quiet system for hot & humid climate - help

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Thu May 10, 2007 3:39 pm

Hi, I`m planning to do a custom build to replace my current desktop. Although I`ve changed HHDs before this will be my first time to build a computer so your help on a few things will be greatly appreciated.

I`m planning to use the computer primarily for design work (quark, photoshop, etc), office functions, listening to and managing mp3s, and to a limited extent games. I would like to make it as fast as possible though as I don't plan on changing it for a long time after this.

I also want a system that is as quiet as possible. I currently live in Tokyo and it gets very hot and humid here in the summer so my present computer gets very noisy due to the fans (the computer is not in a room with aircon). Sometimes its like having a small car engine in the room!

My current desktop set up is as follows:

Mainboard : Shuttle XPC
Chipset : nVidia nForce2 IGP
Processor : AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (thoroughbred)
Physical Memory : 1024 MB DDR SDRAM
Video Card : Radeon 9600 XT (V350)
Hard Disk : Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (320 GB - IDE)
DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H10A

These are the parts that I am looking at for the custom build - this list is incomplete as I am still researching - any recommendations are appreciated

cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
motherboard: Asus P5B Deluxe
case: Antec P150 case with NeoHE 430 power supply
HDD: seagate barracuda 7200.10 400GB sata
RAM: DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 1GB)
video: ??????
soundcard: ??????

Questions:

1. Apart from the monitor (Dell 2005FPW) and the keyboard etc, is it worth transferring any of the parts from my existing setup to the new computer (either permanently or for a short time to be upgraded at a later date)?

2. I've heard about problems with the NeoHE PSU in the P150 case and Asus motherboards - does any one have any experience/advice?

3. As regards the Asus P5B deluxe - I've read that its not fan cooled - it is passive cooled. Is this effective? In mid summer its over 30 degrees C here, so the system can get pretty hot. Also in the p150 case there is a section for two 92mm fans to cool the HDDs. These are not supplied - is it worth putting fans into the section and if so any recommendations for quiet fans?

4. Is it worth buying in a separate soundcard? My use is mainly listening to mp3s.

5. I have an external Lacie D2 triple interface with Firewire 800. I use it for back-up. At the moment I use the USB connection - is it worth getting a Firewire 800 card?

Any thing else you think I should bear in mind would also be helpful. Like I said its my my first time doing this!

Many thanks in advance. Your help and time is greatly appreciated.

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Thu May 10, 2007 3:59 pm

Hi, good start you have there.

Makes it easier on us to give you feedback.

1.) The only things I'd move would be the old HDD (temporarily) to transfer your data from, and maybe your DVD-Rom drive. (Always nice to have two)

2) Yes that problem did exist, and is a good concern to have. I don't know if it got fixed, nor do I have any experience with this.

3) Yes the P5B is passively cooled. At normal temperatures, this poses no problem whatsoever. But your temperatures might have a greater affect on them. I think in general, you will be seeing generally higher temperatures, than most. But I do not think that they will be dangerous. As for the fans, I'd start without them and see how it goes. But if you do decide to get them, here is a 92mm fan roundup.

3) It depends on how much of an audiophile you are. I got a soundcard when my onboard started emitting a high pitched squeal. But in terms of quality, I could not tell a difference. But that's just me. (I'd try the onboard first before buying a sound card though)

4) This also depends. I don't know the speed difference between the two interfaces, but if it works decently well, meets your needs, and you are satisfied, why bother?

And back to your system, I'd ditch the Seagate drive. Seagates have developed a reputation of being pretty loud here. Samsung and Western Digital make quieter drives. Specifically, I'd look into a Samsung HD400LJ, which SPCR reviewed,or a WD WD5000AAKS, which SPCR also reviewed.

For video, again this depends on how much gaming your are planning. From what you said, I can propose a fanless 7600GT, or a fanless 8600GT. Both offer midrange preformance, and don't use much power. The 8600GT is DX10 capable, so it might appeal more to you. (for future-proofing)

Hope this helps!

EDIT: Your first post has two number 3's!

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu May 10, 2007 5:40 pm

Greetings & welcome to SPCR,

I that this SPCR article is very apropos. Enjoy!

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Thu May 10, 2007 6:44 pm

Oops - have corrected the two number 3's problem - thanks for letting me know. More importantly thanks for the good advice so far.

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Thu May 10, 2007 7:03 pm

I'd get the Gigabyte P965-DS3P m/b as it allows you to undervolt the CPU further - this can greatly reduce the heat output of the CPU. Or get the DS4 if you really think heatpipes for the m/b are necessary.

I wouldn't bother with a separate sound card without hearing the onboard first.

What games do you play? Can a passively cooled GPU (up to nVidia 7600 and Ati X1650, I think) run them?

Lyshen · Post by **Lyshen** » Thu May 10, 2007 8:06 pm

I'm not sure if a passively cooled 7600 or x1650 would be a good idea since he said he is in Tokyo... where it will be hot and humid during the summer.

dragmor · Post by **dragmor** » Thu May 10, 2007 8:41 pm

Lyshen wrote:I'm not sure if a passively cooled 7600 or x1650 would be a good idea since he said he is in Tokyo... where it will be hot and humid during the summer.

Tokyo is not that hot, I had a 9550 passive in my Shuttle with 40c ambients. No problems when gaming, etc only 100c temps.

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Fri May 11, 2007 12:41 am

Thanks again for the advice so far its been really useful.

Regarding video cards I'm considering the Asus EN8500GT SILENT/HTD/256M. Anyone got any experience with this?

regal196 · Post by **regal196** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:59 am

The motherboard you are buying has firewire port. No need to buy a seperate card for your external hard drive

Pic of back I/O here

It also has a PCI bracket with header for firewire port.

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Fri May 11, 2007 2:41 pm

Thanks for that. The P5B Deluxe has a regular firewire 400 port but my external drive has firewire 800 which is almost twice as fast in terms of transfer speeds. I don't think though that I'll be getting a separate card initially (although it would speed up transfering data to the new hard drive) as I want to try and keep the costs of the system down at this point.

I've also decided to simply sell the old computer rather than re-using the DVD drive or the Hard Drive.

I'm now also looking at using two 200GB or 250GB HDDs rather than one 400GB. This works out better in terms of price. I have a lot of mp3 files so need quite a lot of HDD space.

pputer · Post by **pputer** » Fri May 11, 2007 7:02 pm

cyberspacegenie wrote: I'm now also looking at using two 200GB or 250GB HDDs rather than one 400GB. This works out better in terms of price. I have a lot of mp3 files so need quite a lot of HDD space.

Wouldn't two drives be louder than one big 400 or 500gb drive? Also, I've read here that the Antec Solo is very similar to the P150. I recommend the Solo if you're thinking about the P150. Then get a Seasonic or Corsair PSU. The Seasonic comes in several wattage varieties so you can find what you need and they're one of the most quiet.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Sat May 12, 2007 2:14 am

Use your Seagate in an external for some of your less used mp3's...300 g holds a lot. A few eSATA externals can "convert" an internal IDE to run quicker than a USB2...and when not needed-you turn it off.

Personally-I'd set up the system HDD as eSATA also. being able to locate it 2 meters from the main case gives lots of silencinfg options.

Serious gamer? If so- that 6600 is a potent chip. Want cool,quiet,and less money? The Brisbane 3600 is the champ. Not a cutting edge gamer but well beyond an XP chip.

Gigabyte has a 7600 GT passive vid card that for MOST games is pretty good. You can get "better".....a little.....at a lot more money-heat-noise.

Music is for me a major reason to have a computer-I don't do games. I consider a good soundcard essential...but then I mostly do Flac,not MP3,and Use a good NAD stereo amp and speakers I built for the role that are a lot better than "computer speakers"

Chaintech has a nice low cost card that uses the Via Envy 24 chip. I have an M-Audio Revolution which is real nice,especially if you digitize analog material

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Sun May 13, 2007 12:59 am

Thanks again for all the comments so far. This is what I`m looking at now so further comments welcome. A few things I have yet to decide so feedback on these especially welcome.

case: Antec P150
cpu: Core 2 Duo E6600
Motherboard: P5B Deluxe or P5B
memory: Umax Pulsar DDR2-800 2GB
HDD: Samsung HD321KJ or WD3200AAKS (320 GB)
Video: Asus EN8500GT Silent or Asus EN7600GS Silent
DVD: ??????

As you can see I'm still still considering in terms of motherboard, video card and HDD. Also any recommendations of DVD drives - they pretty much seem to be similar.

With both passive cooled motherboard and video card do you think there are likely to be heat issues in this system?

I was looking at Cosair memory but its pretty expensive here, pretty much double the price of the Umax. Is this OK? any alternatives?

I only really game occasionally and not really the latest games but there isn`t a huge price difference between the video cards.

My selections are also a little more limited by what I can find here. My Japanese is poor so I've been checking out websites of some of the main parts shops here - lots of places here either dont have websites or my lack of japanese means I can' find them! Once I've know the best options I can head into Akihabara with a friend and possibly make changes at the last minute, depending on what I can find in the shops.

I want to build a system that can cope with pretty much whatever I throw at it both in terms of work and play (especially since I'm going to have to be doing a lot of design work on it - possibly also video editing too).

Thanks again for your kind help.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sun May 13, 2007 6:03 am

Just a few comments--2 Hds, if quiet already should be fine in the P150/Solo with the included suspension being used.

I would put one of the 92mm fans in--find a Nexus or similar quiet fan if possible, otherwise the 5V trick would work fine to get airflow over drives and some additional air circulation in the lower portion of the case.

Looks good otherwise.

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Sun May 13, 2007 12:54 pm

cyberspacegenie wrote:As you can see I'm still still considering in terms of motherboard, video card and HDD. Also any recommendations of DVD drives - they pretty much seem to be similar.

Ok, at normal temperatures and conditions, passive motherboards cool themselves very well. The Northbridge and Southbridge chips are able to withstand close to 100C of heat. So they are going to be hot no matter what. My point is that they have an extremely high threashold of tolerence, so even in warmer climates, they will not overheat. (They will probably be hotter, but still safe)

If you're picking between those two cards, get the 8500GT. It is DX10, passive (I hope), and probably equal, if not better than the 7600GS. In terms of heat, the 7600GS uses less than 30W under load. I can't find any info about the 8500GT, but the 8600GTS uses 47W under load, so the 8500GT should use much less. (I'm guessing about 30W also) So both cards are about the same in terms of heat.

DVD drives are all pretty much identical. Just pick a name-brand.

As for your memory, look for a name brand and DO NOT get anything GENERIC. Do they have any G.Skill, OCZ, Geil, Super Talent, A-Data? All those are decent brands.

Good luck in finding everything!

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Tue May 15, 2007 8:19 am

Hi everyone, the updated spec is looking like this

Case: Antec P150
MoBO: P5B Deluxe
RAM: Corsair Twin2x2048-6400 (XMS2)
HDD: Samsung HD321KJ (SATA)
Video: Asus EN8500GT Silent HTD/256M (Passive)
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600
DVD Drive: Asus DRW-1814BLT (SATA)

- RAM - I finally found some corsair at a reasonable price. I also found some A-Data memory (DDR2/800/2GB (1GBx2) Dual KIT). This is a little more expensive and I figured about the same as the corsair thats why i went for the corsair - is that right?

- Motherboard - I'm wondering if I am going overboard with the p5B deluxe. I've read the p5B is good and much cheaper. I was going for the deluxe because I heard there are raid issues with the p5B and I wanted firewire as well as usb. Unlikely I will be trying any overclocking in the near future but maybe a possibility later. Any thoughts?

Also, Like I said, this will be my first time building a computer - is there anything that I should be particularly careful about or do? Any general advice in this respect is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Dirty-Harry · Post by **Dirty-Harry** » Tue May 15, 2007 9:05 am

cyberspacegenie wrote:Hi everyone, the updated spec is looking like this

Case: Antec P150
MoBO: P5B Deluxe
RAM: Corsair Twin2x2048-6400 (XMS2)
HDD: Samsung HD321KJ (SATA)
Video: Asus EN8500GT Silent HTD/256M (Passive)
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600
DVD Drive: Asus DRW-1814BLT (SATA)

- RAM - I finally found some corsair at a reasonable price. I also found some A-Data memory (DDR2/800/2GB (1GBx2) Dual KIT). This is a little more expensive and I figured about the same as the corsair thats why i went for the corsair - is that right?

- Motherboard - I'm wondering if I am going overboard with the p5B deluxe. I've read the p5B is good and much cheaper. I was going for the deluxe because I heard there are raid issues with the p5B and I wanted firewire as well as usb. Unlikely I will be trying any overclocking in the near future but maybe a possibility later. Any thoughts?

Also, Like I said, this will be my first time building a computer - is there anything that I should be particularly careful about or do? Any general advice in this respect is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Have some super glue available. Because that reset button on a P150 is VERY CHEAP.

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Tue May 15, 2007 2:42 pm

In addition to the above, just another quick note about memory. I've now seen the following which are much better priced than the corsair. What do you think?

PQI ddr2-800 1gb cl5 240pin (QD2800-1GB) x 2
Transcend JetRam DDR2-800 Dual Channel Kit (PC2-6400/1GB x 2)

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Tue May 15, 2007 5:06 pm

Both PQI and Transcend are both "budget RAM" companies. Choosing one is a metter of preferance. If I was forced to pick between PQI and Transcend, I'd go with PQI. I do not have any logical reasoning behind this. Personally, I prefer Corsair, Crucial and Kingston. But PQI and Transcend aren't "bad", I just like paying a little extra to get that trusted name brand.

So it comes down to a preference. I prefer Corsair in this situation. Many other people who are more budget concious may jump on PQI or Transcend because of the savings. And I'm sure that whoever you choose will be reliable enough for anyone's uses.

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Wed May 16, 2007 6:27 am

The PQI is on special at the moment is about two thirds the price of the corsair. I read someone saying that it had good reviews but I personally haven't been able to find any reviews about so the jury is still out. All being equal I would go for the corsair but cost is an issue at the mo.

I'm discovering now that I'll need a different heat sink fan to the one that comes with the processor (I didn't realise that!). I've been reading a few comments and saying fitting them can be a little awkward depending on the MoBo and case. Can anyone give me some good recommendations for the P5B Deluxe. Ideally something that I won't have to mess around with (knowing my luck I'd break something!). I need a few options as not its not always easy to find things here. Thanks.

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:48 am

Iâ€™m now in the final stages of choosing the parts for my quiet system. Any further comments would be welcome. Again this is my first system.

Case: Antec P150
Proc: Core 2 Duo E6600
Motherboard: P5B-E Plus or P5B Deluxe
Memory: PQI DDR2-800
GPU: Asus EN8600GT Silent (fanless) or EN8600GT (with fan)
HDD: Samsung HD321KJ
DVD: Asus DRW-1814BLT
HSF: Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B or Scythe Arctic Freezer 7 Pro

The P5B-E Plus will be my most likely choice as this seems to fit my needs quite well, but I havenâ€™t ruled out the P5B Deluxe completely, although it is about $50 more expensive. The cooling seems better on the deluxe, which is an important issue here in summer.

The EN8600GT Silent is about $30 (Iâ€™m converting from yen) more the version with a fan. Iâ€™ve heard the fan on this is pretty quiet so Iâ€™m not sure about spending the extra.

The Ninja seems very highly regarded but I get the impression it may not be so easy to fit hence the alternative of the freezer 7 Pro which Iâ€™ve read is relatively easy to fit.

Thanks in advance.

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 1:07 am

why the switch from the 8500GT to the 8600GT ?

I ordered an asus 8500GT silent/256, hope to get it in by the weekend. there was a â‚¬ 44 difference between that and the 8600GT silent, and I don't game.

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:13 am

I game occasionally, so thats why i decided to go for something a little better. I haven't bought anything as yet as I understand the new ATI mid range cards will be out soon so I'll wait and see - if nothing else it should hopefully bring prices down a little. Also I heard C2D cpu prices will go down at the end of July as Intel gears up to release new CPU's.

I'm not an expert in these things but as I understand it if you don't game at all then the 8500GT is fine.

I'll make a final decision about parts at the end of July and then get everything and put it all together at the beginning of august.

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:58 am

I'll make a review when I get everything setup.

got any games you'd like to see fps of?

cyberspacegenie · Post by **cyberspacegenie** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:42 am

Thanks ACook. Will be interested to know how you got on. I'll be building in early august.