After all this time, is this still the best we can get?

[Das_Saunamies]

Absolutely. Silent PC enthusiasts are relatively low spenders. While SPCR are may consider $300 to be a lot for making their overall PC more quiet, graphics enthusiasts will shell out $1400 for SLI graphic cards alone.

There's a difference between paying premium and wasting money: $1400 for a PC component is ridiculous, $1400 for a high-end or silent PC is acceptable. For most people that's a month's wage for something that'll be outdated in about two years. Making that sort of exaggerated comparison to say the silent users don't spend enough to be a viable target group is wrong. Silent components cost premium, be it cases, coolers, fans, PSUs, motherboards, processors, VGA or HDDs, so the profit margin and extra spending is certainly there. The fact that the majority has been buying flashy shiny things with big numbers, or just getting the cheapest option, has more to do with the current state of affairs than the readiness of your silencing enthusiast to dig in their wallet.

But think beyond the money factor. We have the technology to make sound proof ultra-quiet cases. But they're not going to be cheap. Do you see the typical silent PC enthusiast paying $1400 for a truely soundproof modern PC case made of double walled, vacuum sealed composites and high strength anti-vibe alloys?

Well considering that most people here seem to think the $80 Antec P180 or solo is at the cutting edge of PC sound proofing technology, the answer appears to be a resounding "no". In fact, the sad thing is, the $80 aluminium Antec P180 is at the cutting edge of PC sound proofing technology (along with the TNN's).

So let's look beyond the money issue: why isn't there a magnetically latched titanium-lead alloy case that is sure to kill vibration and has sealed vacuums for soundproofing? How about all the red tape and ecological aspects... or how about the fact that you don't need one? With proper components and high-grade cases you can already achieve what is essentially a completely silent computer. Those components won't cost you $1400, and that's simply because they are not made to rip you off with promises and sparkle, but to provide improved functionality with smart engineering.

The 89€ price tag on a P150 variant is double the money you'd pay for a basic steel ATX tower case. The 120€ price tag on the P180 variants is triple that, so they are not cheap or anything to sneer at. They are at the "cutting edge"(more like top of the line) as there is little or no competition, and people are swallowing them up: the initial hundred-or-so Solo cases went in a week from the distributor I was considering buying from, so there is demand. There's also certainly willingness to invest, as the Lian Li price tags can tell you, and that money is paid for appeal and badge alone, not actual improvement in functionality. Assuming that people see Performance One as the ultimate soundproofing solution is dead wrong: what they are described as is the best enclosures to start building your silent PC in. You're quite right in people not wanting to pay thousands for a case -- why would they when there's no need?

Fact is, manufacturers do not think people will pay for it. And they're right. So manufacturers will not waste their time.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I believe that the silent pc enthusiast market is in its infancy. Eventually more premium manufacturers will offer more technologically advanced (and more expensive) products, but there is absolutely no reason to at the moment. They'd simply lose money.

Fact is neither of us know what the manufacturers think. Also a fact is that in a market economy the majority dictates the profits, be it by spending or demand, and that majority has been concentrating on aspects other than silence. The reasons are mostly ignorance(why should I pay premium when I can save money, they wouldn't sell me complete shit would they? ohhh yes they would) and enthusiasm(new Radeon/GeForce/e-penis with bigger numbers and a new trick feature that needs double the investment? WOW!) What you are right about is the relative freshness and novelty of the "silent" market, and I think quite a few manufacturers are taking advantage of that by selling less-than-perfect products to garner profits before releasing the next improved-but-not-yet-quite-perfect product. The rest aren't bothering as long as their existing stuff keeps selling, as the silent market already has established competition that would cut initial profits and raise initial investment.

Hail the almighty buck!

[spookmineer]

Good post.

Why are you adressing enthusiasts with silence in mind differently then enthusiasts with performance in mind?

I don't think people are making decisions based on ignorance or lack of knowledge, they have different priorities and are willing to compromise (to a degree) if it saves some money.
Some will opt for the newest Radeon/GeForce/e-penis with bigger numbers, while others will settle for a lower tech yet fanless one, some will not compromise and make the high tech card silent with additional hardware and cost.

In the end it is about your needs and how much you are willing to spend (and some DIY for smart, silent solutions). People who only need a PC to make docs, use internet and email are in a different situation then people who want to play the newest games.
Everyone makes decisions on their needs, and sometimes need to compromise to make it all work.

[cmthomson]

Well I realize I'm in the lunatic fringe, but cost was a very minor consideration when building my system. If you look at my "superquiet superclocked" DIY article, you'll probably be surprised at the number of expensive components in it.

As for performance vs silence, I of course went for both; cost ballooned as a result...

[echn111]

You are right, for the traditional silence enthusiast, there is no need for innovation and more technologically advanced kit. There is no need as you simply use low powered, cheaper kit and can achieve silence that way. So why innovate? Mind you, there will be innovation that benefits silence enthusiasts as a side effect, but it will be driven by other reasons.

I probably don't fall into the typical silence enthusiast category although silence is my main priority. I want the latest bleeding edge kit (at least when i buy it) and I want it silent. Let me explain. I've already made silent PC's - just use cheap, low power equipment and I'll get it quiet no problems. And making a high performance cutting edge overclocked screamer is very easy. But to do both - a powerful, overclocked, high tech PC and ensure it is silent? That's challenging.

Not only is it more complex, but this area would benefit most by technological innovations in silencing.

So when the G92's come out along with the next gen CPU's I'll be one of the first to buy and overclock it. But unlike my fellow early adopter enthusiasts, I want it silent. Ironically, unlike my fellow 'silence' enthusiasts, I want the latest in bleeding edge PC technology.

But I suspect I'm in a very very small minority of enthusiasts on either side.

What I've found fustrating is while I see technological innovations elsewhere, innovations in PC silencing technology are not keeping pace. Innovations do occur, but normally as a side effect for reasons other than acoustics. The reason has already been stated, I suppose I only realize this now: It is not needed.

For the reasons everyone has clearly stated, true innovation in PC silencing technology is not only not needed, but not wanted by the traditional silence enthusiast community.

[WR304]

IMO noisewise there will be no perceptible difference between the best (quietest) laptop HDD in a DIY enclosure and solid-state.

It's still worth paying attention to these things even if they're expensive currently.

If you look at how the price of USB flash drives has fallen over the last few years I'm hopeful there could be a "reasonably" priced SSD drive in a year or so.

A 512mb USB memory stick from Ebuyer in August 2006 cost £9.99 incl VAT.

A 512mb USB memory stick from Ebuyer in August 2007 costs £4.11 incl VAT.

Another example of how fast some technology can fall in price is Blu-ray drives. You can get a Pioneer Blu-ray drive for £136.00 now. When I last looked around Christmas time I'm sure they were well over £500.00

There are quite a few companies selling interesting quiet components.

Have a look at these two links for example:

http://www.ichbinleise.de/Luefterlose-P ... 0e9bfef992

http://edvextrem.de/english/produkt_psu_2fw.php

Coming back to hard drives Dell have started using solid state hard drives in some of their laptops.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/glob ... =en&s=corp

.

[migueld]

I probably don't fall into the typical silence enthusiast category although silence is my main priority. I want the latest bleeding edge kit (at least when i buy it) and I want it silent. Let me explain. I've already made silent PC's - just use cheap, low power equipment and I'll get it quiet no problems. And making a high performance cutting edge overclocked screamer is very easy. But to do both - a powerful, overclocked, high tech PC and ensure it is silent? That's challenging.

Definitely, I think that's what it's all about. Trying to achieve both, performance and silence is the most fun IMO, especially because it's nonexistent in the mainstream world.

[WR304]

An interesting review of Mtron SSD hard drives:

Extremely expensive but faster than a Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm drive, silent and guaranteed for 5 years.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3064

Pricing: http://www.dvnation.com/nand-flash-ssd.html

Chances are these won't be affordable any time soon.

[echn111]

An interesting review of Mtron SSD hard drives:

Extremely expensive but faster than a Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm drive, silent and guaranteed for 5 years.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3064

Pricing: http://www.dvnation.com/nand-flash-ssd.html

Chances are these won't be affordable any time soon.

Due to the low capacity, they will not be good storage drives. But some of these look like they could make great C: drive replacements for the performance boost.

However, the last time I looked at SSD's a few months ago, most were actually slower at writing than the best normal HD's. And unless you looked at the ultra high end (i.e. STEC ZeusIOPS was around $14,000 for a 18GB), the affordable ones like the Samsung Flash SSD ($600 for 32GB) were slower than normal HDD's at writing.

And in the reviews I found, in the real world, and at the file level (rather than individual IO operations which the SSD drives are clearly better), the $14,000 Zeus would take 32 seconds to load something like Far Cry. While the Raptor X takes 38 seconds (source: custom PC June/July review). That's not a massive increase in real world read performance. There are plenty of reasons why, including the way the OS handles it, but the bottom line is that SSD drives do not yet deliver real world performance. (Don't know about the MTRON SSD 32GB, but suspect it may have the same limitations.) Other similar techologies, such as the HyperDriveOS, which uses DDRRAM rather than flash memory and are very fast, have their own issues. The HyperDrive needs cooling which means noise. And they're also quite expensive.

However, the one group these products are actually ready for are serious silence enthusiasts who don't care that much about performance, and there seem to be many here. The affordable SSD products such as the Samsungs (i.e. $699 for 32G) are ideal if you're not that concerned about performance.

But, given the conservative nature of traditional silence enthusiasts, this is going to happen very very slowly, and I doubt silence is going to what drives the SSD market. In terms of innovation adoption, as always, the performance crowd will "lead" and the silence enthusiasts will "follow" (although wouldn't mind some reviews for those who do not fit this stereotype).

I am waiting for overall SSD performance to increase and may consider one as a C: drive if such products become reasonably affordable. It must be better than dual raptors in RAID though. And silent of course.

[WR304]

Taken from the comments in the Anandtech MTron review:

http://www.anandtech.com/talkarticle.as ... frmWhere=2

"I received one of these this week too for evaluating as a MySQL datadir.

The results were outstanding - we had a handful of problem queries which would take 30-40 seconds on a 15k Fujitsu MAS Ultra SCSI. The same queries take about 3 seconds on the MTRON.

I have worked with large MySQL databases for years, but there are a lot of examples like this one where I just cant qualify throwing a few days into A/B testing various indexing and table schemas for the performance issues with a handful of slow queries - especially when just *loading* a table and creating an index can take 20-30 min each. Throwing hardware at the problem is far cheaper and you can use simpler table layouts, plus you may not even be able to achieve this performance any other way in some scenarios.

IMHO this is a unique 'drop-in' solution for a lot of specific data center applications. In the long term you are going to see these replace mechanicals across the board in the server room because they will be cheaper and far simpler to deal with then SCSI and offer far better performance with low heat, noise, and power.

I also popped it in my notebook, which was just sublime. I already had the fastest mechanical in this notebook - a brand new Hitachi 7k200 with 16MB cache.

Within 34 min I had a 32-bit Vista Ultimate / Ubuntu Feisty x64 dual-boot setup - Vista booted in 21 seconds, Ubuntu in a little under 30 (a savings of about 6 seconds for each). No noise, vibration, or heat - the fan never came on, even set to high performance power profile. I didnt do a battery life test but from the battery remaining indicator I would expect an extra half hour.

Immediately the advantages of having a .1ms access time became apparent. Stuff just happens. Firefox cold boots in 3s, open a bunch of apps - the disk doesnt care, every piece of data is exactly .1ms away. Write speeds are more traditional but still as good as or better than the Hitachi. Subjectively the mental line between memory and disk usage just kind of dissolves.

While booting, I heard the BIOS check the optical drive, and it was like 'wtf with this prehistoric mechanical thing in my notebook!' In a notebook, the mechanical drive is dead, IMHO, but yet once the prices come down.

The lack of storage space was a downer, especially after just getting used to the 200GB in the Hitachi. I was thinking this could be partially augmented with a cheaper, slower 16GB expresscard SSD for music, etc.

On my overclocked 3Ghz C2D 6400 2GB Raptor desktop, the results were similar but subjectively not as exciting since I dont really care about heat noise vibration power (BF2142 booted to 'join game' in 70s vs 80s on the raptor). I would definitely wait until the prices for a 64GB came down to $300 or so before using one as a boot drive.

I use VMWare workstation a great deal, although I havent tried it yet this would be another application which would benefit greatly since it uses a pseudo-disk.

The disk is definitely going into production immediately on the MySQL server, and I am considering getting one as my primary Linux development workstation disk as 32 GB goes a long way in that application, and I have never seen a Linux desktop perform like that. Plus I do a lot more disk-intensive stuff in development vs web surfing etc on my notebook or desktop PC.

There is no argument IMHO - mechanicals are a dead-end technology as a notebook/desktop/server boot and application disk as soon as the prices come down. " brundlefly

[aburgard]

I have a Lian Li PC-V1000 and I can't hear it from 2 feet away. I'm using Nexus case fans, Nexus PSU, quiet HDD and Nexus as a CPU fan. It's awful quiet. I took a piece of foam and separated off the front from anything that generates noise in the upper chamber. That seems to do the trick.