SPCR

Hi Guys,

Been a time that I visited my favourite silent PC site.
Just want to share my experiences of my first gaming rig that is near silent.
This is about my sixth desktop I assembled myself and the third with the knowledge of SPCR on my side.

As most frequent visitors of SPCR know that is not all that hard to select components for a good performing gaming rig and that's reasonable silent.
Except from the graphics card. Good performing cards are normally loud. But I am quite happy with my present build.

To give you an idea of the Performance of the rig: I play Battlefield 4 on full HD with almost all the settings on max.

I can only hear my PC when a play for a hour or longer, and even then it is not loud, you can barely hear the fans spinning.
For normal work, using MS Office, Internet or Sketchup, you cannot hear it unless you keep your ear at about 50 cm from the PC.

Okay my components:

Case: Silverstone TJ08-E (with a single front side 18cm Air penetrator intake fan) {reviewed on SPCR}
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-M {Good electrical components no PCB fans, has Fan Xpert+ software standard}
CPU: Intel i5-2500K (3,3GHz) {You don't need an i7 unless you do number crunching tasks, like rendering or video editing}
CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen 3B (12cm PWM fan)
Storage: Only one SSD (fast and low power, no optical drives or HDs)
PSU: Seasonic X-560 {Is semi-passive, the fan gradually revs-up after 50% load, review on SPCR}
Mem: 8Gb
GPU: MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (Great performing card and near silent!)



The GPU I use in my set-up is the component I want to elaborate on. Normally the GPU is the component in a gaming setup you have to choose between either speed or quietness.
This Graphic card is the first one that i don't have to compromise!
The MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC uses the Twin Frozer cooler that I really love for its cooling performance while being almost silent.

Just like the semi-passive Seasonic PSU, the fans of the GPU are only heard when you are gaming. When you're doing productivity work in MS Office, Internet and so on the Twin Frozer is silent.
One nice feature is the fact that the fans briefly spin in the opposite direction when turned on to throw off dust.

Maybe our friends at SPCR can review one of the MSI GPUs with the Twin Frozer cooler. I am sure it will earn some points at the silent front.

Greets,

Silent1

Oh Noes, This should be in general gallery! Hopefully Steve will move it. Show it off properly with some pics if you can. I have feedback but I'll wait for pics and a thread move.

I've enjoyed the MSI card (see my signature thread)...but for me, it's quiet rather than silent in 2D tasks. MSI needs to use fans that will operated below ~900 rpm.

Congrats on your build.

Grats on the quiet build =)

Btw are you using fanXpert to control the frontal AP181? This are what i got using it on both low and high, having it on low allows fanxpert to drop it an extra 60rpms where it even lower more the frontal wosh it has around 500rpms.



I also agree with steve, i think MSI should design their fans and cards to be able to idle lower than they allow atm, 500rpms would be great ideal. But for sure if MSI continues their trend with the Twin Frozr line and make them as quiet as they are atm or quieter.... then it will be my brand on gpus, as they are on motherboards.

I remember that front fan in tj08-e was serious problem for me, even at absolutely minimum speed it wasn't inaudiable, when case was next to me on top of my desk. Such big intake just doesn't work very well for silent setup. Fan itself is also not the quietest among 180mm (it is powerful at high rpm though).

Thx you for your kind words, guys.

I got beamed into "the show your rig" forum.
So I inserted a picture of the internals. As you can see i removed the drive cage for better airflow.
You can admire the (lack of) cable management also

The original Scythe fan that was mounted against the Mugen3 at the backside of the case, died on me a few days ago.
I mounted an old Nexus fan against the backside of the case. I was too lazy to take out the motherboard and fiddle around with the fan mounting springs of the Mugen.

Love the fotos of your builds Aerial, very neat!

Abula, Did you connect the Penetrator fan onto a MB fan header to control the speed?

I agree that silent on idle or 2D work might be an overstatement, as far as the Twinforzrs are concerned, but they are quiet enough for me.
Did anyone measure/compare the sound of the Twinfrozrs against the best Asus cooling solutions?

My next build will be the challenge of building a 4K gaming rig that is reasonable quiet.
Looking in the advancements of GPUs maybe in two maybe three years...

Silent1 wrote: Did anyone measure/compare the sound of the Twinfrozrs against the best Asus cooling solutions?

I'm running the Asus card and ended up replacing the heatsink with an aftermarket cooler. Compared to MSI the Asus cooling solution is slightly better at idle (at least that's what all the web tests tell), but unbearably loud under load (to my ears). MSI seems to be the better solution over all.

Silent1 wrote:Abula, Did you connect the Penetrator fan onto a MB fan header to control the speed?

Yes, to CHA_FAN2.

Silent1 wrote:My next build will be the challenge of building a 4K gaming rig that is reasonable quiet.
Looking in the advancements of GPUs maybe in two maybe three years...

We are very far from that, right now not even a SLI setup can drive current games at 4k.... many are saying that the GTX980 wont be able to in SLI, so another year or two for SLI to drive 4k... then the increments we get on the usual gen to gen basis is close to 25%.... so that would mean at least two gens more to reach single gpu. My guess is 4 to 5 years for 4k gaming to become mainstream, and we will probably have 8k monitors by then.... so the upgrading will never end... =)

We are very far from that, right now not even a SLI setup can drive current games at 4k.... many are saying that the GTX980 wont be able to in SLI, so another year or two for SLI to drive 4k... then the increments we get on the usual gen to gen basis is close to 25%.... so that would mean at least two gens more to reach single gpu. My guess is 4 to 5 years for 4k gaming to become mainstream, and we will probably have 8k monitors by then.... so the upgrading will never end... =)

I hope we will get 4K gaming sooner than 4 to 5 years.

Today my favourite Computer related site tested the last gen Nvidia cards. They tested gaming in 4K also. http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/5623/3/ ... tlefield-4
You need 2 or 3 way SLI to get decent framerates but we're getting there

Abula, Thx for the tip of connecting the Case fan on the MB. Is now on my to-do list.

IMHO we won't get 4k gaming that soon. Because as long as 4k gaming hardware isn't widespread or standard, publisher would have to supply 2 versions of any game, one 1080p and a 4k version. This means higher developing costs and depending on the engine used even twofold programming.

Not very likely, given the fact that most publishers claim to run on thin ice. Except a few big players of course.

Pappnaas wrote:publisher would have to supply 2 versions of any game, one 1080p and a 4k version. This means higher developing costs and depending on the engine used even twofold programming.

They would? I'm confused...

We have 4K gaming now and the only issue maybe is that most games are not optimized for it. So there may perhaps be scope for things like texture sizes to be adjusted but I don't think this adds up to separate versions of a game.

The biggest issue with 4k, isnt gaming, but Windows. It has terrible scaling, you could use such PC only for gaming.
Hopefully win10 will fix this.

Telstar wrote:The biggest issue with 4k, isnt gaming, but Windows. It has terrible scaling, you could use such PC only for gaming.
Hopefully win10 will fix this.

My solution... go for 4k 40'' monitor =), just manufacturers don't seem that keen to make big monitors.... but Seiki is coming with one early 2014. Low Cost Seiki Pro Branded 4K Ultra HD Displays

No, you don't get the problem. Windows cannot scale the TEXT properly to such a high resolution.

Telstar wrote:No, you don't get the problem. Windows cannot scale the TEXT properly to such a high resolution.

What im trying to do is avoid the scaling, and move into a screen that will have similar text as what i use now, but with more real state screen due to the 4k / 40''.

Abula wrote:

Telstar wrote:No, you don't get the problem. Windows cannot scale the TEXT properly to such a high resolution.

What im trying to do is avoid the scaling, and move into a screen that will have similar text as what i use now, but with more real state screen due to the 4k / 40''.

I dont think it will work, I'm afraid it wil look just big and blurry.

Telstar wrote:

Abula wrote:

Telstar wrote:No, you don't get the problem. Windows cannot scale the TEXT properly to such a high resolution.

What im trying to do is avoid the scaling, and move into a screen that will have similar text as what i use now, but with more real state screen due to the 4k / 40''.

I dont think it will work, I'm afraid it wil look just big and blurry.

I'll let you know when Seiki releases... but idk why you think native res + no scaling = blurry, this is not the same case as sending it to a big LCD TV screen.

I think pointing you to some article is better than trying to explain in my non-native English:
http://techreport.com/blog/25797/high-p ... t-so-great

Pretty good post. Congratulations.. I just stumbled upon your post and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your thread.