Building a quiet quad core PC....

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:18 am

I currently have a midrange P4 and want to upgrade to a quad core Intel CPU.
This means almost everything has to be replaced because things just don't fit anymore.
For example AGP is no more so I also need a new video card.

The only components that will survive the upgrade are:
2x Raptor in a Silent Maxx enclosure.
1x DiamondMax 10 in a Silent Maxx enclosure.
1x DVD burner
1x floppy drive
1x Cooler Master Stacker
1x 22" CRT

I'm not a gamer but rock steady high quality 2D (high res, high refresh) is a must for me. But I like an occasional game.
Like a FPS for about 10 hours in a year.
Audio is of minor importance to me. Not talking about noise here

I don't expect to get a 100% quiet case because the Raptors are quite noisy. Even in their enclosure.
Luckily I find HD noise far less irritating than fan noise.
I don't really have a preference for certain brands but I often end up with Asus stuff.
I usually end up with Asus because they have a great site and I just don't know much about other brands.
(input welcome)
Most of all I like stability....

On my list sofar:
2x 2GB DDR2
1x Fanless videocard. EN8500GT or EAX1300Pro (128 or 256)
1x Quadcore Intel CPU 4MB/FSB1066 or when launched on July 22nd 8MB/FSB1333
1x Asus P5K motherboard or perhaps P5K3 (I hear mixed things about DDR3 speed)
1x PSU Yesico FL-480 (I like the idea of external cooling fins) or a fanless silverstone. I have read mixed reviews o this forum.

Asus doesn't make the choice easy for me. They have so much to choose from...
As a visitor of this forum I'm obviously after something silent.
Asus seems to have many quiet 'gadgets' on their PCBs.
http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3& ... odelmenu=1
Frankly speaking I don't really understand the use of some features.
Why heatpipes on a motherboard? Most have no fans, so no noise either.
Useful or marketing?
That memspeed technology sounds awesome. Like in all marketing...
Does it really work? An if it does, does it require high grade (expensive) memory?

That's it for now. If I forgot something important let me know please.

Silent regards,
Tony

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:27 am

there is no conceivable reason you would buy a quad core. a matrox 550 PCI card can rock 2D fine and dandy for like 25 watts of power.

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:22 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:there is no conceivable reason you would buy a quad core.

Greed perhaps?

One reason is that after the new price cut next month quads are dirt cheap. And probably represent the majority of the FSB-1333 CPUs

Another reason is when many tasks are run on a PC.
Some program like 3Dmax/Lightwave are able to fully load all cores. as they did a decade ago with their 32 CPU support.

That put aside many motherboards support every from P4 upwards so the choice of CPU isn't that important for silence. If they are maxed out they will indeed draw more power and get hotter.
But your reply implies it will never be maxed out. Say never above 50%.
The the heat will get less too.
And that brings me back to the motherboard. It has all kinds of profiles.
Instead of over/underclock in the BIOS it has automatic/manual power profiles that over/underclock when needed.
And that's what I like. When I'm just doing some office type of work I can use the underclocked settings for a very quiet system.
When rendering I can go for a bit more noise.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:46 am

don't waste on the 8mb L2 cache unless this machine will get a hellish beating.

my computer has a 2mb L2 cache per CPU, and i haven't been able to freeze it since i installed XP yesterday. i've had stability issues because i have mixed types of RAM in there, but thats a different story.

i have a 4Mb L2 cache [hard to believe on a 9 year old rig] and it crunches more than you'd think. 8 is for servers, which i doubt this is. draw the fine line between a waste of money and what you'll actually need. i can push 100Hz on a CRT at 1320x1024 with 32bit color...i get away with it rockin' a 440GX chipset, but aside from that.

a quad core 4mb CPU will do everything you do now in its sleep...trust me, you'll have trouble putting a 4mb l2 cache under load, 8mb is mad overkill unless you edit movies on a daily basis along with 3d CGI etc and so forth.

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:19 pm

About the L2 cache.
Do I/we have a choice?
I don't claim to have seen every Core CPU but I see a trend.
The older/slower duo's have 2MB L2
But the 2.4 Ghz ones don't come with less than 4MB L2
Where I live I only can find 8MB L2 on Quad cores.
And if my information is correct at July 22nd Intel drops prices again and introduces a new line of Quads with a 1666 FSB and 16MB L2.
Overkill, yes, but I think I have no choice. And when I do have the choice the higher end versions often are cheaper anyway.
A Core Solo with FSB-667 is 100 euros more expensive that a similar speced Core Duo with FSB-800.

It's very hard to draw the line between needing and waste of money.
Motherboards are package deals. I have no need for 10 USB ports and 7.1 audio. But it's just there.
The same is that I rather keep my Ati Readon 9800 Pro.
It's fast enough (but a bit noisy) but it's AGP which is obsolete now.
Maybe I can try to find a PCI graphics card...

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:39 pm

are you aiming to buy everything from a local store? because if thats the case, then thats why you'll have trouble finding cheaper models.

im not saying that you shouldn't get the higher end model, but normally the higher end model is rediculously expensive, which is why i'm waiting until july before i buy my new CPU.

in what you're looking for, you might as well get a low to mid range quad core server with 4gb or RAM, it wont have most of the extras, which will work with what you want.

when you buy things all seperately, what happens is that you're getting the most common features of what people want at home, such as more USB, higher quality onboard sound, and the need for better graphics.

not only that, but when you say 10 USB ports, thats normally just because there are headers on the motherboard for more, that doesn't need you need to have them plugged in, or get more to use them.

about graphics, if you've got a PCI-Express slot, just get a low end PCI-E card to use for graphics, it'll keep you're high refresh rate, and better 2D graphics than a PCI card.

jaldridge6 · Post by **jaldridge6** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:58 pm

i dunno, 1333fsb on a $266 quadcore doesn't sound half bad at all. that's dirt cheap in my books. I paid $1300 for a QX6700 at one point [sold it later for $900]

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:50 pm

@jaldridge6
Prices are getting at a point it's almost becoming a waste of debating about dual and quad core. I have a set a USD450 as my max CPU price.
The only thing in the duo/quad choice that really intrests me is heat/noise

@bonestonne
I intend to buy online but in the Netherlands only (shipping costs)
http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/
I agree 100% with your high end remark. I always buy at least 3 'generations' from the top. The point where the price curve suddenly gets steep.

When I think servers I think SuperMicro, Iwill and racks. And most of all terrible noise.

The USB was just an example in my clumpsy English to explain that sometimes you are forced to buy something that seems overkill.
Same I *expect* for the FSB-1333. If I want that FSB I'm forced to accept quad core. Same goes for cooling. Asus keeps adding 'cool/silent' technology that I like to have. But that forces me in a certain direction (memory type, graphic interface, etc)

The graphics cards listed in my 1st post are the only fanless desgins Asus offers. Thats the only reason I list them. Just because I didn't find anything else. Not because I wanted to make a statement of minimum/maximum requirements or brand names.
The added benefit of such 'near high-end' cards is that they will do fine with the occasional game and video. Video are not DVD holywood movies but mostly seminar/learning type of avi movies.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:05 am

windows cant really use dual cores. vista was made prior to dual cores being in existence. HT links, true quad core, all that, wasted on Vista and especially on linux. Now, is a quad core neat? yes. can it do some things faster, yeah. 2 out of like 20 benchmarks have quad core faster. sometimes, believe it or not, it gets 1-2% slower rating. windows pwnz.

45nm quad core is like awesome. 65nm is rather wattage intensive and well, I dont know of any silent methods out to cool them besides water.

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:59 am

Yeah, the multicores came after Vista but perhaps MS had early samples.
I don't know when Windows started supporting them first but on Windows 2000 Pro licence is stated something like "For use with 1 or 2 CPUs"
So multiple CPUs are supported for a long time. I've no idea how much diffrent a dual CPU is from a dual core from the view of an OS.
I disagree with your benchmark remark.
Sure if the program is single threaded it won't use the additional cores.
But that's not how many, at least mine, PC is used.
I usually have several tasks running simultainiously.
And Windows with spread those threads/tasks equally over the cores.
So in my opinion some tasks have real benefit because of their multithreaded nature. Most are single threaded and they only benefit by not being slowed down by other tasks.

lm · Post by lm » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:20 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:HT links, true quad core, all that, wasted on Vista and especially on linux.

How come it would be wasted on linux?

ayjay · Post by **ayjay** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:31 am

Quad cores are pretty specialist. I do 3d cgi stuff, so have xsi rendering whilst preparing composites in after effects etc Mine's pelting away at 100% usage pretty regularly.
There aren't that many other uses on a non-server level. A fast dual core will outperform this when it comes to most other tasks.
The difference in software licensing between CPU and core is the socket. A quad core chip is seen by XP and my 3d software as one CPU as it only uses one socket. If you get 2 quad core xeons you can run 8 cores and still use XP pro to control them because it is still only 2 sockets.

To be fair, rendering audio will be pretty rapid on a high end dual core. The only advantage with quad might be the ability to render the audio and still have headroom left for other things.
From an energy and heat perspective, the new quad cores should be better than the current generation.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:59 am

When I think servers I think SuperMicro, Iwill and racks. And most of all terrible noise. Sad

viewtopic.php?t=39793

SuperMicro, and Super-Quiet.

it depends on how determined you are at cooling it. i'm running modified heatsinks because capacitors were in the way of the heatsink at first, took a nice hacksaw and made off with the bottom fin, and there you have it.

its running XP now, heavily slipstreamed XP, however OS isn't that important, because it dual boots with Ubuntu.

btw, you never really got specific, what will you be using it before...light gaming and....theres got to be something that sparked the want for a quad core CPU.

my dualie is for audio recording/mixing/editing and all that, as well as managing my audio library [which isn't that big, but significantly large].

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:56 pm

@bonestonne
The use... That's a bit hard to answer. I do a lot of things with my PC.
Most tasks are single threaded (but I'm not sure). Not all tasks are heavy but they do add up. I often have that my mouse point will barely move for hours. I render an occasinal home video. Convert DVDs. Playing with Photoshop. General office work. Downloading. It may not seem much but it does had up in my experience. Further I'm a part-time trader (mostly forex). The actual trading is done from a dedicated midstream PC.
But I have a lot of idea's I want to test on years of historical data.
Some of that testing is done with a neural net program.
Those tests are an 100% guarantee to max out the CPU for hours.
So the question is is dual core enough for me, or is quad core a better choice?
To be honest I've been thinking in the lines of but a good quad core. Or a dual core with faster cores.
For now I've chosen quad core. That can change when Intel launches it's new generation Cores that run on a FSB-13333
I think high fast FSB is important for both dual and quad cores so I will go for that. I have a feeling, no proof, that Intel already is fasing out lower speed FSBs and to a lesser extend the dual core. Core Solo is hard to find.
Anyway the reason I mentioned quad core was not for advise, although I appriciate the feedback, but for completenes and power usage.
Videocards are not the real difficult part either.

I'm the most in the dark about all the Asus things like NOS, Qfan, heatpipe etc etc. Is it all marketing crap of does it really work.
My personal idea is that fanless is always quiet and more reliable becaus there are no fans to die or less dust sucked into the case.

The PSU is another thing that's not clear to me. I never had a passive cooled one so I have absolutely no experience with it. When searching for a certain brand model the reviews/comments are often very conflicting. I choose for Yesico FL-480 purely because I like the fact that the cooling fins are external.

That brings me to another point. Passive cooling/heatpipes are useless if they just transfer heat from one point in the case to another.
Take for example Asus Stack Cool that transfers heat to the back of teh PCB for easy dispensation. Or the heatpipe that tranfers the heat to someplace else. It just stays in the case. So a my guess is a casefan is still needed. Perhaps leave the case open?
But if a casefan is needed perhaps a PSU with a fan is equally good.
OTOH my stacker case has fans on the side and top. Especially the side fan can be big. If I buy a PSU I'm stuck with a certain fan.
When going for a case fan I can buy whatever I want.

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:15 am

the advantage of a heatpipe on a nb or sb chip is the larger surface area on the same 2D space, if you know what I mean. so while the heat stays in the case, the chip is more easily cooled than with a chipsized heatsink.

when you think about it, a litte fan on a heatsink just displaces the heat as well. but with heatpipes the case airflow is enough.

It's much easier to put in some airflow at inaudible speeds, than go completely fanless.

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:38 am

I fully agree with that last comment.
The problem is that I had so much bad luck with silent stuff in the past.
"Super quiet" "Softer than a whisper" all that kind of marketing bull.
Softer than a 747 whispering at full throttle

So my reasoning was/is that I buy everything fanless (when possible) and then add 1 big casefan. That gives me much more control.
Recently I found http://www.silenx.com/ixtremaprofans.asp
I'm considering the 3 fans at the bottom of list.
The last one is the loudest so I probably skip that one.
Then I can't decide between the 60 and 72 CFM ones.
At first thought the 72 CFM one looks best but it's not a s thick as the 60 CFM one. That means it can't generate as much pressure. Am I correct on that assumption?
Reading this site 2 or more lower DBA fans work out equally/more quiet as one big fan; but givving more airflow. http://www.doctorproaudio.com/doctor/ca ... res_en.htm
Going for a PSU with a fan adds another fan to the system.
These PSUs look really good. also in reviews. However I have no idea how much air they move. http://www.silenx.com/ixtremapropsus.asp
Unfortunatly I can't find a shop that sells them...

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:18 am

The problem is that I had so much bad luck with silent stuff in the past. "Super quiet" "Softer than a whisper" all that kind of marketing bull.

That is exactly why SPCR was created. Have you looked at the Recommended section?

Recently I found http://www.silenx.com/ixtremaprofans.asp

speaking of marketing bull....SilenX's dBA measurements are well-known for not being measured in a comparable way to anything done by SPCR (or anyone else for that matter). I'm not saying anything about the quality of the fans themselves. Some have been reviewed by SPCR, I would read those reviews before making your mind up.

386-sx-33 · Post by **386-sx-33** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:33 am

Yep, I did read that section. I just thought I did find fans that are more quiet than the ones listed in that section.
But your unfair messurement remark puts that in a diffrent perspective.

jaldridge6 · Post by **jaldridge6** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:41 am

silenX fans are junk

I can't blame you for being impressed by them. They have a catchy name, and the included rubber mounts would make you think they got their heads on straight. The claimed recordings are nonsense, however, and any fan using such lightweight and cheap plastic is going to be problematic. My suggestion is, if you're going to spend top dollar on a fan, get a Scythe S-Flex 800 rpm fan for like $12. I recently bought a few from an ebay vendor. I have 3 in my system and one backup fan. Heres the link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Scythe-S-FLEX-SFF21 ... dZViewItem

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:54 am

ya, marketing junk, and you see silenx site, and it's exactly that.

that's why there is the recommended pages here for the fans and the psu and the hd's, get one of those and you're fine. anthing else and ymmv.

i've found the nexus fans really nice, the samsung t166 very quiet, and the seasonic s12 very quiet as well. so just get one off the recommeded list and you're good.

jaldridge6 · Post by **jaldridge6** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:13 am

poor silenX, you have to wonder if perhaps there is some weak link in their chain. Its hard to imagine starting a company with the intention to be a silent parts supplier to us masses and have already tarnished the trust of the enthusiast crowd.

hey, I kinda like calling myself an enthusiast.... a silent... enthusiast... hrmmmmm. yeah.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:43 am

lm wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote:HT links, true quad core, all that, wasted on Vista and especially on linux.
How come it would be wasted on linux?

'

bah, didnt mean to say linux, meant to especially on XP.

Vista and xp are nearly the same in terms of utilizing dual core. sad, but true. Yes, multiple processors were used long ago. Windows NEVER was optimized for them, it left it up to software people to use them and users to manage which core did what. Multi cores are more powerful than more processors as they can work on the same info and are linked together. Intel's quad of course is just 2 dual core processors and work fine in windows because windows doesnt know how to use dual cores or quad cores for that matter.

windows is a hunk of shit. that's for certain. Vista is xp just more expensive and has dx10 locked into it for no apparent reason besides greed. Not that I will not be buying vista, I will be, as it will be the standard for gaming in a year. Gates himself said that the new, post-vista OS will be utilizing parallel processing and is already underway. I think the next os is like 5 years.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:17 am

linux needs little resources, so buying a quad core system does nothing for it unless its a dedicated server head.

a single core 2.66ghz or faster with linux is just as good as a quad core.