silent SLi system - advice please!

jamesg · Post by **jamesg** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:19 am

Hi all,

I've spent all afternoon speccing out a new PC and would appreciate some feedback. I require a system to drive three DVI monitors and it needs to be as quiet as possible. I will be playing games on it sometimes (although it's not the primary use), and since I've got to have two graphics cards, I figured they might as well be SLI.

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
2 x 1Gb Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667)
2 x 256MB XFX 7600GT 'Fatal1ty' PCI-E(x16) SLI Passive
Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i
Xilence Office Edition 460W Powersupply Semi Fanless

I realise it's a bit ambitious to have an SLI system with fanless graphics cards and fanless PSU. Am I likely to have any problems with this setup? Any feedback much appreciated.

Thanks,

James.

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:48 am

Did you know that you can also drive 3 monitors with a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition ?
Maybe 1 Graphics card and this thing can do the trick also.

jamesg · Post by **jamesg** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:51 am

Looks interesting. Didn't know about that. Unfortunately my monitors are 1600x1200.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:21 pm

Well, since your graphics cards are passive and you have a semi-passive PSU, your big issue is going to be case airflow. Maybe, think about using one of these "big fan" (220 or 250mm side fan) cases that are starting to become more common? If you do a search for "big fan" on the forums, you'll see some interesting posts about these cases.

jamesg · Post by **jamesg** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:31 pm

Here's the case I'm after. I think it should have good airflow, although the fan is only 120mm at the front.
http://www.xcase.co.uk/p/289404/compuca ... o-psu.html

I'm mainly concerned that the PSU won't be sufficient for SLI. People seem to run hugely powerful PSUs for SLI, but I'll only be running a couple of 7600GT's and only one hard disc.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:35 pm

Very good point. Felger Carbon and Bluefront have several threads in different segments involving the 220/250 mm fans-which come on several cases,but can be had seperate. The 13 blade units will start + run at less than 4v which comes out as under 300 rpm. They do not-at such low rpm,give much air velocity/pressure but do spread airflow over a wide area. Clever locating of the exhaust-whether a fan or a passive outlet,matters.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:02 pm

jamesg wrote:I'm mainly concerned that the PSU won't be sufficient for SLI. People seem to run hugely powerful PSUs for SLI, but I'll only be running a couple of 7600GT's and only one hard disc.

If it can really put out 400+W, you'll be find. It's hard to come up with a build that needs more than 400W. PSU Wattage is like car horsepower, after a certain point it is more about bragging rights than utility.

Moogles · Post by **Moogles** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:00 am

SLI does not work with multiple monitors! nVIDIA has been saying they'll incorporate multi-monitor support for a LONG time now, so I wouldn't hold out hope of it happening any time soon, either. You'd be wasting your money on an SLI setup. You would get 0 benefit from the second 7600GT, unless you're willing to deal with a host of different SLI/multi-monitor related bugs (i.e. switching to SLI to power a single monitor and your second and third monitors not switching back on when you're done gaming, etc). Not only that, but a 7600GT SLI setup is only roughly equivalent in performance to a x1950PRO, which also comes in a passively cooled flavor.

A single dual-DVI graphics card and a motherboard with built-in DVI, or a cheap PCI graphics card with DVI would be much more economical. You could also save money on not having to buy an SLI capable motherboard. Although you opted for the E4300, so you'll probably want a board that overclocks easily... most of which come with dual PCI-E x16 slots.

Matrox's triplehead2go is not an option, because it has VERY poor, blurry text quality. Its only real use is surround gaming. Let alone the fact that it only supports 1280*1024 x3.

I'm not familiar with your chosen semi-fanless powersupply, so I can't comment on it. Depending on what kind of case/airflow you're considering, it's doable. Whether or not it's practical I can't say, as you'll probably end up with the same amount of fans whether you go fanless PSU not.

In your situation, here's something I'd consider:
NSK3400 case
Fortron Zen 400
Asus M2A-VM HDMI (DVI out + HDMI module)
Club 3D x1950PRO (passively cooled)
2GB PC2-6400
AM2 processor equivalent to E4300 (x2 4600?)

You'd have 3 DVI slots to power your screens (I believe you can only use the built-in DVI port in conjunction with an ATI card for surroundview), a separate chamber for your passive PSU, just about identical performance to your proposed build, and using a Ninja and a 1200RPM Noctua fan, you could effectively cool your setup using only a single fan.

Good luck making your decision.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:37 am

i think that intel would be better than AMD in this case because of how hot AMDs run, i have one AMD system, gave me second degree burn. equivelent rated Intel processor isn't even half as hot.

and i'm not going to butcher any dreams, but sli will not be cooled by a single front 120mm fan, you'd need a ton of air coming for it to cool that monster.

however, having a combination of onboard plus high powered gfx cards will give some interesting effects...you could just get two cards and not use sli or crossfire...

but thats just my silly head at work...sli/crossfire puts the whole card into one port, not using it would put the whole card into all its ports, thus enabling up to 4 monitors, each with equal quality.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:58 am

i think that intel would be better than AMD in this case because of how hot AMDs run, i have one AMD system, gave me second degree burn. equivelent rated Intel processor isn't even half as hot.

What specific processors are you talking about here? All current AMD procs on the same process as Intel (ie 65nm vs 65nm, 90nm vs 90nm) have equal or lower TDP than equivalent intel part.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:17 am

looks like Moogles beat me to it - SLi only supports 1 monitor. So I suggest getting one slightly more powerful card for any 3d work you need (7600GT OR 7900GS) and another cheaper card with dvi (6200 or 7300GS).

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:53 am

1.4ghz AMD Athlon XP vs 1.4ghz Intel P4

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:20 pm

bonestonne wrote:1.4ghz AMD Athlon XP vs 1.4ghz Intel P4

These are obsolete chips, long out of production. Current AMD chips use the same or less power than equivalent Intel.

ck8-04 · Post by **ck8-04** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:09 pm

bonestonne wrote:i think that intel would be better than AMD in this case because of how hot AMDs run, i have one AMD system, gave me second degree burn. equivelent rated Intel processor isn't even half as hot.

It's actually the other way around when comparing Pentium Ds and Athlon 64 X2s, but with the arrival of Core 2 Duos, this statement is no longer true for either sides. The superior efficiency of the K8 is what prompted Intel to create the Conroe architecture in the first place.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:10 pm

well, its from my experience...my parents refuse to buy me an actually new system, so this is what i know and deal with.

el_ · Post by **el_** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:24 pm

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
2 x 1Gb Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667)
2 x 256MB XFX 7600GT 'Fatal1ty' PCI-E(x16) SLI Passive
Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i
Xilence Office Edition 460W Powersupply Semi Fanless

I think if you get a p182b you can run fans in the middle in push pull to get good quiet cooling of your graphics card.

also has a bottom fan near the psu that you can install if your psu isn't staying cool!

good luck the systems looks good.

this ram will do pc800 and cost less!! do it they are solid sticks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211061

jamesg · Post by **jamesg** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 1:03 pm

Thanks to all (especially Moogles) for the info! I actually ordered the system the day after I posted the original post.

I assembled the PC yesterday and am very pleased with it so far. The Xilence passive PSU seems to cope fine with the SLI graphics cards. The only sounds in the case are the case fans, PSU fan and hard disc. When I reduce the fan speed with SpeedFan, the only sound I can hear is from the hard disc.

I found out the hard way today that you can't have multi-monitor support and SLI enabled at the same time. It's not a big deal as I'll just enable SLI when I need it (very occasionally).

The system posted a score of 5800 in 3D Mark 2006 in Windows Vista. I haven't tried overclocking yet.