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Recommendations for components for a silent, air cooled, gaming PC. - Page 2

post #11 of 31
2/9/12 at 12:17pm
Quote:
I've looked at the NZXT Sentry, but I don't like touch screen, do you have any other recommendations?

Oh sorry, its actually the sentry mesh with the sliders at 30 Watts per channel. I don't very much care for touch screen or lit up peripherals in general either.
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post #12 of 31
2/9/12 at 3:16pm
silent is a VERY relative and subjective term. for the purist, silent means 0db biggrin.gif but for most people, silent generally means noise level that can easily be ignored in a room with very low ambient noise(not a living room or somewhere that have other noise sources other then an air conditioning vent)

of the cases you have selected, the FT02/RV02 will have the best "filtered" CFM per decibel performance. other cases can approach that performance, but only with after market fans which adds to the overall cost of the solution...

personally, i'd recommend a RV02-E with a rheosmart6 fan controller for the most ideal configuration while being somewhat cost conscious. the RV02-E has the same internal structure as the FT02 so thermal and acoustical performance should be very close but cost about 20 to 30% less then the FT02

with the AP181 fans on low and hooked up to the rheosmart6 on automatic setting, the FT02/RV02 is easily quieter then your air conditioning vent and therefor easily ignored by most ears.
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post #13 of 31
2/9/12 at 10:01pm
I highly recommend a fan controller. That said, the fans, and a good cooling layout, matter more than anything. I can take the side panels off my case and it runs almost as silent. When I buy a case I actually consider what fans I plan on using and what sort of airflow works well with my components, then find a case to match.
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post #14 of 31
2/9/12 at 10:41pm
in the OP you ask about silent cases, well any case can be silent if you can cool your components with quiet fans. some cases are more suited to airflow and for those i refer you to http://www.overclock.net/t/1041926/how-to-decide-on-a-case-for-air-cooling-warning-pics
there are many informative threads in the air cooling forum which can help you.
manual fan controllers get annoying fast in my opinion. if your motherboard has fan headers then you can probably use speedfan instead. if all your fans are running at 100% now then you have a long way to go as far as silencing.
im not sure how loud your power supply fan is, but you might check by stopping all the other fans for a second. often that is one of the loudest components, and if you aren't afraid of voiding warranties you can replace its fan.
another loud component is mechanical hard drives. these can be rubber-band mounted in your 5.25" bays which will help some.
once you start quieting things down you will start to notice subtler sounds. i can almost guarantee you will want to set a custom fan profile on your graphics card.
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post #15 of 31
2/10/12 at 1:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ihatelolcats View Post

manual fan controllers get annoying fast in my opinion.

this is the reason why i went with rheosmart6. rheosmart6 takes the speed control from a PWM header on your mobo and controls all of the fans with it. essentially it translates the PWM signal into voltage regulation so it can control any fan you have hooked up to the controller. i set my controller, and never have to touch it again if i didn't want to. the only time i screw with my fan controller is if i changed my fans around and wanted to do some benching to optimize my cooling. the key to any cooling is to place the right fan at the right spots. otherwise you will be wasting extra decibels w/o actually achieving any real thermal results.
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post #16 of 31
2/10/12 at 7:03pm
Well I think I have found a solution to my "quiet" graphics card problem. I bought 2 Sparkle Calibre GTX 560Ti from Amazon. So far they are much quieter than the MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozrs and EVGA GTX 560 Ti SC, I tried before. I haven't tried SLI yet, but with one in my current rig it idles at 30 and the highest I have seen while benchmarking has been 77. They are fantastic looking and hopefully they will last me a while. Only problem I can see for me is, it is just barely over the PCI slot I would put my wireless card in between the two cards. I may post a better review in the Nvidia forums with more info once I test them in SLI.

I don't mean to hijack your thread, just you might consider this card because so far I am loving it.
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post #17 of 31
2/12/12 at 4:00am
Thread Starter 
I think I am going to wait a little longer with buying a new case and I'm going to buy a fan controller and new fans instead. The fans I'm looking at right now are the Noiseblocker XL1 120MM (exhaust) and the Thermalright TY-140 (top intake and front intake), does anyone have experience with these fans? Or does anyone have other recommendations?

I'm still leaning towards the Scythe Kaze Master Pro 5.25, mainly because of it's looks and I'm pretty sure that the fans at which I'm currently looking at don't require more than 12W.
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post #18 of 31
2/12/12 at 9:02am
i know the TY-140 is a favorite here though it's expensive. i suggest yate loons especially since you have a fan controller, but im sure you wouldnt be disappointed with TY-140s. the noiseblocker is a bit on the low cfm side especially compared to ty-140. you might do better without an exhaust fan at all.
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post #19 of 31
2/13/12 at 1:29pm
Quote:
The fans I'm looking at right now are the Noiseblocker XL1 120MM (exhaust) and the Thermalright TY-140 (top intake and front intake), does anyone have experience with these fans? Or does anyone have other recommendations?

The TY-140 is nice. I haven't tried the Noiseblockers but I'm really tempted to, in particular the "NB Multi-frame series," got quite good mention from Xbit Labs. They're expensive ($23-25 if you shop around), but so is trying to be savvy and buying several bang-for-the-buck fans that wind up in a drawer, then settling on the best of them that still isn't that great but hey you've spent $40 experimenting so theres no way you're gonna give in and add $25 to that cost by buying the one your gut told you to just get to begin with. But then you buy it anyway and you could have bought two of them with the money you spent but noooo mr. smartyotter you just had to prove how case-fan streetwise you were. Wait, what were we talking about?
Edited by Otterclock - 2/13/12 at 1:33pm
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post #20 of 31
2/14/12 at 5:41pm
  • MrKJ
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From my experience with stock delivered casings, I have to say the NZXT Phantom I am using currently is pretty silent for having 5 fans running in it alone. Even after adding the two fans from the two GTX 580's to it.
I saw you mentioning that the manual fan control is annoying to regulate noise. With this casing you actually have the sliders for the fans of the casing on the outside (top, front right corner). So you can really quickly switch from the silent normal speed to the fast setting. On the fast setting though I have to say it gets a bit noisier but still not bad.

So: The NZXT Phantom is pretty silent and gives you the option to still quickly adjust fan speed if you need to. Personally, I rarely had to, and even if, it was still pretty silent. If that doesn't cut it for you, I am sure you can replace the stock fans with some quieter ones. Regarding the price I can't help you there, because I bought mine directly in China (lived there for 4 years).
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