Is this the ultimate silent WoW PC System ? (Rate my new quiet PC setup)

[llDemonll]

if you have no plans to overclock, why are you getting the following:

z68 motherboard, when h67 works fine (unless you want the lucidx and/or intel SRT)
i5 2500K, when 2500, 2400, i7 2600, etc will work just as well
cpu heatsink, when the intel one will work fine

[Nelle]

if you have no plans to overclock, why are you getting the following:
z68 motherboard, when h67 works fine (unless you want the lucidx and/or intel SRT)

z68 cost the same, and I actually have the options to use my SSD as Cache. Also read about a lot of problems with the h67 chipset.

i5 2500K, when 2500, 2400, i7 2600, etc will work just as well

i5 2500k cost the same as 2500 here. i7 2600, about 50% more.

cpu heatsink, when the intel one will work fine

Those 80mm fans usually make noise like a rocket engine. And if I just strap another fan on it, it is still so tiny that it will be much hotter than the CPU cooler I'm buying. And with a passive GPU its important to me to be able to get rid of that little heat the CPU generates (push / pull configuration blowing out the back)

[llDemonll]

So if you're trying to keep silent, buy a Z68, run with lucidx graphics so that your GPU is off at night when not being used (and thus doesn't make noise), and yet you can still run wow on high/ultra without hiccups..i dont get why you're trying to run a fan-less (or so it sounds like) GPU when there are options and ways to disable the GPU when it's not needed (as judged by the computer) using some of the z68 motherboards

[Nelle]

So if you're trying to keep silent, buy a Z68, run with lucidx graphics so that your GPU is off at night when not being used (and thus doesn't make noise), and yet you can still run wow on high/ultra without hiccups..i dont get why you're trying to run a fan-less (or so it sounds like) GPU when there are options and ways to disable the GPU when it's not needed (as judged by the computer) using some of the z68 motherboards

Very simple. Don't want my computer to sound like a jet engine while I play either.

[Deleted]

My fianceé just build her own PC not too long and it's just the "standard" 560ti, hyper+, i5 2500k etc. Nothing special and I tell you sometimes I have to check if the system is actually on, that's how quiet it is, sure at max load and raiding you can hear it but honestly it's not much at all. The CPU is OC'd as well.

No where near sounding like a jet and it wasn't built to be particularly quiet

[Deleted]

My fianceé just build her own PC not too long and it's just the "standard" 560ti, hyper+, i5 2500k etc. Nothing special and I tell you sometimes I have to check if the system is actually on, that's how quiet it is, sure at max load and raiding you can hear it but honestly it's not much at all. The CPU is OC'd as well.

No where near sounding like a jet and it wasn't built to be particularly quiet

The thing that sounds like a jet at max load is the GPU (except if you have a trash cpu heatsink, which you don't), and I almost doubt that a 560ti will be anywhere near max load with WoW.
Of course there's still a big difference between gpu A and gpu B (and gpu heatsinks then, too) in terms of heat and related noise, but the step the OP has taken with the passively cooled 6770 will (or won't ) be heard.

[Deleted]

My point was that even with standard setup things don't sound like a jet, I get what you're saying though. I think it's cool what OP did. Just think there is a difference between sounding like a jet and then have slightly louder rig.

[Milkshake86]

I am getting concerned here , how loud are peoples PC's? In all fairness the ambient noise of my room and passing cars is much louder and I live on a dull street. Might be the massive 3x200mm Fans spinning so slow and A70 restricted to 1600rpm but like my 360 makes sooooo soooo much more noise, also brand new and not louder than normal. I do/did take the time to install rubber washers between each fan and the chassis etc, but I just dont understand how people hear a pc over game/movies etc. Id believe in order to even hear the sound and understand voices it would have to be louder than my pc is which is quieter than the heat coming on in the house.

[BicycleMafioso]

I went over to a friends a week ago, who was boasting about how quiet his PC was now that he got a new case. Yea. It was loud. He used a HAF 912+ and a HD4800 series GPU with reference cooler.

Myself? My PC is quiet. And when I say quiet, I mean it's not making noise. It's not "quieter than" something else. It's quiet. Imagine a laptop who isn't powered on. That quiet. And it stands to my immediate right.

A lot of people are claiming their computer is silent because it's more silent than their previous PCs were. Or some don't care because "you can't hear it over games/music/movies". Well, I don't use sound in games, unless it's good quality (meaning Battlefield, yes, wow, hell no). And why would I want to be forced to wear my headphones while gaming? Or just browsing the interwebs, just so I can sit next to it?

[Milkshake86]

912 i believe has smaller fans which are always louder cuz they rip along like jet intakes. I mean i can not hear my pc in bed everything off. If im sitting 1 ft from it with nothing on yea i hear some breathing nothing bothersome in the least. I donot play w/ WoW music on i do have the other effects on very low however cuz priest PoM is hellishly annoying, clearly error msgs off "you cant do that right now" I only really do multiplayer gaming so headphones are a must i feel akward having my friends babbling on as you know how us guys talk , coming out my speakers NO WAY. I mean i did aim for a bit of a quieter build but only time i hear an abusive sound is fans on boot up lord full rpm for 2-3 seconds O.O fairly certain its only my 560 TI tho .

[Deleted]

@Milkshake and Tetris I guess, take a look at this for WoW. I like hearing only certain "important sounds or maybe just boss talk. This fixed the issue for me. It's a large file but zero impact on your performance.

Muted Sounds - combat only

[Nelle]

How rude of me, I forgot to post how this all turned out in the end (well near the end at the moment).

I managed to make some last minute swaps before picking up the hardware.

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K - Changed to Intel® Core™ i5-2500 to save some $ since I have no plan of Overclocking
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Chassis: Fractal Design Define R3
RAM: 8GB Corsair DDR3-1600 VENGEANCE - Changed to 8GB DDR3 1600M Kingston HyperX (Others were not in stock)
Motherboard: Asrock Z68 PRO3
PSU: Kept my old Corsair 450w - I replaced the fan and its now super silent. And mounted at bottom of chassis = less heat
GPU: Cancelled the GFX so atm I'm STILL running with the old Geforce GTS250

So the system have been up and running for few weeks now, I have gone from ~30fps in raids to ~80-100fps at 1680*1050 resolution with WoW setting at Good and shadows turned down. And there seem to be NO noticeable FPS spikes like before when AoE is going on. Keep in mind this is with the VERY old Geforce GTS250, just once again proves that WoW depends so much on the CPU and not the GPU for performance. (Going from a 2 year old AMD AMD Phenom II X2 550 to Intel i5-2500).

When solo out in the world with ULTRA view distance:


When at the crowded AH/bank area in Stormwind with ULTRA view distance:


I do still plan of swapping the GFX very soon, especially because I have a problem with my USB Creative Arena Headset when the microphone is turned on, it will make terribly squeek buzz (that change based on the FPS when running Games). Also the Geforce GTS250 seem to have a broken coil since the card physically squeeks when I turn around in 3D games, this is so noticeable when everything else is totally silent in my setup. Also get the squeek if I connect speakers to the motherboards onboard sound (same with old motherboard). My conclusion is this is all to blame on the GFX (Always been this way even before upgrade). If its not the GFX, its the PSU and I'll change that after the GFX.

I also managed to firmware upgrade my 2 year old OCZ Summit Series 2,5" 60GB SSD, I found out it was not supporting TRIM because of outdated Firmware, and got a decent boost in write-speed (Very useful for when I fraps/stream) after the upgrade. It did drop a tiny bit in Read speed though, but could be because the files are places elsewhere on the HD now after the clean Windows 7 64bit installation. Note to self, don't try Firmware update an old SSD in new SATA3 sockets, spend like 2 hours trying to figure out why it wouldn't update, put it in SATA2 and it went flawless.

Before:


After:


Temperatures are really amazing. Checked yesterday right after a full evening of raids and the CPU was 41c and the GFX was 61c. The Noctua NH-D14 is superb for the CPU. I've set WoW to run at only 10 fps in advanced options when I'm tabbed out to windows, really awesome feature they added there. This makes the stress/heat on the system even lower when I'm browsing forums etc. My idle temperature are 30c for the CPU and 40c for the GFX. Remember this is in a TOTALLY silent setup with only 4 active 120mm fans in the system, one in the PSU, one on GPU, one on CPU and then one to exhaust heat in back/top of the chassis. All fans are set to super low speed.
---------

Conclusion, it was very much worth it, not that I ever doubted it would be. But it is always nice to see the success with your own eyes. I just need to figure out what GFX to get for my super silent Setup. Right now I have my eyes on the PowerColor's SCS3 HD6850 (fanless) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...6850,2990.html and then stick a 120mm worldclass silent fan on it.

But I really wanna make 100% sure that the GFX I get will NOT send out any sort of Coil noise, been researching it a lot lately and it seems that most of todays GFX actually does it. I can't understand why people can accept this. Maybe its because they buy highend GFX cards with a fan ontop of it that sound like a jet engine. So they wont ever notice the coil noise.

[Deleted]

Does sound good, congrats.

But

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K - Changed to Intel® Core™ i5-2500 to save some $ since I have no plan of Overclocking
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

this is where my hand needed to provide rest to my forehead.
Not that it wouldn't be entirely up to you, but the mere loss of opportunity, paired with the utter uselessness of this beautiful heatsink, and that all just to save $5, won't fit into my thinking patterns

[Nelle]

this is where my hand needed to provide rest to my forehead.
Not that it wouldn't be entirely up to you, but the mere loss of opportunity, paired with the utter uselessness of this beautiful heatsink, and that all just to save $5, won't fit into my thinking patterns

You forget the fact that I build my system around being as silent as possible, and since I only play WoW and randomly some other single player games I don't need an insane Overclocked system with a billion GFX cards in SLI (or what they call it today). The heatsink is just super awesome so I can have a very low speed fan on it and still have a super cool CPU. Keep in mind I will be adding another GFX to the system soon, that will make the temperature inside the chassis go up. Also I bought the z68 chipset motherboard in hope/expectation that it will support the Ivy Bridge CPUs comming out in 2012. That way I can upgrade the CPU and resell this one without too much loss. Instead of waiting 2½ years like I did this time.

And in my country the difference is 25$ from the K to non K (Yes our hardware prices are crazy).

[BicycleMafioso]

Does sound good, congrats.

But

this is where my hand needed to provide rest to my forehead.
Not that it wouldn't be entirely up to you, but the mere loss of opportunity, paired with the utter uselessness of this beautiful heatsink, and that all just to save $5, won't fit into my thinking patterns

Your elitism. It's unwelcome.

No one should have to explain themselves why they do something that you wouldn't want to do for yourself. Not everyone wants to, so not everyone should have to.

[Deleted]

Your elitism. It's unwelcome.

No one should have to explain themselves why they do something that you wouldn't want to do for yourself. Not everyone wants to, so not everyone should have to.

I did, in no way or manner, try to be elitist. That's why the words "[it's] entirely up to you" are in there. And a totally non-ironic "sounds good".
And then the addition that I would have done differently. I fail to find me wanting the OP to explain her/himself in there, I'm sorry tetris.