Quiet Mid-Range Gaming System

[Frez]

I am planning on building a new 'quiet' mid-range gaming system and have selected the following components, any comments regarding my choices and better/cheaper alternatives would be much appreciated.

Antec Solo Case
Zalman ZM-F2 92mm Fan for front of case to cool HDD
Corsair HX 520W PSU
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P Motherboard
Intel E7200 CPU
Scythe Andy Samurai Master CPU Cooler
MSI NVIDIA Ultra-Quiet 9600GT-Zilent 1GB
2GB PC2-8500 DRAM
Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache HDD
Asus DRW-2014S1T CD/DVD

[Frez]

My reasoning behind some of the choices...

Motherboard
A P35 chipset gives me some overclocking potential and supports the 45nm chips. I narrowed the selection down to Asus and Gigabyte (Abit P35s have an annoying double post). Their entry level boards did not seem a good fit for various reasons; 4pin rather than 8pin power connectors, and unsubstantial heatsinks on the north/south bridges. Moving to their mid-level P35 boards the choices were the Asus P5K-E and the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P. The Asus looks to have worse heatsinks and is more expensive.

Zalman 92mm Fan
Running at 1600rpm it gives a good compromise between airflow and noise. I also have to work with what is available to purchase in the UK. See http://www.custompc.co.uk/labs/92627/zalman.html

Intel E7200
I could have gone for the E8400, but the E7200 is going to use less power, which means less cooling and less noise.

Scythe Andy Samurai Master
I believe a blow down cooler will help more with cooling of the other motherboard components, and this looks to be one of the better ones.

MSI NVIDIA Ultra-Quiet 9600GT-Zilent 1GB
It was a choice between the 9600GT and the 8800GT, the 8800 would have performed slightly better, but the 9600 will perform more efficiently as far as power consumption is concerned. The MSI comes fitted with a low noise fan system in place, the question is whether this is an OK choice or would I be better off getting a different 9600 and fitting a 3rd party passive cooler.

Samsung HDD
The Samsung has come out well in noise tests.

ASUS DVD Drive
I must admit to not having researched the DVD drive much, so suggestions on quiet DVD drives would be most welcome.

[Elvellon]

I would have built something very similar.

Antec Solo Case
Corsair HX 520W PSU

Solid choices.
By the way, do you intend to replace or at least undervolt the stock case fan?

Zalman ZM-F2 92mm Fan for front of case to cool HDD

Probably OK if you can't find Nexus. It might be too loud (especially at the front) at its lowest 1600 rpm though (can't find non-marketing numbers).

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P Motherboard

With your reasoning it's good.

Intel E7200 CPU

An amazing CPU for a midrange system, both in price and in heat.

Scythe Andy Samurai Master CPU Cooler

Almost anything can cool the 20W of a E7200, other things are important, for example, your concern for motherboard components cooling.

MSI NVIDIA Ultra-Quiet 9600GT-Zilent 1GB

If its fan is the same as retail Zalman VF1000, then it's good at the lowest setting.

2GB PC2-8500 DRAM

Go with PC2-6400 at 5-5-5-15 timings. Anything better is unneeded (especially for a midrange price/performance system), anything worse isn't going to save you much.

I could advise more drastic changes but I'm not really experienced in silencing a 'regular' case .

[Nick Geraedts]

I'd personally go with an EVGA 9600GT and the Accelero S1. EVGA is a reputable company with a good track record, and with the S1, you should have no troubles running that card passively.

Zalman fans are horrible. Try to find yourself some other fan (Nexus would be the best choice) for better operation and quietness.

I'd personally go with ASUS over Gigabyte, but it's really a coin toss when it comes to people's opinions. Both the GA-P35-DS3P and the P5K-E are good choices.

I'd also recommend just getting plain ol' DDR2-800 (PC2-6400). Anything higher is a waste of money, and in my experience, leads to more failures than "regulation" DDR2.

[Fallsroad]

Solid choices.

For my Solo I installed two Scythe Kama Flex 1600 rpm 92mm fans, and put them on Zalman Fanmate 2 rheostats (I have 4 HDDs in my Solo, three of them warm-running Seagates). If your hard drive(s) even need a fan, it doesn't have to run very fast at all - even a little directed air motion will aid immensely in cooling drives. I have them turned as low as they will go, and cannot hear them unless my ear is right up to the front of the case.

You may find the use of one just fine.

Zalman makes some fine products - fans are not among them, IMO. The only Zalman fan I ever owned I gave away.

I chose a 9600GT from ECS that comes with an Accelero S2 passive cooler installed. This is in my main rig in an Antec P180B, but I've read it will fit into the Solo. It is an excellent card, silent and runs far cooler than my old 8600GT which had a fan based cooler on it.

There is an ECS 8800GT with an Accelero S1 cooler installed that, at the moment here in the US, is going for less than the same company's 9600GT - not sure if either is sold in the UK.

[Monkeh16]

(Abit P35s have an annoying double post).

I assume you mean the AHCI and JMB BIOSes. Which make it triple (main BIOS, AHCI, JMB). I don't see how it's annoying; it takes all of ten seconds.

[thejamppa]

Still Gigabyte P35 line suffers from DPC Latency issues, which are not concern when you game or general use. It might affect audio and video streaming but so far I haven't seen any issues when my DS3L suffers from it. You could request beta bios from Gigabyte or wait until they release official bioses with fix.

[Frez]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Unfortunately nobody is selling the ECS 8800GT with an Accelero S1 in the UK, so if I want an Accelero solution I will have to build it myself...

I take your point on the fan, and the Scythe with a 3rd party controller sounds like a good plan.

Abit dont just have the annoying post bug, but they are also more expensive than the Asus and Gigabyte boards here in the UK, so given the Gigabyte has all I need its what I've decided on unless there is some other compelling reason to choose Abit.

Finally, I've gone for the PC2-8500 DRAM memory rather than lower rated chips to give me the option of overclocking.

[Elvellon]

Finally, I've gone for the PC2-8500 DRAM memory rather than lower rated chips to give me the option of overclocking.

Just play with memory dividers (the ratio that sets your memory speed relative to CPU bus).
The E7200's stock settings are 266 x 9,5 = 2,53 GHz. Let's say you have PC2-6400 memory, it can be best set to 3:2 speed (400/800 MHz) which is its stock speed.
An easy overclock is 333x9,5 = 3,17 GHz, memory can be set to 1:1 (667) or 5:4 (800)
A very good overclock is 400x9,5 = 3,8 GHz, and you can run your memory at 1:1 (800).

Motherboards don't have dividers lower than 1:1, so only beyond 400 MHz bus (3,8 GHz overclock for a E7200) you'll have to overclock your memory. Of course, there are other dividers, for example, you can have 333/1333 MHz overclock and 533/1066/PC2-8500 memory. But it's not needed.

[Monkeh16]

Abit dont just have the annoying post bug, but they are also more expensive than the Asus and Gigabyte boards here in the UK, so given the Gigabyte has all I need its what I've decided on unless there is some other compelling reason to choose Abit.

Other than the fact that my IP35 Pro is pretty much perfect (the MCH heatsink is a little tall, but not a problem.. other than that, I can't find fault thus far), I can give you no reason. But I'd still like to know just what you consider a bug.

[Frez]

Other than the fact that my IP35 Pro is pretty much perfect (the MCH heatsink is a little tall, but not a problem.. other than that, I can't find fault thus far), I can give you no reason. But I'd still like to know just what you consider a bug.

Maybe stating that the multiple posting 'feature' is a bug is too strong a term, but I have seen it classified as that in reviews and other forums. The fact is that boot and re-boot time is an important factor for me, much like say Gigabyte Internet, Firewire Performance, or an Analog Devices rather than a Realtek audio controller might be more important for other people.

[Monkeh16]

Other than the fact that my IP35 Pro is pretty much perfect (the MCH heatsink is a little tall, but not a problem.. other than that, I can't find fault thus far), I can give you no reason. But I'd still like to know just what you consider a bug.

Maybe stating that the multiple posting 'feature' is a bug is too strong a term, but I have seen it classified as that in reviews and other forums. The fact is that boot and re-boot time is an important factor for me, much like say Gigabyte Internet, Firewire Performance, or an Analog Devices rather than a Realtek audio controller might be more important for other people.

Cold boot on my machine takes one minute from button press to XP password prompt. I can easily shave 15-20 seconds off that with a quick BIOS tweak and a change of bootloader options. I call that reasonably speedy. Beats my DP35DP, which takes 45 seconds to reach the bootloader..

Anyway, any board with such controllers (ICH9R AHCI and a JMB eSATA/PATA controller) will be running the same code, even if it doesn't show it. Though the three second prompt on the JMB section is a minor annoyance.