Microsoft should take note of the many complaints here about the fewer individual choices Windows 8 allows.

It looks like a trend--less autonomy for the computer user, more control and monitoring by external third parties ranging from commercial enterprises to governments.

"Metrosexual": that made me laugh and groan at the same time. Touché. There's an insight buried in your humor, namely that in interactions between enthusiasts and computers, displaced erotic and narcissistic projections abound. Would like to see some discussion (in other threads; off-topic here) abo...

Computing technology is moving forward in two directions, whether we like it or not: 1) More and more people will be using touch screens; farther down the road, even more intimate links between human beings and their machines are conceivable; 2) Apps will migrate to the "cloud" and take most of the ...

"Bad things"--quite right, we don't want our builds to go up in smoke. However, PWM controls, depending on the mobo, can be fiddly. I have a heatsink fan--Noctua 140mm--regulated by a Fan Mate to just over 500 rpm and the temps are all well within the green and stay that way even under load; but not...

Regarding your heatsink, I would swap out the stock fan for another one (Noctua, Noiseblocker, Scythe--the usual suspects) and add a Zalman Fan Mate 2 to reduce the rpm. That should work wonders. I installed a Be Quiet Straight Power BQT E9 400W in a build to replace another PSU that I found too lou...

The X400 has a higher wattage than this system requires, but then, I would install it, too, because of the lack of good, quiet PSUs under 400 watts.

Would be interested, should you go ahead with this build, as to whether the X400 is truly silent in your configuration with the Intel board.

A witty concoction and ingenious design using on-hand materials. The build proves that truly silent components like SSDs make elaborate damping measures irrelevant. Case materials can now be chosen more freely. I like the tilted mounting of SSDs in the drive rack, which takes into account the struct...

Thanks, Crash. The temp you state (38°) is good for two fans running at 300 rpm! Another reason in favor of two fans in a push-pull configuration. Some people find the Noctua PWM fans disappointing, but apparently you're satisfied. I think the NH-D14 SE 2011 is a good choice for the Temjin depending...

@Backslash Just booted up my new build using the G360. Unfortunately, it seems mine has an extremely loud coil whine that can be heard across the room. In one of my builds, I installed a 380W Seasonic S12II-380GB whose coil whined so loudly that I swapped it out for another PSU. I've read since then...

A quiet, efficient, low-wattage PSU is the Holy Grail for minimalist quiet PC builders, but I remain unconvinced that this PSU would be better than its older brother, the X-400 FL, especially since some SPCR readers who have actually tried out the PSU have written here that the fan runs continuously...

@ Kuzzia: 1) Agree, resistors are a simple and elegant solution, and I had thought of them in addition to the Fan Mate. Which of the resistors you recommend, RC56 or RC100, should I install to lower the Penetrator RPM to 500? In my experience, dedicated resistors/rheostats are better than PWM. 2) Sh...

Would be grateful for advice on a Temjin TJ08-E quiet PC build, onboard graphics, i5 probably at 77W, 2 sticks of 8GB RAM: 1) The 18 cm 3-pin Air Penetrator fan is said to be too loud even with the installed 2-speed voltage switch. What are good options for quieting the fan in addition to the 2-spee...

I'm using a Noctua NH-C12P SE14 heatsink cooled by an NF-P14 140mm fan in one of my builds. Even with the supplied ultra-low-noise adapter it was too loud, so I installed a Zalman Fan Mate 2 rheostat instead to control fan speed. The result was more than satisfactory. Some of the currently published...

"I do mostly media (images, audio, video) editing, so I think the 8 threads and memory bandwidth will be more useful." I had guessed that video rendering (not gaming) was probably what you were up to. This interests me, because the speech recognition program I use makes hefty demands. With the i7 an...

Clean build.

Does the i7 and the Asrock allow you to take your memory kit to its limits or have you noticed any speed bottlenecks in your system?

Also, since you're using onboard graphics, like xan_user, I'm wondering why the extra oomph.

Power efficiency is key to quiet computing, so the newer Intel DH boards are interesting, but according to what's been said here so far they don't allow undervolting. What about a board like the DH77EB (or DH77KC) in combination not with the i5 3750K but the i5-3475S, which like the 3750K has HD4000...

I refer you to this discussion if you haven't seen it already: "DH77DF vs DH77EB - power consumption" http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=64635 My source of information was an article in the German periodical "C't" comparing various mainboards and praising the energy efficiency...

Thanks for sharing. Looks like a good board, but as a "hard-core silencer" I now have some doubts. Perhaps a board like Intel's DH77EB (for a non-gaming rig) would be better, given its lower energy consumption, although the ASUS board meets higher standards in other areas. "It's hardcoded at 40 %, s...

Hey, thanks for all the advice from you guys, who are better versed in these matters than I am. According to my calculations, the maximum load should not be more than 200W even if all hard drives/SSDs etc. are switched on, and they won't be if I install the Lian-Li power switch. So, as suggested, th...

Many thanks, mkk and kuzzia, for your kind replies. 1) i5 vs. i7. The i5 3570K had been my first choice. I was seduced by an enthusiast's fascination with speed and technology to consider the i7 3770, but, you are right, it makes as much sense in this build as it does to take a bath in a swimming po...

For what it's worth, here is a tentative build for a quiet PC. It will be used primarily for office applications, including voice recognition software, with some multitasking. Case: P280 CPU: i7-3770 Mobo: ASUS P8H77-V Ram: Kingston HyperX 12 GB DDR3-1600 HS: HR-02 Macho HS fan: Noiseblocker S-Serie...

If energy efficiency is important, don't forget to enable C1E in the Intel DH77KC bios.

Thanks, Moogles! Very interesting, though not quite what I'm looking for.

For some time, I have been searching for a case for a quiet office PC. Not so easy. I have doubts about the quality of R3 cases, too; in fact, about the quality of most other cases as well, which these days tend to look downright chintzy. I want a solid, quiet, no-BS, utilitarian case. Why is that s...

I think it's not fair to tag the Seasonic X as being generally whiny or buzzy. They are not, in our experience, and this comment extends to the entire X line, not just the fanless ones. It wasn't just the alleged X-400 coil whine complaints that gave me pause but also my experience with a recent bu...

Many thanks to Lawrence Lee and Mike Chin for this article. The possibilities of the Seasonic X-400 for a quiet system, especially a minimalist one, are interesting, indeed. However, I have found repeated references to alleged X-400 coil whine or other noise on several forums. This makes me skeptica...