite clear that MSI GTX 970 Gaming and ASUS GTX 970 Strix are the quietest options available. First things first, if you are looking for 1080p gaming, I think you can buy GTX 960 to maintain the lower overall noise level, rather than struggling with overpowered GTX 970 graphics...

initially I was looking at the Kotetsu, but then compared to the tiny stock cooler I thought wow do I need such a large looking cooler with all that weight hanging off my MB? I had similar sentiments (do I really need this gigantic cooler?) when I bought Noctua NH-U12S for my Intel CPU, i.e., i5-44...

I reckon you will be struggling to find a compact mATX chassis, which is sort of a market sandwiched between mITX and ATX chasses. Since there are not so many "compact" options available, I would personally vote TJ08-E. It can be an idea to turn off the front fan of TJ08-E if you are planning to use...

As far as I can gather from my experience, the official TDP figures published by Intel are not entirely reliable. To do justice to Intel, they seem to publish some kinds of "upper-bounds" of TDP figures reflecting all possibilities of overclocking and the use of integrated GPU. For example, the offi...

As far as I know, all Asrock motherboards for Haswell CPUs (including two in my signature) control 3-pin fans as delicately as 4-pin PWM fans. It is possible to vary the input voltage from 1% to 100% with a step size of 1%. I constantly get the impression that Asrock motherboards are not properly re...

Though it's up to your personal preferences, in general, I don't think it is economical to invest much money in reducing noise in a living room PC which is located relatively far from users. In order to suppress the MOST dominant noise factor, I suggest that you buy a really quite, preferably fanles...

I have been using two Lian Li cases for ITX, so-called Mini-Q Chassis. You can have a look at my signature. In my experience, most Lian Li's Mini-Q Chassis indeed have the problem of 'airflow obstructed by the front panel', with only a few exceptions such as PC-TU100, PC-TU200 and PC-Q18 where you c...

It is one of those Youtube channels explicitly supported by high-end markets, e.g., Corsair. It must be profitable for them to advocate many core processors even if they pretend to be neutral. SPCR is one of rare places where you can seek out genuinely neutral advice. For average users, four core In...

Another cheap alternative might be the SilverStone ST-30SF (300W, 80Plus Bronze, SFX, semifanless up to ~120W@55°C, IIRC). I have been massively impressed by SilverStone ST30SF. It is incredibly quite only with an inaudible trace of slight electrical noise provided that you are sitting at least 50c...

ASRock H77 Pro4-M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard Chosen after reading a few reviews, I know nothing about motherboards Asrock 70-series motherboards have only mediocre BIOS fan control. Basically, they just recklessly "attempt" to stabilize fan speed to achieve a specified CPU temperature in a quite...

I don't think the e8400 is the bottleneck. I beg to differ from CA_Steve. I do think E8400 can be the bottleneck because there were major architectural changes from Core 2 Duo to i3/i5/i7 CPUs. At the same time, if your current memory size is smaller than 4GB, it is quite likely that you can enhanc...

It depends on how you define 'silence', 'smallness' and 'unobstrusiveness'. I have seen a number of people in this forum asking for quiet builds end up with noisy high-power graphics card (I don't think any graphics cards with TDP of 100W or more can ever be absolutely silenced) and a number of HDDs...

You'd better avoid platinum-rated Seasonic PSUs (e.g., SS-400FL2) which are notorious for whining noise, allegedly due to some special circuitry used for elevating the power efficiency. Gold-rated ones seem to be quiet enough according to what are reported by many users. Based on the suggestions abo...

While a number of people in the forum recommend 750Ti, after researching several issues, I tend to think it is not advisable to purchase any graphics cards at the moment, or rather to postpone buying them as long as possible because: (1) It looks like Nvidia released 750Ti in a hasty manner without ...

I have used various PSUs, Seasonic SS-400FL2, Siverstone ST30SF, and Corsair RM450 and RM650, among which RM650 and RM450 were dead silent without any noticeable trace of electrical whining noise. I think it is fair to say that I fall within the range of extremists when it comes to silence-aware ent...

I agree with you, Scythe coolers are superior in this realm. My assessment was very subjective. Let me just put it this way: I seem to prefer the overall acoustic frequency response of Noctua fans. Not quite scientific, I concede. I've some serious doubts about what you're saying, ggumdol: as the Sc...

I was just wondering how much it costs in France for a similar rig to my spouse's and attempted to pick parts according to your requrements in Amazon France: CPU: Intel G3430 --- 85.69 EUR CPU Cooler: Scythe Big Shuriken 2 -- 45.03 EUR Motherboard: Asrock H81M-ITX --- 69.67 EUR Chassis: Lian Li PC-T...

Hi, Lately I built a new rig for my spouse from scratch (except for DDR3 memory) and you seem to have similar requirements: decent performance for office work, very small footprint, and absolute quietness. Here, you can have a look at what I did: quiet mITX with mid range hardware While a number of ...

No. Not that I'm aware of. Asrock ITX motherboards provide only 2 genuine PWM headers.

susdu wrote:is there such a thing?

Cable messing is addressable carefully choosing the PSU: something like a Corsair RM (with a full set of modular flat cabling) is the way to go. About the Q33, owning a couple of Lian Li enclosures with closed front (A05), I know they give below average results, thermal-wise: so yes, I guess the Q3...

Well, now it really is in the closing stages! :D Why am I not entirely convinced that it is really in the closing stage? PSU: Sea Sonic G-Series G-360 360W ATX 2.3 I'm unbelievably strongly opposing this choice as I'm suffering from distinctive whining noise from Seasonic SS-400FL2 in my HTPC. It's...

Since someone told me he had problems with ASUS W-LAN I am a little bit in doubt about the mainboard, that's why I asked: Well, I have been constantly recommending Asrock motherboards particularly for Haswell CPUs. I'm sorry for my rather terse answer without any pointers. To make the long story sh...

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K GPU: MSI N750Ti TF 2GD5/OC Twin Frozr Gaming I think it is a sensible choice or perhaps inevitable conclusion for people obssesed with silence. RAM: Crucial Ballistix Tactical LP DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR3L-1600, CL8-8-8-24, low profile I just took the cheapest low profile 16GB ki...

Is it crazy of me to suggest that CPU cooler <100mm height are too loud/cannot get rid of the heat in such a small system? I recently bought my spouse a new rig according to preference for "smallest" footprint, fast enough performance, and sufficient quietness: CPU: i3-4130 CPU Cooler: Scythe Big S...

I think you are discovering invaluable information about ASUS graphics cards (GTX 760) if you are making correct observations, about which I'm not entirely convinced but it is highly likely to be the truth. Provided that your graphics card sets the speed of the fan to "x %" of 3300 RPM regardless of...

Less explored yet quite important point particularly for silent computing enthusiasts seems to be that a variety of specifications are used in PWM headers of graphics cards. As the two people in the below have found out, ASUS and some other vendors seem to have adopted non-standard PWM headers, inco...