Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
I'm building a workstation that will also be used for light gaming. I want 4k video for work but gaming @ 1080p would be fine. Typical workstation use is heavy parallel CPU tasks (hence the 8 core). This workstation is also used as a media server that performs transcoding duties for multiple simultaneous streams. Finally, I want a case with USB 3.0 ports on the front or top (add in 5.25 bay is fine if the slot exists) and that supports a lot of drive bays.
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 (or 6)
GPU: Asus 960 GTX Strix
CPU: i7-5960X
CPU cooler: Prolimatech Genesis CPU cooler
CPU cooler fans: 2x Prolimatech Red Vortex fans
MB: midrange Asus or Gigabyte 2011-v3 board
Memory: Kingston HyperX 32GB
Drives: 2x 5.25 optical drive (yes, they are needed)
Drives: 8x Mix of Seagate ST4000 NAS and WD Red drives 4TB <-- mix of earlier build and new. Having a 9th slot would be really nice when I need to swap out dying drives.
Drives: Intel SSD <-- Scratch disk, from an earlier build
Drives: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 drive <-- O/S
My main problem is finding a case that seems like it will be quiet while handling the required drive capacity. I read through the recommendation guides and none of the cases supported a lot of drives (Nanoxia is not mentioned). I could go even crazier with something like a Lian Li PC-D8000 but the drive mounting seems like it would be very prone to vibration noise. Other alternates are Mountain Mods or similar cases that have the drives bolting onto the fans w. an adapter (noise would travel through the fans).
Questions:
- Any thoughts about a case solution? I could squeeze by with 8 3.5" and 2 5.25" bays but would prefer 9 3.5" if possible.
- Will the Prolimatech handle the 5960X at stock freqs? At what amount of overclock will it choke? Keep in mind that most folks are seeing 160W max draw at 4Ghz. Should I consider a AIO WC solution instead?
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 (or 6)
GPU: Asus 960 GTX Strix
CPU: i7-5960X
CPU cooler: Prolimatech Genesis CPU cooler
CPU cooler fans: 2x Prolimatech Red Vortex fans
MB: midrange Asus or Gigabyte 2011-v3 board
Memory: Kingston HyperX 32GB
Drives: 2x 5.25 optical drive (yes, they are needed)
Drives: 8x Mix of Seagate ST4000 NAS and WD Red drives 4TB <-- mix of earlier build and new. Having a 9th slot would be really nice when I need to swap out dying drives.
Drives: Intel SSD <-- Scratch disk, from an earlier build
Drives: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 drive <-- O/S
My main problem is finding a case that seems like it will be quiet while handling the required drive capacity. I read through the recommendation guides and none of the cases supported a lot of drives (Nanoxia is not mentioned). I could go even crazier with something like a Lian Li PC-D8000 but the drive mounting seems like it would be very prone to vibration noise. Other alternates are Mountain Mods or similar cases that have the drives bolting onto the fans w. an adapter (noise would travel through the fans).
Questions:
- Any thoughts about a case solution? I could squeeze by with 8 3.5" and 2 5.25" bays but would prefer 9 3.5" if possible.
- Will the Prolimatech handle the 5960X at stock freqs? At what amount of overclock will it choke? Keep in mind that most folks are seeing 160W max draw at 4Ghz. Should I consider a AIO WC solution instead?
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Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Nanoxias are nice options, regardless of whatever Mike & Lawrence say. Among others with at least 9 bays I'd say: Antec P183v3, P193v3, Nineteen Hundred , Twelve Hundred V3; Fractal Define XL2, Arc XL; InWin Dragon Rider, GR One; but I'm sure there may be further ones.Greg_R wrote:Questions:
- Any thoughts about a case solution? I could squeeze by with 8 3.5" and 2 5.25" bays but would prefer 9 3.5" if possible.
Greg_R wrote:- Will the Prolimatech handle the 5960X at stock freqs?
Yes.
Greg_R wrote:At what amount of overclock will it choke?
We don't have any crystal ball, but it mostly depends of specific chip and ventilation (particularly case ventilation), given it is able to dissipate in excess of 300w.
No, it won't be any better noise-wise: alternatively you may look for a custom loop with a 280/360mm radiator.Greg_R wrote:Should I consider a AIO WC solution instead?
Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Also maybe consider the FT02, it has 5x 3.5" and 5x 5.25" and 1x 2.5". Realitically three of those 5.25" bays could be used with 3.5" drives. Maybe even hotswap them, if you need that.
Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Have you considered splitting this into two builds, where one is a work/gaming build and the other is just a server/disk box in a closet/another room? It would open up your case choices and be much quieter.
Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Steve, yes I was considering that but had some concerns about the bandwidth between the workstation and the disks when I was transcoding or copying files around. If I need to serve 4 HD or 4k video streams at once, would I be able to pull from the remote disks on the network, transcode them, and then serve them w/o any problems? The numbers seem to work out (esp. if I do link aggregation between the NAS, workstation, and router) but will it work in the real world?CA_Steve wrote:Have you considered splitting this into two builds, where one is a work/gaming build and the other is just a server/disk box in a closet/another room? It would open up your case choices and be much quieter.
I agree that it would greatly simplify my design problem.
Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Typical 1g nic can push close to 100MB/s which is close to single 7200 drive. If you mostly work within the scratch disk, would that be enough?
Otherwise, 10g nic seems to be a justified investment for you. I am not sure if 10g nic can do direct client to client, if it does, then you can just get 2 adapter and direct link them without switch.
Otherwise, 10g nic seems to be a justified investment for you. I am not sure if 10g nic can do direct client to client, if it does, then you can just get 2 adapter and direct link them without switch.
Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
For file copying that should be OK.baii wrote:Typical 1g nic can push close to 100MB/s which is close to single 7200 drive. If you mostly work within the scratch disk, would that be enough?
What kind of sound level difference are we talking about between having 8-9 5400rpm drives in a chassis versus 1 (keeping in mind the better case options)? Is this a few dB or a major difference?
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Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Re: Quiet workstation - case and cooler?
Ah, more details.Greg_R wrote:Steve, yes I was considering that but had some concerns about the bandwidth between the workstation and the disks when I was transcoding or copying files around. If I need to serve 4 HD or 4k video streams at once, would I be able to pull from the remote disks on the network, transcode them, and then serve them w/o any problems? The numbers seem to work out (esp. if I do link aggregation between the NAS, workstation, and router) but will it work in the real world?
I agree that it would greatly simplify my design problem.
So, if I get this right, you have 4k video stored in the (unknown) format on HDDs. You then transcode up to 4 at a time on the fly to (unknown) 4k format and serve them as streams. If you were doing the transcoding and then storing the work on drives for later streaming, then separating into two PCs makes sense. This doesn't. Luca's advice is a better direction.