New system - Comments appreciated

The forum for non-component-related silent pc discussions.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
CFD
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu May 22, 2003 3:13 am
Location: Porto, Portugal

New system - Comments appreciated

Post by CFD » Tue Jul 01, 2003 7:36 am

Hello!

I am going to build a new system for my g/f and this is what I was thinking about:

Case: Antec Sonata w/ some mods (see comments)
Comments: The case is nice (from an aesthetic point of view), with good overall build quality and I like some of the perks (grommets, 90º drive bays, front ports). I pretend to change the PSU (and recycle the truepower for a work system that sounds like a chopper taking off) and tape the Antec holes. I also intend on replacing the back case fan and add another frontal fan.

Power Supply: Be Quiet! Blackline 370W Two fan Titanium
Comments: Although I am yet to find an english-language review of this power supply, the german-translated ones seem very positive. The specs (see www.be-quiet.de) are very good and the price (70 €) is more than reasonable. A lot cheaper that Zalman or Nexus. I would prefer the one fan version but I am unable to get that here in Portugal (and availability on a heavy component like the PSU is an issue).

Case fans: 2x NB-Ultrasilent SX2Pro 120mm fans
Comments: The best spec'd 120mm fan I could find: 5-13 V operation with a 12-26 dB/A noise level and a maximum 109 m3/h (64 CFM) airflow rate.

Motherboard: Epox 8RDA3+
Comments: Excellent build quality, top performance, good "overclocker" and cheap! Also an all-passive (fanless) M/B with mount holes for the CPU heatsink.

Processor: AMD Athlon 2500+ Barton
Comments: Low(ish) thermal output power, good headroom for overclocking. I can get the 2600+ Throughbread for more or less the same price, but I still prefer the Barton.

CPU Cooler: Thermaltake SLK-900U + ? 92 mm fan
Comments: The heatsink bears no second thoughts. The very best currently on the market for a socket-A solution. I am undecided on the fans between a Papst, an Enermax or a Noiseblocker. I'm leaning to the Enermax, as the Papst seems to present "clicking" noises and higher pitched overall noise. For the Noiseblocker I've been unable to find any comments but the specs look good. The Enermax presents the lower specs of the three but the best online comments.

Graphics card: Crucial Radeon 9100 + passive cooler (?)
Comments: A good-quality card for the job (work and the occasional DVD) from an excellent company. I don't know if it is worth changing the fan, as comments I have read state that the fan noise is very low. Any further info would be appreciated. If I do decide to go for a passive solution, probably the Zalman HP-80A heatpipe (I can't get the ZM-50A here).

Hard Disk Drive: Samsung SpinPoint SP1203N
Comments: A little louder than the Barracuda (altough more bearable according to SPCR) but a better performer. Also has a DECENT warranty (3 years against the 1 year from Seagate) and the same price. I wasn't thinking on silencing it further as I'm trusting the grommets on the Sonata to do a decent enough job.

Optical Disk Drives: ? CD-RW and DVD-ROM
Comments: This is a true unknown. My ONLY limitation is that they must be black and support Mt. Rainer. As I can gather from a lot of sources, there isn't such a thing as a silent optical drive, but comments and suggestions are most welcome.

The rest of the setup is not very noise related. I will go for a TFT-LCD screen (Samsung 172T), which is more silent than a CRT and also more "nice and pretty" (g/f words), 1 Gb DDR400 RAM from Crucial (stability and hell of a service) and the never-dying 3 1/4" diskette drive.

Like I said, any suggestions and/or comments are most welcome!

Thanks a lot!

DavidG
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2003 8:41 am

Post by DavidG » Tue Jul 01, 2003 10:41 am

Since you don't seem overly concerned about graphics performance, you might want to look at the Radeon 9200 series or the Nvidia 5200 series. Many of those cards come with passive heat sinks.

If you go the heat pipe route you might as well get something with some horse power.

Jan Kivar
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:37 am
Location: Finland

Re: New system - Comments appreciated

Post by Jan Kivar » Tue Jul 01, 2003 10:54 pm

CFD wrote:Hard Disk Drive: Samsung SpinPoint SP1203N
Comments: A little louder than the Barracuda (altough more bearable according to SPCR) but a better performer. Also has a DECENT warranty (3 years against the 1 year from Seagate) and the same price. I wasn't thinking on silencing it further as I'm trusting the grommets on the Sonata to do a decent enough job.
You should try to get the 8 MB version. More performance at same noise level. The model number is SP1213N. Might be difficult to find though.

Cheers,

Jan

CFD
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu May 22, 2003 3:13 am
Location: Porto, Portugal

Post by CFD » Wed Jul 02, 2003 1:14 am

I'm going to buy the system towards the end of the month, so I can wait a bit to see if Samsung does launch the 8 Mb version. If not, I'll just have to stick with this one.

CFD
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu May 22, 2003 3:13 am
Location: Porto, Portugal

Post by CFD » Wed Jul 02, 2003 2:16 am

DavidG, I would go for 9200 if it was chepear, but its more expensive. Also I don't get Crucial's lifetime warranty.

On the 5200, I am not a big fan of Nvidia's 2D quality or DVD playback, and those are the main points of interested, not 3D.

Post Reply