First Quiet PC - Your thoughts please

[syncmaster33]

I currently have an AMD 2500 overclocked to 3200, 4 HDs, Ati Radeon 9800, and DVD burner. It is all in a cheap case with a crappy Roswell PSU (Has worked fine though). Anyway....I am getting a little tired of waiting for my computer as I tend to do a lot of things at once. So I thought....time to move up. That meant I needed a new MB for the C2D but beyond that I didn't want to buy much more. So I got the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA with a C2D 6400. I was just going to use the same case and power supply, but decided that I was tired of sitting next to something that sounds like it might just taxi down a runway. So here is what I am thinking and any advice or thoughts you guys/gals may have would be greatly appreciated.

Case
Antec SOLO or Antec NSK 6500
(Thought about the P180 but that thing is way to big. The P150 was also considered but I got concerned about the power supply and all the problems people have had with it....not to mention I am unsure about the color.) Not sure about the PSU in the 6500 though.

Power Supply.
Corsair HX520
It got good reviews on this site. I realize that it is more then I need, but I think it will give me room to upgrade without having to worry much. Especially since the new DX10 cards seem to be pretty power hungry. I was told that this was overkill and there were better choices that were cheaper.

Heat Sink
Scythe Ninja

MB/CPU
ASRock 775Dual-VSTA/Conroe 6400
Might overclock it a little but I read that the MB I have isn't good for that.

GPU
My Old Radeon 9800. It is probably fairly loud but i can't hear it over the rest of my old system so I don't know. I think I looked into getting a different cooler for it, but I think I gave up since it didn't have the needed holes or something.

DVD Burner/floppy/USB-Firewire PCI card/3-4 older Seagates which seem pretty quiet.

Some final random quesitons.
Do I need different fans for the case/Scythe Ninja?
How to I adjust the voltage of fans to make the run slower?

Ok....that is it. Please be gentle.

[ultrachrome]

Solo plus the HX520 should go together nicely.

The stock Solo fan has a switch on it to adjust its speed. It's decent but if you want a really quiet fan pick one from this page.

If you want to know how to rewire fans to run at lower voltages read this page

What you'll find after you put this all together is that your 9800 will sound like a lawnmower. A lot of powerful GPUs out there that can be had with fanless heatsinks.

And you may find your hard drives are louder than you thought. The Solo can soft mount 3 drives which is highly recommended. If you use their drive trays you can install four but there's more case vibration and risk of noise when you use the trays. You can see how their mounted here.

With a Ninja you should be able to cool the entire machine with the PSU fan and 1 case fan. It may not be necessary to put a fan directly on the heatsink at all. For me, adding a fan to the Ninja in addition to the case fan only lowered my temp a couple degrees. Search the gallery for ninja and solo or p150 and see what folks have done.

With the above parts, you could have a near silent machine without a lot of effort.

[syncmaster33]

Thanks for the thoughts/advice.

I know the GPU will be loud...but I am hoping that in the SOLO case it won't be too bad, especially since I am going from something that I can hear 2 rooms away. I got the board I did in hopes of keeping my old GPU and RAM. The Radeon is dated, but works for me in the light gaming I do.

Anyone else want to comment?

[ciz28]

GPU
My Old Radeon 9800. It is probably fairly loud but i can't hear it over the rest of my old system so I don't know. I think I looked into getting a different cooler for it, but I think I gave up since it didn't have the needed holes or something.

I used to have this on my Radeon 9500: http://www.atechfabrication.com/product ... system.htm

I liked it because it was passive, but not obnoxiously large. Although it is fairly expensive, I was really happy with it for the four (I think?) years I used the video card.

[ultrachrome]

Thanks for the thoughts/advice.

I know the GPU will be loud...but I am hoping that in the SOLO case it won't be too bad, especially since I am going from something that I can hear 2 rooms away. I got the board I did in hopes of keeping my old GPU and RAM. The Radeon is dated, but works for me in the light gaming I do.

Anyone else want to comment?

The solo might mute it a little bit but these are air cooled cases with lots of ventilation. They don't block noise that well which is why we use Ninjas and low speed fans.

"Quiet" is somewhat relative and noise is not generally additive. For example if your CPU fan and GPU fan are about the same loudness, quieting your CPU will not make your machine any quieter. It will likely change the character of the sound.

But you're on the right path. You'll figure it out soon enough.

[Stereodude]

Thanks for the thoughts/advice.

I know the GPU will be loud...but I am hoping that in the SOLO case it won't be too bad, especially since I am going from something that I can hear 2 rooms away. I got the board I did in hopes of keeping my old GPU and RAM. The Radeon is dated, but works for me in the light gaming I do.

Anyone else want to comment?

You can always stick a Zalman VF-900 Cu on a new graphics card to make it nice a quiet. SPCR Review

Newegg has it for $32.99 and until midnight (PST) you can get free shipping by paying with Paypal and using the coupon code PAYPALFREE.

[syncmaster33]

Well. I got ordered the Corsair and the SOLO as well as the Ninja. I think I will probably stick with the old GPU. Like I said, I realize it will be loud, but I think overall my system will be much quieter....at least I hope so. I will wait on getting a new GPU until the DX10 cards have been out for a while and everyone is dumping their old cards. At that time, I will be able to pick up something that is plenty fast for me, can be modded with a quieter heat sink if needed, an of course if recommended here!

Maybe when I switch everything over, I will examine the old card to see if there are any mounting holes I missed that would allow me to throw a cheap, quiet cooler on there. I has been several years since I really looked at the thing.

Thanks again for all your advice.

[merlin]

Your plan looks good, I've been badly wanting to finally build a system from scratch based 100% on spc standards, but I'll wait until I have a stronger reason. Since you ordered the parts already, best plan is to see what you think based on your setup and then decide what to quiet down next. I just helped a friend make a new system and the loudest thing now is the scythe s-flex fans...amazing to say that!