i5 build with modest silencing

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David_CA
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:36 am

i5 build with modest silencing

Post by David_CA » Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:27 am

Quick Summary

Intel i5 2500K
Zalman CNPS10X Quiet
Asus P8H67-M PRO Rev 3
Kingston Hyper-X 4GB pair (8GB)
Fractal Design R3
Sapphire Vapor-X 5770
SeaSonic X-Series 560W
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB
Asus 24X DVD RW


I used to upgrade frequently but for about 4 ½ years I've been stable with one system aside from replacing a malfunctioning video card. Prior to the current system I had a large (24" high) monster that slowly received more and more fans until it sounded like a jet engine. Since I was winding down my tinkering I decided I wanted something small and quiet - I ended up with a Shuttle SN25P with an Athlon 4200+, 7900 GT (later replaced with a Radeon 4670), Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm 1GB harddrive and 2GB of memory.

The Shuttle has held up well but 3 problems are starting to present themselves - I could use a lot more CPU horsepower for some tasks, 2GB/Windows XP is getting really constraining on virtual machines, and starting this summer I'm seeing signs of heat damage that has forced me to up the fan profile - it is no longer quiet during heavy use, and tasking the CPU for long periods is pushing the temperature up to dangerous levels even with the fans at maximum. Before the fan profile was changed I encountered 2 power cuts that after checking other components I can only assume where the result of the AMD temperature protection kicking in.

For a new system (Windows 7 64bit) I've looked at a number of prebuilt solutions - I have no problem with most parts of PC assembly, but I'm skittish around CPU/heat sink assembly. I still remember the ridiculous amount of force required to mount many coolers back in the Pentium 4 days. Today's coolers are several times bigger, are they any easier? Puget and the Serenity Mini where seriously considered, but despite my appreciation for the workmanship the price and component choice wasn't what I had in mind.

My goal is not to be entirely silent (it would be nice) but to instead reach or pass the same monotone sound as the Shuttle - that low white noise hiss you hear in offices or some apartment buildings from the central fans moving air. I'd prefer a cooling setup that is active and intelligent - I prefer temperature safety over absolute silence. Graphics wise I'm looking for a small improvement. I currently play Civ 4 and Quake Wars, but want to update those to 1920x1200 (from 1600x1200) and maybe add Civ 5 later. Radeon 5770 territory seems to be right. CPU and memory are the big changes. I do some CPU heavy work (custom analysis against very large image sets and programming in general) and I run virtual machines which are really being constrained under 2GB. I'd like to avoid headaches so a little over engineering is ok - components that don't need to run at 100% to do their job have room to grow if things get hairy. Due to the case choice I'm likely shopping at NCIX in Canada and paying for assembly (apart from the CPU/heatsink I can take apart and reassemble if I'm not happy with their work) with a budget of around $1000 - it's not how much money I have, just the general amount I'm interested in putting out for parts build. 15% over budget for more reliability is just fine.

My components and reasons look like this:

Intel i5 2500K

I'm pretty certain on this. It provides a lot of power at a reasonable price, hopefully to carry me for another 4-5 years. I chose the K version because it's only about $10 more and while I don't care about the better graphics I do see that it benchmarks a little better and I get the impression it has more headroom temperature wise when those graphics are not in use (likely why it benchmarks better with turboboost).

SeaSonic X-Series 560W

In terms of power this is overkill, but I want the combination of a modular power supply and one with quiet, intelligent (smart fan) cooling. The smaller X series units have similar cooling but are not modular. It also gives some headroom if and when I add some extra harddrives.

Asus P8H67-M PRO Rev 3 or P8H67-M EVO Rev 3 or P8Z68-V LE or ?

I'm a bit lost here. I'm friendly to Asus as a motherboard brand. I'm looking for an H67 motherboard and the 6 total Sata ports from Asus gives it an advantage over Gigabyte and Intel (I don't care about the extra eSata on the EVO, it's all about internal connectors). Other important factors are working BIOS support for VT-x (VT-d doesn't matter), good "smart fan" control for all the case fans and above all stability. The EVO seems like the slightly better board (Firewire if I ever needed it, 8+2 Phase Power), but seems to have negative reviews for stability. I'm not looking to overclock or drop in 2 video cards, I just want something that works out of the box without any headache beside turning on VT-x. Another choice is the low end of Asus's Z68 line. It's a full ATX motherboard which puts some constraints on case selection. Feature wise it seems on par with the Pro but costs more for the Z68 chipset - would I have anything to gain stability or fan wise?

Sapphire Vapor-X 5770 or 6770 or ?


I'm partial to the Radeon brand at the moment. I'm not considering a passive solution or an aftermarket cooler. The Vapor-X line seems like a good middle ground, with a quieter temperature controlled fan and good heatsink. The 5770 and 6770 seem to be almost the same card. If possible I'd like to choose the more reliable of the two (which has more headroom) though availability seems to be split. Fortunately this is one component I can easily order separately, since the i5 and H67 give me an onboard GPU.

Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB

Not a silent component for sure. I don't need something this big for a system drive, but at the moment it seems to offer the best performance for the dollar (the high density puts the transfer rates up with 10,000rpm drives). I'm not interested in SSD right now - high cost/GB and not entirely proven for long term reliability. I will add other secondary drives eventually - some may be transplanted from earlier systems. If the noise becomes an issue I'll put it in a dampening case, though that will use up a 5 inch bay.

Fractal Design R3 or Fractal Design Define Mini or ?

I went all over the place with cases. For looks I want something that isn't gaudy - no side window, no LED fans, no giant plastic bits bulging, no super bright blue LED. For function I am looking for something with sound dampening built in. Fan wise I have no problem dropping in some Zalman ZM-F3 120mm fans to replace whatever the case comes with. I like the case door concept, but I don't want one that covers the power button.

I considered both the Antec P180 Mini and the SOLO. The Mini door covers the power button and I don't like the case door or top side vent design, the USB placement and it requires after market padding. The SOLO looks like a great budget idea but the same thing keeps coming back in personal reviews - the power button breaks. I turn the system off at night, so I want a power button that's accessible and dependable.

I also passed over the NZXT H2. The fan controller on the top was interesting if I was to use it, butit looks like a tank and doesn't really have much else to benefit it. The Cooler Master Silencio 550 has a built in SD card reader which was a plus but it seems hard to run cables and is otherwise unremarkable.

Ultimately the Fractal Design R3 won me over. The ability to change my mind concerning silence vs. cooling with the covered top and side vents was a big reason. Very clean design and I like the top design for power/USB. I have a slight preference for the Define Mini version, owing to the smaller size, single top vent and half removable HD cage but it is not available in Canada at the moment. The only negative I have is the R3 only has 2 external drive bays, leaving a choice between a card reader and the option of a HD silencing case. The XL is a bit large (it would have to replace the old monster on the floor) but is also more expensive for the gain of that one 5 inch bay. It seems easier just to snag an external card reader to free up a bay.

Zalman CNPS10X Quiet or ???

Again I'm a bit lost here, I'm not even sure it will fit. I don't need totally silent as long as it is monotone, I just need something that will keep the CPU under control and can ramp up if things start looking bad. The less that needs to be worried about the better.

Kingston Hyper-X 4GB pair (8GB)


Not the fastest ram on the planet, in fact I intend to keep the stock motherboards voltage and clock (1333) instead of ramping it up to 1600 just to give it breathing room. 8GB is cheap enough right now and will give lots of room for virtual machines. As an extra precaution against ambient heat I wanted ram with heat sinks, albeit low profile.

Asus 24X DVD RW

It reads and writes DVDs. It is generally viewed as quiet. I only use it for loading software the first time so it's not really an issue.

Card Reader

I read SD cards from my camera. I've never been happy with the card reader in the Shuttle or any of the desktop card readers I've used - I can never be sure the card is inserted to the correct depth and it's frustrating when it doesn't show up or clicking the drive hangs it. Does anyone make an internal or external SD(HC) card reader that uses the same spring loaded mechanism as laptops and PDAs? I've never had a problem with them and would love one for a PC. A slot for reading microSD cards without an adapter would be a plus, though I have a separate microSD USB stick that does work every time.

Abula
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by Abula » Thu Aug 04, 2011 12:04 pm

Seems a solid build just some comments,
David_CA wrote:I do some CPU heavy work (custom analysis against very large image sets and programming in general) and I run virtual machines which are really being constrained under 2GB. I'd like to avoid headaches so a little over engineering is ok - components that don't need to run at 100% to do their job have room to grow if things get hairy. Due to the case choice I'm likely shopping at NCIX in Canada and paying for assembly (apart from the CPU/heatsink I can take apart and reassemble if I'm not happy with their work) with a budget of around $1000 - it's not how much money I have, just the general amount I'm interested in putting out for parts build. 15% over budget for more reliability is just fine.
If you do expect heavy CPU work that takes the advantage of hythreading, i would probably invest on the 2600K (or the non K version if you are not OCing), else the 2500K seems like a good buy (or the none K if you are not ocing). I personally went for the 2500K out of games not taking the advantage on the hyperthreading.
SeaSonic X-Series 560W
Good choice, specially if you are going with dedicated GPU later on.
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB
Personally i dont favor 7200 drives, specially WD blacks out of 2 failing me, also a couple of raptors. The time for 7200rpm drives for me has passed, i would still strongly suggest an SSD + 5400rpm drive for storage, specially if you are planning on having multiple drives, on the future, have low heat, low noise. Atm i have 4 ssds, all intel x25m in different machines, all been perfect, i think they are reliable enough, but thats just my personal opinion.
Fractal Design R3 or Fractal Design Define Mini or ?
I like more the looks and design of the R3, but the Solo has its strong points, just dont like the looks and 92mm fans. I think the R3 with the optional bottom fan (beside the PSU) might allow you to go passive on the GPU or in case you need it the option is there. I would change the fans though, depending on the mobo, you could go with PWM or with fan controler. If you go with the Mini, i would go with Asus Gene Z mobo, the mini does have an advantage that you can take out a hdd cage in case you want to fit deeper gpu. Another case that you should check out is the recently reviewed by SPCR SilverStone Temjin TJ08-E: MicroATX Evolved (i have one on route to me), but i would chose this one over the Mini if you were planning few hdds, since you seem to want multiple (im going to use 2x 2.5 drives and remove the hdd cage), then i would probably just go with mini. On the fans i would consider Noctuas, Noiseblockers, Nexus and Scythe for replacing the fans.
Zalman CNPS10X Quiet or ???
The R3 has 165mm cpu clearance, so you have a vast variety to chose from. I dont like too much Zalman cpus cooler, but they are not bad. But i would probably go with Thermalright HR02 Macho or Scythe Mugen 3, both come with good PWM fans that can be lowered via bios if you mobo supports it.
Sapphire Vapor-X 5770 or 6770 or ?
Here is up to you and your needs, i personaly like with artic cooling after market coolers, but depending on your case you might even go passive or like with the R3/Mini with the additional bottom fan could help a passive card, careful with the R3 as the hdd cages are not removable (at least i think) crosscheck the video card you chose fits as there are some very long cards like GIGABYTE GV-R677SL-1GD Radeon HD 6770 (275mm long)

bonestonne
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by bonestonne » Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:11 pm

I would suggest the MSI Hawk 5770 or the MSI R6770 if you wanted one of those cards. I have installed and worked with both of these cards in customer systems, and they are very good cards, I've never had a problem with them. The cards are not very long, and will not come anywhere close to hard drive cages, but will have a very good stock cooling system that will last you a long time. As with any computer, you should keep it clear of dust, but the Twin Freezer cooler on the MSI hawk cards is very good. The 5770 and 6770 are nearly identical as well, if it weren't for the packaging saying which card it was, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell right away. The fans on the twin freezer are also split PWM, so both fans operate via the cards controller. Probably the best solution for what you're looking for.

I would say that WD Black series drives are not going to give you much of an increase over a Blue series drive unless you needed to do very fast number crunching, and were looking for x.xx ms differences.

If you need the speed, either SSD, or WD Velociraptor. I've been using 150 and 300gb WD Raptor/Velociraptor setups in higher end configurations at work, and they have never let me down. They do get warm, but I have not noticed any problem regarding heat with the drives. As far as SSD's go, I do not trust them yet, however I am installing an SSD in my own netbook this coming week, so maybe I'll have time to change my mind.

I don't feel like you'll get much benefit out of the 2TB though, because at first it will be fast because of the density, but while it slowly fills up, that speed will be lost for good.

I'm not much for the new flashy cases anymore. I've been using a Cooler Master Elite 330 for the past nearly 6 years, and I love it. It's not the most spacious case in the world, but it doesn't need to be for what I'm doing. It's large enough for a full ATX setup, and doesn't leave room for "hot pockets" of air to build up, nor does it call for a million fans to keep the system running at a stable temp. It does very well with no front fans, and that's a great step towards reducing noise.

In terms of fans, definitely replace the stock fans, I'm a personal fan of the 800RPM Scythe Slipstream fan, but Noctua fans are also very great, not the cheapest though.

I have to agree with Abula though, Zalman heatsinks are not really what I think are good enough anymore. The HR-02 is a great suggestion, I would say the Scythe Ninja, or even a Prolimatech would do, given a close fan. PWM is almost a must for CPUs, but I would say, depending on the ambient temps, and average load, a 7v fan can sometimes do the job just as well.

jamotide
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by jamotide » Sun Aug 07, 2011 1:01 pm

The HDD will ruin your otherwise good build, why do you say SSDs are expensive? They only cost 150 bucks, thats nothing for what they bring. Which is a silent system, fast boot, fast loading. I recommend a crucial m4 and an EXTERNAL HDD which you can switch off when you want silence. HDDs longterm reliabilty is terrible,too. I have an external DVD,too.
Also I recommend 12v to 5v adapter cables, so you can run all the fans slower.

David_CA
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by David_CA » Tue Aug 16, 2011 5:04 am

Thank you for all the input.

For the CPU I won't get any advantage from hyperthreading unfortunately - some of my tasks have trouble using more then 2 cores to begin with. The 2500K still seems like the best bang in almost any scenario.

The input on video cards was really helpful, in particular the MSI Hawk 5770 seems to be a much better match then the Vapor-X line.

The heat sink is still a bit random for me, but the Scythe SCMG-3000 (Mugen 3) suggested seems to tick off all the boxes - quiet, includes PWM fan and isn't frightningly large; I'm still taken aback at how enormous CPU heatsinks have gotten - I have some of the *fanless* little Pentium and 486 heatsinks no thicker then the CPU+pins they attached to. I don't understand how motherboards don't crack under the weight of these 4" cubes of metal.

The consensus is clear that my harddrive choice is way too loud for this setup. Unfortunately it is one area where I'm a bit stuck with regards to cost:benefit and reliability. I want at least 180GB for a system drive so I don't have to split things up (and really it should be larger for future monster applications or games that require 20GB installs) and I'm just not happy with how beta a lot of SSDs are still turning out. With regards to performance degradation I will be formatting the inner tracks as a 300-500GB system partition with the rest as a lower performance archive space (my current 1TB drive is the same, with a 200GB system partition). I may substitute for a 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT to sacrifice performance on smaller reads for much lower seek noise. In any case it seems a 5 1/4" silencing enclosure will be an absolute requirement if I'm to keep this build as 'quiet'.

For the motherboard I've started to agree with Z68, specifically to use the 'Smart Response' feature to be able to pair a small SSD to the harddrive in the future. From my research it is possible to configure the setup to only use the SSD as a read cache - all writes go directly to the spindle harddrive thus removing the SSDs reliability from the equation. The suggested Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z looks very good from a spec point of view - my only concern is it doesn't seem to have received a lot of feedback for reliability yet. Another choice that seems to have proven reliable is the Asus P8Z68-V PRO however it is pricier, has fewer external ports (plus the size restricts case choice) and the heatsinks are a little too close to the CPU socket.

Abula
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by Abula » Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:39 am

What case you going with? R3 or Mini or TJ08?

David_CA
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by David_CA » Thu Aug 18, 2011 5:27 am

Abula wrote:What case you going with? R3 or Mini or TJ08?
The Define Mini just became available in Canada through Fractal's Canadian partner NCIX. I've ordered a system to build with most of the components, it's going to take an extra 5 days on top of the usual wait since the case hasn't technically landed in the warehouse yet.

For availability and assembly reasons I ended up going with the Ninja 3. The video card will need to be ordered seperately, apparently there is an exclusivity deal for MSI's Radeon cards in the Canadian market. I have a Sapphire 4670 for the moment which is not overly loud. The replacement case fans and harddrive silencer are also going to be ordered seperately so it will take a few weeks before the system is fully assembled as designed.

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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by MikeC » Thu Aug 18, 2011 7:05 am

The Seagate XT series appear to have pretty high return rates according to buyer feedback on Newegg and other retailer sites. I wouldn't go that way.

If you are set on going w/ a biggish HDD, you might consider a WD Velociraptor for the OS + 2~3 TB 5400rpm for data. The 150g WDV is going for $110~120 and the 300gb model is going for $150~170. Check our reviews for details -- and how to make them really quiet.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article844-page1.html
http://www.silentpcreview.com/wd-black-2tb-vr600

High density, high capacity 5400rpm drives have excellent data transfer rates, btw, and it's only the high random access time that makes them feel more sluggish (at times) compared to faster spindle speed HDDs. (They kill older, lower density 7200s in most contests.)

Finally, if you are interested in any Smart Drive 2002 enclosures to silence your HDDs, I have a few to sell, just send me an email, mikec at the obvious url. (SD2002 is an improved version of this: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article23-page1.html -- for a while, along with the No Vibes, it was the only HDD sielncer that actually worked.)

David_CA
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by David_CA » Thu Aug 25, 2011 3:34 pm

Received the Hawk 5770 since it was ordered seperately from Newegg due to Canadian dealer exclusivity. Did not receive the fans I ordered (it appears they where shipped in a seperate box, from a seperate location). I was not happy in the least with how it was packed by Newegg - on receiving I immediately noticed the bottom of the box was taped oddly (it sagged, making it look like the bottom was going to fall out). So I carefully opened it from that side to discover the card had just been dropped on the bottom of the box and the packing paper placed into the other half of the box - apparently to protect the 2 little flyers about cheap textbooks while the card itself was pressed hard against the bottom taking the force of every drop.

David_CA
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Re: i5 build with modest silencing

Post by David_CA » Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:35 am

Finally received the system. I really didn't get to run it much because I was fixing assembly errors like the fan being mounted to the bottom of the heatsink (blocking the PCIe slot). The fan controller is missing, I'm working with the store to determine if they have it or the manufacturer didn't include it. For now the system is not silent since both fans are running at full.

Bearing in mind that I've been out of the PC building world for a while:

First impressions of the Fractal Define Mini case:

* Heavy. Granted it has a Ninja 3 heatsink in there, but going from a Shuttle to this is a big change.

* Side panels are very difficult to remove/replace. There are tabs at the back for you to use, but the side panels are attached in a very solid manner, which means a good amount of force is needed to remove or replace them. The panel behind the motherboard is the worst - while there is enough clearance that you don't have trouble with the big motherboard power cable, it is still difficult to get the panel back on unless you have two people - one to keep the panel flat so all the slot and tabs line up, and another to apply the considerable pushing power to put it back in.

* The HD cage design is good - the lower 3 bays are fixed, the upper 3 can be removed. It looks like I'll remove the upper case which completely unblocks the upper intake fan and give a clear path to the video card and CPU.

* Construction is solid - nothing feels flimsy.

* The Mini includes an "extra" PCI slot above the other slots, where you can install a fan controller or USB ports. So far it seems the screw for this is only accessable by thumb, I don't see how to get a screwdriver in there. As the 'thumb' screws can be attached very tight it seems important not to tighten this screw too much.

A few questions I have:

When I installed the video card I needed to provide extra power. The card came with a 2x molex to PCI power connector. For the moment this is being used along with a 3x molex cable from the PSU, however I don't think this is how it should be (both powered from the same cable). The PSU does come with 2 modular cables that seem to be the correct one - they connect to the larger jacks on the PSU and end in a 6 pin connector. However I noticed 2 things: The 6 pin connector that came with the card looks like only 5 pins actually have metal (a middle pin looks like a blank, the 2 molex coming off it also only have 3 metal pins and 1 blank, I pressume since it only uses the 12V). The PSU cable also has a little 2 pin bit hanging off - like an optional extra 2 pins for the 6 pin connector. What is this? Is it safe to use this connector instead of the molex adapter?
(Edit: a few minutes with Internet access has turned up this, so I assume it is safe to use the connector)


Due to the size and weight (the case is very deep, taking it out of the box it was very confusing to orient it correctly because all the sides are clean black and it's practically square from one side) I'm thinking I want to put this case on the floor, where I currently have the decomissioned 24" high server tower. However the floor is thick carpet which will block the lower/PSU intake. Any suggestions on what kind of base I might use, I would want something stable (the server tower doesn't have a bottom intake, and has nice big swing out feet to keep it stable on the rug).

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