SPCR

Excellent article! Seems obvious because of the GFX's TDP but just to make sure, wouldn't you advise against a 980Ti ITX system, with a shorter card like MSI's Gaming 6G?

Is this a typo?
"— Idle, all fans at minimum speed (14 dBA@1m)
— Resident Evil 6 Demo Benchmark (peak), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (23 dBA@1m)
— Total War: Attila In-Game Benchmark (background music/score), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (31~37 dBA@1m)"

How can the GPU fans at the same speed In Res Evil produce 23dBA, but in Total War it's 31-37dBA? Is evil just quieter than war?

QuietCat wrote:Is this a typo?
"— Idle, all fans at minimum speed (14 dBA@1m)
— Resident Evil 6 Demo Benchmark (peak), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (23 dBA@1m)
— Total War: Attila In-Game Benchmark (background music/score), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (21~22 dBA@1m)"

I corrected your 'quote' with the numbers from the review.

Also, from the review:

Of the two game tests, Resident Evil 6 was harder on the system, requiring a GPU fan speed of 1920 RPM (50%) at its peak, which brought the overall noise level to a reasonable 26 dBA@1m while a much quieter 23 dBA@1m was possible with a slight GPU fan speed tweak.

While Resident Evil 6 is physically taxing on the GPU, it's not very demanding.

Total War: Attila on the otherhand requires a lot of horsepower,

CA_Steve wrote:

QuietCat wrote:Is this a typo?
"— Idle, all fans at minimum speed (14 dBA@1m)
— Resident Evil 6 Demo Benchmark (peak), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (23 dBA@1m)
— Total War: Attila In-Game Benchmark (background music/score), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (21~22 dBA@1m)"

I corrected your 'quote' with the numbers from the review.

Also, from the review:

Of the two game tests, Resident Evil 6 was harder on the system, requiring a GPU fan speed of 1920 RPM (50%) at its peak, which brought the overall noise level to a reasonable 26 dBA@1m while a much quieter 23 dBA@1m was possible with a slight GPU fan speed tweak.

While Resident Evil 6 is physically taxing on the GPU, it's not very demanding.

Total War: Attila on the otherhand requires a lot of horsepower,

Saw the table in the review, but what I'm referencing is the last page of the article: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1498-page6.html

AUDIO RECORDINGS

These recordings were made with a high resolution, lab quality, digital recording system inside SPCR's own 11 dBA ambient anechoic chamber, then converted to LAME 128kbps encoded MP3s. We've listened long and hard to ensure there is no audible degradation from the original WAV files to these MP3s. They represent a quick snapshot of what we heard during the review.

Each recording starts with ambient noise, then 5~10 second segments of product at various states. For the most realistic results, set the volume so that the starting ambient level is just barely audible, then don't change the volume setting again while comparing all the sound files.

SPCR 4K Gaming PC - operating
— Idle, all fans at minimum speed (14 dBA@1m)
— Resident Evil 6 Demo Benchmark (peak), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (23 dBA@1m)
— Total War: Attila In-Game Benchmark (background music/score), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (31~37 dBA@1m)

So the last page is incorrect, but the article table data is correct, is that correct?

QuietCat wrote:
So the last page is incorrect, but the article table data is correct, is that correct?

that table has an * on it, as the stock GPU speeds were (obviously) too loud (for a decent SPCR build guide).

1680 RPM @ 31~37 dBA@1m
Vs manually set at its lowest setting that still prevents throttling 1260 RPM
(40%) @ 21~22 dBA@1m.

Is there a particular reason why the WD Greens aren't mentioned when speaking about extra storage? I do know the difference between a Blue, Green and Red, but I was wondering wether not mentioning the Greens means they are not to be recommanded?

Potenza wrote:Is there a particular reason why the WD Greens aren't mentioned when speaking about extra storage? I do know the difference between a Blue, Green and Red, but I was wondering wether not mentioning the Greens means they are not to be recommanded?

I think its because everyone was fed too much FUD about the head parking feature on greens.

How come mr. Lee decided to run/recommend two sub-par PSUs like the SilverStone Strider Platinum 750W and the Seasonic M12II-620?

Huuuuge case. Yikes.

Tested games not the most demanding ones and one 980TI easily could be too slow to handle 4K gaming with decent framerates, so I wonder how much louder it would be with two those graphics cards in sli. Also SilverStone RV05/FT05 mentioned as "best performing sub-$200 case we've ested", so it should perform quieter in same conditions? And which case over-$200 should perform even better noise-wise, assuming that we stay with air cooling only?

OverZerg wrote:And which case over-$200 should perform even better noise-wise, assuming that we stay with air cooling only?

I doubt there is one. The FT's 180mm fans are just below the card(s). Was it Abdula who built a SLI-gaming rig in it?

edit: jop: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=68231

Though Pudget System did some tests and whether the air streams horizontal or vertical make practically no difference. With the right fans the Q500, Define S and FT05 are probably very close to each other.

Thanks for the review.

I am struggling to find a quiet case with good airflow for a similar configuration (100W cpu and 200W gpu), but with an SSI-EEB motherboard (12" x 13"). Unfortunately, all the cases you mentioned in the article are unable to host a mobo of this size. Any advice would be appreciated. Weight, size and price are not an issue (only quietness and airflow are considered). EDIT : I found Phanteks Enthoo Luxe in the SCPR recommended cases. I hope this case is good for air cooling too.

Lawrence Lee wrote:I found playing at 1080p resolution on the 4K screen to be a very enjoyable experience. It's not as crisp as proper UHD, but the Vizio M43-C1 does a surprisingly good job at upscaling the image.

If game settings are set to "high", perhaps anti-aliasing is activated.

Let's say we play a game at 1000x1000 resolution, on a 4000x4000 screen, with 16x anti-aliasing activated. Each frame will be computed as a 4000x4000 picture, then each block of 16 pixels of this frame will be averaged to give a single pixel in the target 1000x1000 frame. Finally, this 1000x1000 frame will be upscaled to 4000x4000 and displayed.

Have you tried to play at 4K resolution, with "high" settings, but with anti-aliasing deactivated ? Is it better than anti-aliased 1080p resolution upscaled to 4K ?

In the original Carbide 600Q review you said that adding the third case fan did not provide a noticeable improvement over the stock configuration. Just wondering why you went with 3 case fans this time around? Was it to compensate for the smaller exhaust fan that had to be used? Or is it the case that the additional stock fan does not add value but the additional replacement fan does? Just trying to work out how many replacement fans I would potentially need to optimise the noise to cooling ratio.

Also, with the way the case is laid out, when using a power supply with a hybrid fan mode switch such as the Corsair RMi series do you think that there would be any benefit to running with the fan on all the time, like an extra exhaust or would this raise the noise floor too much for the benefit?

Button_Mash wrote:Just wondering why you went with 3 case fans this time around?

Probably because the test rig was completely different (hotter).

Button_Mash wrote:do you think that there would be any benefit to running with the fan on all the time, like an extra exhaust or would this raise the noise floor too much for the benefit?

There's a somewhat restrictive chamber/fan filter assembly you've to take into account, and you need additional piece of software (System Information Viewer) to run the PSU fan under 40% (not to mention the PSU doesn't have an exhaust role in the ATX scheme).

Thanks for the build, especially for that note on the mugen problems with skylake. Thank heavens I did not go with that combo.

...although I do agree with the notion that you still need to wait for any decent single-card 4K gaming solution, at least if you play current games. Realistically, 4K gaming won't be a big thing until maybe the next console generation, if they actually get a decent resolution upgrade. Until then, the two biggest hurdles are that engines won't be optimized for it, and that some "high-end" cards still only have 4GB of memory, which is at times simply insufficient.

If you did not have access to the Phanteks fans or wanted to use a more traditional fan with the standard 140mm mounts, what would you recommend?

Suggestions I have seen so far are:

Noctua NF-A14 PWM (iPPC-2000 version if you are not a fan of brown)
Noctua NF-P14s Redux-1200 PWM
Antec TrueQuiet 140
Fractal Design Dynamic GP-14

If the Fractal GP-14 sounds good, I would hope that the Venturi HP-14 PWM sounds good too but I have not heard a definitive statement on that.

QuietCat wrote:Is this a typo?
"— Idle, all fans at minimum speed (14 dBA@1m)
— Resident Evil 6 Demo Benchmark (peak), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (23 dBA@1m)
— Total War: Attila In-Game Benchmark (background music/score), CPU/rear fans at 700 RPM, front fans at 650 RPM, GPU fans at 1680 RPM (31~37 dBA@1m)"

How can the GPU fans at the same speed In Res Evil produce 23dBA, but in Total War it's 31-37dBA? Is evil just quieter than war?

The 31~37 dBA@1m is with the background music being played at a moderate level. Attila is not any more physically demanding.

Potenza wrote:Is there a particular reason why the WD Greens aren't mentioned when speaking about extra storage? I do know the difference between a Blue, Green and Red, but I was wondering wether not mentioning the Greens means they are not to be recommanded?

Greens have been rolled into the Blue line.

quest_for_silence wrote:How come mr. Lee decided to run/recommend two sub-par PSUs like the SilverStone Strider Platinum 750W and the Seasonic M12II-620?

The Strider is just what I happened to use. It didn't have any effect on the acoustics, so I stuck with it. The M12II was recommended because we know it to be quiet.

Lawrence Lee wrote:

quest_for_silence wrote:How come mr. Lee decided to run/recommend two sub-par PSUs like the SilverStone Strider Platinum 750W and the Seasonic M12II-620?

The Strider is just what I happened to use. It didn't have any effect on the acoustics, so I stuck with it. The M12II was recommended because we know it to be quiet.

Thanks for your answer, though definitely it leaves a lot to be desired...

xkit wrote:Thanks for the review.

I am struggling to find a quiet case with good airflow for a similar configuration (100W cpu and 200W gpu), but with an SSI-EEB motherboard (12" x 13"). Unfortunately, all the cases you mentioned in the article are unable to host a mobo of this size. Any advice would be appreciated. Weight, size and price are not an issue (only quietness and airflow are considered). EDIT : I found Phanteks Enthoo Luxe in the SCPR recommended cases. I hope this case is good for air cooling too.

Fractal Design XL-R2 fits an E-ATX and XL-ATX mobo, fwiw. I believe that means it's got most, if not all, the right holes, depending on your board. I ran into this problem when building with an Asrock X99 WS-E board. not a lot of E-ATX options. :/

Thank you for this interesting build. I haven't found the idle power draw for this setup - did I miss that? Maybe you could post it here.

PH-F140HP_RD are not found for sale. SPCR's links take you to PH-F140HP_BK2 (well different 7 baldes desing against 9 from one shown in the article).

Glide Stream whose label is blue is discontinued. The links take PWM version (pink label).

I think those may are not able to reproduce the same good results that Lawrence got.

lb_felipe wrote:PH-F140HP_RD are not found for sale. SPCR's links take you to PH-F140HP_BK2 (well different 7 baldes desing against 9 from one shown in the article).

Glide Stream whose label is blue is discontinued. The links take PWM version (pink label).

I think those may are not able to reproduce the same good results that Lawrence got.

The Antec true quiet 140 fan might be what you want to use instead. From what I've read on the forums it can drop to inaudible rpms when controlled by PWM and it's performance isn't too terrible. Check the 140mm fan reviews. Alternatively, Noctua still sells the SPCR references 140mm fan as a redux version.

il_grande_silencio wrote:Thank you for this interesting build. I haven't found the idle power draw for this setup - did I miss that? Maybe you could post it here.

Idles at 46W. Didn't think it was relevant.

Interesting read as always, Lawrence (especially as I was considering a very similar build before deciding to wait for Pascal and Kaby Lake).

In the article, you mentioned the 212 EVO as a budget option heatsink. By any chance are there plans to review the 212 EVO? I've long wondered how it stacks up against the newer, similarly priced alternatives. And how it stacks up against heatsinks that are priced the same as a 212 EVO + a decent aftermarket fan. Actually, I've just had a thought. Might I be so bold as to suggest a review of the new 212X vs. the 212 EVO? I'm sure there are many people out there wondering whether the 212X is worth almost twice that of the 212 EVO.

Long time reader of SPCR and lurker on these forums, I finally decided to register to say thanks for this article. I'm planning on building a Pascal / Polaris ready system and your guide saved me a lot of time in research.

A couple of quick things I hope someone can confirm, and a question:

1/ Am I right in thinking Kaby Lake won't offer much performance gain over Skylake when IGP improvements are discounted?

2/ The X170 chipset and PCIe 3.0 should be capable of supporting Pascal / Polaris without introducing a bottleneck?

3/ The fans mentioned in the guide aren't readily available over here in the UK as far as I can see. In fact, they're marked EOL rather than OOS at some retailers. Could you recommend solid alternatives which might be more readily available?

Thanks again!

z4r9 wrote:3/ The fans mentioned in the guide aren't readily available over here in the UK as far as I can see. In fact, they're marked EOL rather than OOS at some retailers. Could you recommend solid alternatives which might be more readily available?

Providing they were all PWM (too long; didn't read):

120mm:

• http://skinflint.co.uk/scythe-slip-stre ... 85319.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/scythe-glide-str ... 37136.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/noctua-nf-s12a-p ... 03911.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/fractal-design-v ... 66893.html

140mm:

• http://skinflint.co.uk/phanteks-ph-f140 ... 12628.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/noctua-nf-p14s-r ... 15331.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/thermalright-ty- ... 15496.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/noctua-nf-a15-pw ... 70806.html
• http://skinflint.co.uk/fractal-design-v ... 66895.html

z4r9 wrote:1/ Am I right in thinking Kaby Lake won't offer much performance gain over Skylake when IGP improvements are discounted?

2/ The X170 chipset and PCIe 3.0 should be capable of supporting Pascal / Polaris without introducing a bottleneck?

1) Post Sandy Bridge, we've seen 5-10% improvement in processor performance each generation. So, the conservative answer is we'll see the same. The biggest gains tend to be all the other things, like AES-NI improvements, Quick Sync improvements, USB 3.1, energy savings, etc..

2) Yes.

Thanks for the confirmations, CA_Steve. Also thanks quest_for_silence for the list of alternative fans, I hadn't seen the Skinflint price comparison site before and it's very useful.

Cistron wrote:

lb_felipe wrote:PH-F140HP_RD are not found for sale. SPCR's links take you to PH-F140HP_BK2 (well different 7 baldes desing against 9 from one shown in the article).

Glide Stream whose label is blue is discontinued. The links take PWM version (pink label).

I think those may are not able to reproduce the same good results that Lawrence got.

The Antec true quiet 140 fan might be what you want to use instead. From what I've read on the forums it can drop to inaudible rpms when controlled by PWM and it's performance isn't too terrible. Check the 140mm fan reviews. Alternatively, Noctua still sells the SPCR references 140mm fan as a redux version.

Thanks. I do know whether P14r is the same as old because now it is PWM and uses other range of speed. I would love to see SPCR reviewing that.

The link SPCR shows is going to this "bad" fan: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=67783&p=599920#p599920

Warning.