This seems like a huge problem!

[Tilltech]

1. Possible solution is blower-type card, but blower-type cards are regularly louder than custom 2-3 fan cards, and slower.

2. Custom cards are more quiet, but they are blocked by the ATX-sized PSU. People report up to 5C increase!

3. If you go for an SFX-sized PSU the choice is very limited, especially regarding noise. The quietest is supposed to be Corsair SF600, but it is much louder than Corsair RM650x.

Crap, I was thinking of going full ITX from Mini C to Nano S, but I don't like this situation at all.

P.S.
That image is not mine, as I would never use water cooling and never will.

[faustus]

What type of components do you have in mind? The Corsair SF600 is silent up to 120W and quiet (sub-20dB) up to 360W according to Corsair. It's very noisy at full load, but that will only matter if you draw that much power.

At idle or with standard desktop tasks (mail, documents, internet, watching video) you should be below 120W with pretty much any system. 360W should suffice for gaming with a stock i7-7700K and a stock GTX 1080 Ti, for instance.

Are you planning for something more powerful than that?

[Tilltech]

Yes, I've already looked into SF600, it will always be loud.

• Define Nano S (with Silent Wing 3 PWM fans - 1 120mm, 2 140mm, these fans are inaudible at max rotation, so cooling should not be a compromise with silence)
  NOCTUA NH-D15S
  SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2 500GB
  Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming-ITX
  AMD RYZEN 7 1700
  Asus Strix 1080 Ti
  Corsair Vengeance® LPX 16GB
  PSU ??

[faustus]

So under full load you should be at about 350W at stock speeds, 500W with max overclock on both CPU and GPU.

I assume you plan on overclocking? And the computer is frequently under heavy load? If so, I agree: You need an ATX power supply from a noise perspective. IMO that rules out the Nano S, since the quietest GPUs won't have enough room to breathe, leaving you with higher temps and more fan noise than necessary.

500W is actually quite a lot of power, it's hard to keep it cool and quiet at the same time. You'll need a case with good airflow, at least. There may be mITX cases that can handle 500W without a noise penalty, but I haven't found any so far. An mATX case might be your best bet after all.

[Olle P]

Water cooling for the graphics card as well won't use up that much space, but it will cost a bit of money...