building a quiet rig

svan · Post by **svan** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 8:57 am

ok, time to replace my noisy old athlon 850.

Here are the parts that I'm considering:

Antec Performance One P180
amd64 3500(venice) or X2 3800
Scythe Ninja
Already have a Seagate 7200.8 250gb PATA in my current box, and I'm planning to get either 7200.8 250 SATA or a Samsung Spinpoint SATA.
2 x 512mb ram
Gigabyte 6600 Silent Pipe, 256MB DDR PCI-Express
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3540A

Not sure about the PSU, I currently do have a Fortron/Source 300W - it is fairly quiet to me. Is that enough power for that system? I'll possibly throw in my old liteon cdrw drive too.

I have not yet decided on motherboard, Asus A8N-SLI looks good, and I would replace the HSF with Zalman ZM-NB47J. I could go for the Premium version, because of the passive cooling.

Now, the questions:

Would I be able to run Ninja passively? or is it better to run it with a quiet fan? like Acousti AFDP-12025B(from quietpc.co.uk) or nexus 1200?

How loud/noisy would the box be with all 3 P180 fans set to low and running Ninja passivily? Like, would it be completly silent in a silent room? or you could just nearly hear it? Currently my current box is very loud(mainly the Sharkoon CUS2 HSF - which is "low noise"); and I would like to leave my box on during the night, but its just few feet away from my bed...

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Sarunas

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:20 am

well, here's the deal on your passive question:

why would you want to? your psu is 10x louder than a nexus fan that would cool the cpu. Dual core and passive is on the edge of the meltdown/fine at passive. Play a game for 2-3 hours, you will be surprised how hot that chip will be with WATERCOOLING. let alone passive. people doing passive with ninja are also doing single cores. im sure there is someoen out there on dual core, but, what's the point? 4 nexus fan at 120mm are inaudible anyways.

so just a no on the passive.

also, a passive gfx card in the 6600GT area runs very hot. just because it is passive doesnt mean the system or the card likes it. the advantage of passive vid cards is that with a low rpm fan, you can make dramatic cooling results on it. It is nearly ok with passive which means that with a fan, it does great.

I would consider case flow and internal fans to be the left out factor in your build. I would seriously pump some air into that from a moderately volted 120mm fan in the front of the case if you want to make things passive.

svan · Post by **svan** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:42 am

Thanks for the reply.

Would the 3 stock fans on P180 on low and a 120mm fan on Ninja be enough for cooling or should I concider to add another 120mm in the front?

The card that I'm considering is not a GT model.

Cheers

spworley · Post by **spworley** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:06 pm

You can definately get very quiet with that setup. It's somewhat similar to my new 4800+ rig.
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=24898

With the 3800+'s clock rate and especially if you undervolt it, you can proably get away with passive if you have two case fans. Undervolted Nexus fans work. [The P180's own fans are very good, but not silent even on low.]

But I recommend what I did. Put a 12cm Nexus fan on the Ninja, but use the motherboard header and set the BIOS to spin it up only when the CPU gets too hot. My idle CPU temps are only 12 degrees above ambient (37 C), so I run my fan to turn on at 40C and max out at 50C. Running dual Prime95 will bring the CPU up to 45C, which of course has the fan turned on and running at roughly half-speed. I can barely hear the fan when it reaches full speed, but half speed is a kind of "is it there, or not"? threshold.
Both my case fans are running at constant 5V, and are undetectable except from the very rear of the case, nothing at all audible when beside me 2 feet away.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:24 pm

The above posts have some clues here-A hardcore gamer could push it,but there's a nice "safety valve plan too,letting a 120 be moterboard controlled so it is there if really needed. I'm into the PSU's that have a 140 mm fan,probably a Yate Loon. Coolmax makes a line ranging from 400w to 550. Nice price. there is at least one other brand with a 140. On the Coolmax,its a 3 speed-low is 1000 rpm,and the fan is on the bottom of the PSU-which would line it up just inches from a Ninja.

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:05 pm

now i'm no expert on bleeding edge systems but just a little concerned about your PSU. does your fortron/source 300w have dual 12v lines? won't this type of setup require them?
i am given to understand that a rig like this will need quite a lot on the 12v lines and if your fortron is anything like the ones i have here i don't think it will be enough.
i stand to be corrected of course it's all just guesswork

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:54 pm

Yeah, I duno about his psu. I know little about fortron. well, besides that I used to like them a lot way back. But now i see all components much differently, cuz of damn spcr.

I have to make the move to dual core as well. i wonder if I should go 3800 or 4400. big price difference for me.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:59 pm

I'm using a Fortron Blue Storm in my main system right now. It can take a pretty hefty load, 3HDDs, 2 optical drives, plus a 6800 NU graphics card. But, I'd be careful with an old 300W Fortron. They're quiet but I'm not sure if they can handle the load. Make sure you have dual 12 V rails, and maybe get a new PSU if you're getting the Athlon64 X2.