Hey guys, I'm looking to potentially build my girlfriend a quiet PC in the upcoming months, wondering what exactly I could do to make it a quiet PC.
I will have around $1500 to spend max, but would like to keep it around $1000 if possible. Since she only plays some basic graphical games and isn't into the FPS genre, I think it'll be okay if raw power isn't top notch.
She needs everything, from case to peripherals and OS as I have no spare parts.
Res : 1920x1080 Games wanting max : Sims (I think the new one coming is 4? don't quote me) and D3 - RoS / any type of 3rd person RPG or maybe a shooter in the future on par with Borderlands 2. Must haves : I know I'm going to get some flak for this but, honestly, I want it to have an SSD and at least a CPU with overclock capabilities. She won't necessarily use PC for things outside of gaming to start.
Biggest thing we're looking for is quiet. My PC is a hurricane, sometime in the next couple years I'll upgrade to something a bit quieter as well, but for now her PC would be great practice. So suggestions / forums / links on how to accomplish this would be great.
Cases are up for suggestions, basically something with bottom mounted PSU and good cable management / air flow capabilities.
First of all, I should warn you that quiet system will cost a bit more.
Quietness was never of much concern to me, but we have some people with sensitive ears around to help you out
Someone else will help you out with silent CPU cooler (I think AIO would be best ?) and a case, plus all the peripherals.
Asus MB for FanXpert (lets you adjust all fans connected to MB) and Windforce as it's quiet, also Silent PSU.
Also if you build a silent system, I would recommend against traditional HDD, and 240GB SSD should fit you all the games she plays.
Bored so why not. Assumption is using the monitor speaker but you can probably get a cheap one if you want. Someone could probably give me a poke about it.
All the upper builds are really good but for quietness sake i strongly suggest you to buy the Thermaltake Frio as CPU cooler.
I've built pc with both the Noctua NH-U14 and the Thermatake Frio and while they are both excellent cooler, i've found the second one to be amazingly silent.
I have both the build in the same room and when the Thermaltake pc is on i can hardly hear it, while the Noctua one is quite rumorous and i have often to shut down the pc when i want to have some quiet in the room.
The key components for a quiet rig are (highest importance first):
- GPU
- Case fan + fan controller
- Aftermarket heatsink
- PSU (PSU might be higher than case fans; not sure because I've only ever used silent Seasonic PSUs)
- Silence foam
Nvidia cards this generation are very quiet. Since your sister isn't a hardcore gamer and you're trying to stay at the $1000 budget, a 760 is just as good as a 770. All non-ref 760s are whisper quiet at load. For example, at load, my Gigabyte 760 is only audible at 3ft or less with the side panel open. My case doesn't have silence foam.
Stock case fans tend to be meh and are generally run at 1000~1200 RPM which isn't loud, but still audible. My Arc Midi R2's Silent Series R2 fans (same as found on the Define R4) whirs and rattles at 12V, and are still partially audible when throttled to 5V. My Cooler Master R4 140mm fans (aftermarket, $5) are silent at 600 RPM. By the way, a 4670K + 760 doesn't need much airflow.
Stock Intel heatsink is OK. It was a tad noisy when I used it on my stock i7-4770K. An aftermarket heatsink is ideal for a silent build because it has better thermal transfer at a lower fan speed. Pick a heatsink with a fan that can throttle to 400-600 RPM; PWM fan control (4-pin fan) is nice, but not mandatory. AIO fans are high performance, so can only throttle to a noisy ~1300 RPM. On my previous i7-3770K rig, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, one of the cheaper quiet aftermarket heatsinks, was very quiet at 600 RPM.
All fans are audible at 1000+ RPM, so a fan controller is necessary to crank the fans down to a silent level. A switch based fan controller like found on the Arc Midi R2, Define R4, and some of Cooler Master's and Corsair's higher end cases is nice. I personally like fan speed being tied to CPU usage. Since most case fans are 3-pin, you'd need a special motherboard capable of handling 3-pin fans. The MSI Z87-G45 and ASUS's Haswell motherboards above ~$80 can control 3-pin fans.
PSU selection is simple, just pick a Seasonic built PSU and you're set (e.g. XFX Core 550W).
Silence foam doesn't do much because it can't muffle a noisy build; it can only bring a quiet build under the noise floor. $90 for the aging Define R4 is a bit steep, especially since the Silent Series R2 fans are a bit rattly, even at 5V. NZXT's H230 has silence foam and is a good low cost alternative.
Here's what I combined and added. I like the xfx PSU, switching to that white NZXT because it's virtually the same as the 100$ R4 I was looking at, minus rubber grommets. Seems like the monitor is where we want it to be at with the resolution / screen size.
It doesn't have to be completely silent, but the air sound we get from my PC is not what she wants (I have 13 fans lol)
I'd like to throw in my vote for the Noctua NH-D14 cooler, though I'd get some Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans instead of using the Noctua fans. The Fractal R4 is a great choice for a silent case. A couple other options for cases is an Antec P280 or a Corsair Obsidian 550D. I'd avoid getting an AMD video card at this point in time - the prices for the 270X-290X seem to rise up higher every month. Make sure when you're picking out an air cooler that you get low profile ram for your system, the bigger air coolers that are effective for big overclocks take up a lot of room.
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