SPCR

hello community

I was wondering what you guys think about my planned system. It should be low noise in general use but able to play games as well:

* Tower: Lian Li PC-B25SB Silent Midi-Tower - bla... – 1+ 275.- X
* CPU: Intel Core i7 950 BOX, 3.06GHz, LGA 1366... – 1+ 299.- X
* CPU-Cooler: Noctua CPU-Kühler NH-U12P SE2 - Sockel 1... – 1+ 80.- X or Noctua CPU-Kühler NH-U9B SE2 ???
* MB: Asus Sabertooth X58, LGA1366, SLI, CFX, ... – 1+ 219.- X
* RAM: Kingston HyperX 3x2GB, DDR3-1600, [email protected] – 1+ 89.- X
* G-Card: ZOTAC GTX-470 AMP! 1.28GB DDR5, PCI-E 2.... – 1+ 319.- X
* SSD-HD: Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB, 2.5 Zoll, SA... – 1+ 259.- X
* Sata3 HD: Western Digital Caviar Green, 32MB, 1TB,... – 1+ 76.- X
* DVD: Lite-On iHAS124-19, DVD Writer, schwarz,... – 1+ 31.- X
* PSU: be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER, E8 600W 80plus... – 1+ 135.- X
(prices are in Swiss Franks)

What do you think about it and espacially which cpu cooler would you recommend?

Thanks.

go for Sandybridge cpu and mb
more performance, better power consumption and overclockability

(that is when they start shipping motherboards without the bug)

Radeon 6870, 6950 or gtx 560 offer better performance and less power consumption than gtx 470

Thanks. Yes I heard about the problems with sandybridge-mbs. I have to consider that when the problems are solved.

I have chosen the Zotac GTX 470 because it should be very quiet (at idle mode) but still has a good performance.

What do you think about the cpu cooler?

What's your timeframe? Do you need a new system right away? Or could you get by with your current setup for another month or two? If you can wait, I'd recommend getting a Sandy Bridge based system when motherboards are available again. Also, by that time, there may be more info on the new C400 SSD.

I dont need my system right now but I am a bit afraid of completely new hardware and technologies. As we saw with the SandyBridge there are often problems at the beginning. And what about the prices in 2 month for all these new hardware? I dont want to spend more money... At the end I only have to change the mainboard, cpu und ram for SandyBridge?

bennni wrote:I dont need my system right now but I am a bit afraid of completely new hardware and technologies. As we saw with the SandyBridge there are often problems at the beginning. And what about the prices in 2 month for all these new hardware? I dont want to spend more money... At the end I only have to change the mainboard, cpu und ram for SandyBridge?

Just the first two; mobo and cpu.
I wouldn't worry too much. They update an aspect of the cpu every year. The SB thing was a bit of a fluke, and it has a fairly minor impact on the consumer (no cost to the end-user).

bennni wrote: * Tower: Lian Li PC-B25SB Silent Midi-Tower - bla... – 1+ 275.- X

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1146-page9.html

bennni wrote: * CPU-Cooler: Noctua CPU-Kühler NH-U12P SE2 - Sockel 1... – 1+ 80.- X or Noctua CPU-Kühler NH-U9B SE2 ???

I would go for a Noctua NH-C14, if you like Noctuas (mainly due to its lower height, which would allow some aftermarket GPU coolers like the Thermalright Spitfire).

bennni wrote: * G-Card: ZOTAC GTX-470 AMP! 1.28GB DDR5, PCI-E 2.... – 1+ 319.- X

No stock cooler is enough quiet with high end Nvidia cards: you need an aftermarket cooler and an effective fan control to have them quiet. Moreover the 470 is phasing out: a GTX 560Ti or a GTX 570 should give you more bang for your bucks.

At anyway, if it's just for gaming, a Radeon would usually run cooler and so quieter.

Thanks for your suggestions.

quest_for_silence wrote:

bennni wrote: * Tower: Lian Li PC-B25SB Silent Midi-Tower - bla... – 1+ 275.- X

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1146-page9.html

After reading this review, I am not sure anymore if I want to choose this case? ...

quest_for_silence wrote:
At anyway, if it's just for gaming, a Radeon would usually run cooler and so quieter.

Do you have any recommendation for a quiet Radeon graphic card? The price doesn't matter as I am waiting for Sandy Bridge anyway and at that time everything else will be much cheaper I guess...

Welcome to SPCR!

The first two questions for any gaming box are:
- What resolution is your monitor?
- What games are you playing/want to play?

Some games are very GPU intensive, others are bottlenecked by the CPU...and how much you need depends on how many pixels you want to push.

Hello Steve

I want to play on a 24 or bigger screen with 1900x1200 pixels with the coming Battlefield 3 (at the moment Battlefield Bad Company 2).

If you have the money to spend I would consider this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814162073. It is a gtx 580 with artic cooling accelero extreme plus cooler which is quiet by spcr standarts. For a case, I would choose Silverstone Ft02/Rv02 or Antec Twelve Hundred- all of those cases are well ventilated and can provide planty of Essential aiflow.

bennni wrote:I want to play on a 24 or bigger screen with 1900x1200 pixels with the coming Battlefield 3 (at the moment Battlefield Bad Company 2).

With reference to Bad Company, AFAIK it's mostly an Nvidia territory: if you are comfortable with 470-like performance (around ~50/55fps at 1900x1200 4AA), a Radeon HD6870 would offer a comparable framerate for ~40/50W less heat than the 470, at around ~220/240 USD.
Otherwise the newer GTX 560Ti might offer ~5/10fps more for 20W more, at about ~250/280 USD.

I'm referring to reference designs, with oced cards YMMV, a 900MHz and up 560Ti might offer even 70fps, but also with ~70/80W more: and a ~180W card cannot be quiet (besides heating up the whole system: so more PSU noise, more CPU noise, more exhaust fans noise, and the like).

Take also note that maybe currently there are more aftermarket coolers for something like a 6850/6870, than for a 560 (it's maybe too much new, right now), but also that SpeedFan cannot control ATI cards fans: I think you have to do some homework about these aspects.

ballcall2 wrote:I would choose Silverstone Ft02/Rv02

I would never go for those cases with an AC AXP on a GTX 580 (200-230W), never: too high are the risks it won't work at all.

Thanks for your posts. I just want to mention again that I don't care about a loud system when I am playing a game. Important is the idle mode of the graphic card...

quest_for_silence wrote:

ballcall2 wrote:I would choose Silverstone Ft02/Rv02

I would never go for those cases with an AC AXP on a GTX 580 (200-230W), never: too high are the risks it won't work at all.

Can you please give me an explanation why it won't work? A hd 5970 can fit in those cases, so I believe that the AC Accelero extreme Plus can also. They have a great ventilation so the heat from the cooler will come out of the case easily.

bennni wrote:Thanks for your posts. I just want to mention again that I don't care about a loud system when I am playing a game. Important is the idle mode of the graphic card...

Here's a comparison of many high end cards idle noise (stock cooling) from Anandtech. LINK

ballcall2 wrote:Can you please give me an explanation why it won't work?

Because of the heatpipes orientation issue, against which even AC, Prolimatech, Thermalright and the very same Silverstone advice.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90%C ... 843.html/5

Rekonn wrote:

bennni wrote:Thanks for your posts. I just want to mention again that I don't care about a loud system when I am playing a game. Important is the idle mode of the graphic card...

Here's a comparison of many high end cards idle noise (stock cooling) from Anandtech. LINK

Thanks for this. But doesn't the noise depend on the brand of the graphic card? This list shows only the graphic-chip producer or did I misunderstand it?

I like Anandtech a lot...but not for noise measurements...with the 40dB noise floor. Here's another site: Techpowerup

quest pointed out the relevant fps differences. Here's Techpowerup's comparison:


They claim a <20dB noise floor for their testing room...so, it might be useful to look at their recent GPU reviews. The stock GTX 560 Ti seems to have a nice idle/load profile.

CA_Steve wrote:The stock GTX 560 Ti seems to have a nice idle/load profile.

It should be no more than 15-16/22-24dB (maybe even a bit better), a huge improvement over the noisy 460s, and noticeably better than any other cutting edge card in the market (please take note: ~20dB for a "silencer" is not quiet at all, but IMO it's fully understandable for 200-240W of heat).

quest_for_silence wrote:(please take note: ~20dB for a "silencer" is not quiet at all, but IMO it's fully understandable for 200-240W of heat).

Plus, you won't hear it if there's any game audio.

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2011/msi_n580_g ... ndex10.php

Dont know their methods (and I shouldn't talk) but their read outs go low and seem realistic in relation to each other which I guess should imply they know what they are doing.

Good catch

pes wrote:Dont know their methods (and I shouldn't talk)

Their findings are usually comparable to SPCR ones (see His HD5870 iCooler V for reference): IIRC, since the 2007 they have a noise floor of 15dB, and currently I trust them above all (but not SPCR, as I've already said talking about the Sapphire 6850, not the Toxic one).

quest_for_silence wrote:

ballcall2 wrote:Can you please give me an explanation why it won't work?

Because of the heatpipes orientation issue, against which even AC, Prolimatech, Thermalright and the very same Silverstone advice.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90%C ... 843.html/5

i ran the same gtx460 sli setup in both the p183 and the ft02, and the bass-ackwards ft02 rotation was slightly cooler, because of the superior airflow.

i saw no indication of anywhere near the temp differences that the expreview site is claiming that it measured.

the other thing to remember is that no case orientation will be perfect for both the cpu and the gpu, because the cooling pipes don't both run the same direction; there is only one optimal orientation.

so you pick your poison... do you want slightly better cpu cooling, or slightly better gpu cooling?

i measured approximately one degree difference in cpu cooling, using the same hardware in both cases.

danimal wrote:i ran the same gtx460 sli setup in both the p183 and the ft02, and the bass-ackwards ft02 rotation was slightly cooler, because of the superior airflow.

Which coolers do they sport?

danimal wrote:i saw no indication of anywhere near the temp differences that the expreview site is claiming that it measured.

At the same time I don't think that Silverstone itself does just get foolish by any ordinary EXPreview.

Just as a side note, I'm getting severe problems with a Thermalright Spitfire: in a classical ATX tower (Corsair 600T) upward oriented it cools, downward oriented it does not.

Hi folks

I changed my system as following - what do you think about that?

CASE Antec Case Performance One P183 V3
MB Asrock P67 Extreme6 (B3), Intel P67 B3, LGA1155, CFX/SLI
CPU Intel Core i7 2600K BOX, 3.4GHz, LGA 1155, 4C/8T, unlocked
COOLER Noctua NH-D14
RAM Kingston HyperX, 2x4GB, DDR3-1600, [email protected]
GPU MSI GTX-560 Ti Twin Frozr II/OC 1GB GDDR5, PCI-E 2.0 x16
PSU be quiet! DARK POWER PRO, P9 550W 80plus Gold
SSD Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB, 2.5 Zoll, SATA-3
HDD Western Digital Caviar Green, 32MB, 1TB, SATA-3
DVD Lite-On iHAS124-19, DVD Writer, schwarz, SATA

bennni wrote:GPU MSI GTX-560 Ti Twin Frozr II/OC 1GB GDDR5, PCI-E 2.0 x16

It should be quiet at idle, but rather loud at load: I mean that you have to mod its BIOS, or to use Afterburner to shape a suitable custom fans curve (otherwise, there aren't alternatives).

bennni wrote:PSU be quiet! DARK POWER PRO, P9 550W 80plus Gold

I don't know where do you live, but here it costs as much as the Seasonic X-560, which is a more proven design.

OTOH be quiet! usually makes very good PSUs, and so it should be also that P9.

thanks.

as far as the card is quiet at idle it is ok for me.

Proposed build looks good - only question is whether the 2600K is worth the extra money over the 2500K. Unless you do a lot of video editing or similar work that can use hyperthreading....