The new guy: silent PC-build

[parchow]

Hi All,

 

Listen, guys. I really need a new PC and I'm thinking of starting with the Core i5-3570K. It's the right price, energy efficient and offers a good framerate. Also I need to start somewhere.

 

Here's the thing - Last thing I build was a Core2 Quad with a 8800 GT and I'm absolutely not up to date.

 

What I want is a silent and energy efficient PC. (That's important). I'd like to use no more than a 500 W power source. 

But I'd also like to be able to play the occasional nonspecific game with a good framerate on two 1440 displays. I'm not into tripple A gaming, and I usually haven't got the time, but still...  I work with 3DMax, Autocad, Photoshop and Protools. None of those should be a problem.

 

I'm thinking about using something like a GTX 670 OC Windforce 3X and a ASUS P8-Z77V motherboard, Windows8 on a SSD. But I'm not sure and I'd like to know what you think I should do. Should I use a liquid cooling system?

 

wadda ya think?

 

thanks for your help.

 

Marc

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Owen]

Liquid cooling will make your build more silent,  but will cost more and typically use more power. Also, the Windforce cooler is great but can get quite loud. I'd stay on the green (Nvidia) side for your purpose as I think the CUDA cores will help you out with photoshop, etc.

[Stav Kats]

Get a GTX 770, which is in the same price as the GTX 670, but in performance it is even better than a GTX 680. Check it yourself. I would recommend the 770 from EVGA.

For CPU cooling, get a Xigmatek Dark Knight(better cooling than the H80) or a be quiet! Dark Rock CPU cooler, which ever you want. Highly recommended.

Hope it helped.

[Vbgf]

Well hello there! My thoughts on this are that you don't need a Gtx670 for that because for your pointed needs it's an overkill and the power consumed is not that low (thou if you are thinking of using this sytem 2-3 years down the line , go for it!). I personally haven't done liquid cooling but as far as i know it's alot hared to get running compared to air, it's more expensive than just throwing some fans in and if you get the right case with the right fans , that GTX670 and the 3570K will be silent from the outside. You can probably look around for some AMD deals too , the 8350 is quite good at heavily (or atleast more than normal) threaded operations like the one you'll be using. The other thing is that if you aren't overclocking - the water cooled parts are probably useles, stick with the box one or if it's too loud for you, go aftermarket low loise air, it will draw a little less power too. The other thing too is that i'll personally go with win7 not 8 if i'm doing these kind of things or probably anything EXEPT if you are using it with a touchscreen display.

 

Anyway, that's my oppinion, wait for others before making your move!

[Scia]

Well a few ideas:

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/11D2E

Based on AMD FX [extra cores will benefit you in Photoshop and what not]

Fanless 520 80+ Plat PSU [can't get more efficient and quiet than that]

4gb 670 -> 4gb for high res gaming, Nvidia for cuda -> Nice for productivity

 

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/11D1n

Based on Intel i5

Otherwise the same.

 

AMD: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/11D3n

Intel:  http://pcpartpicker.com/p/11D49

7950 instead of 670, better price to performance, especially for hirez gaming, and Adobe is working with AMD at the moment to have enhancement also on their cards.

 

 

Case -> FD R4, noise isolated [using the mATX version it's really quiet]. Noctua fans for H100i 2x intake and back intake / outtake, you can't get quieter than noctua.

 

The last option is to watercool the whole system, you could get away with a thick 360rad and 3-6 noctua fans in a bigger case and get it even more quiet.

 

You could use a smaller SSD [128gb] but it's nice to have your PS and stuff on an SSD aswell I guess ^^

 

Those builds are both quite expensive, since you didn't give us a budget to work with, I just thought I'll make it as quiet as possible ^^

[KyonCoraeL]

What do you mean by energy efficient? Would you like it to idle under a certain wattage? Can you elaborate?

[WoodenMarker]

First and foremost, what's your budget?

[parchow]

Hi All,

 

thanks for your Replys and Help.

 

Owen. You are right about the windforce. Now I'm considering the GTX660Ti. And I might keep the liquid cooling as an open option for the future. A chistmas present maybe...

 

Stav Kats, Thanks for the Dark Knight tip. I might go with that for now. I think I should replace the Stock Cooler that comes with the CPU. The 770 is a mit on the expensive side. and as I won't play a whole lot I think I'll be all right with something like the msi N660Ti PE. I've heard marvels about that card. Seems to be a powerful card for a midrange price.

 

Vbgf, I am indeed thinking of using this computer for some 3 years and still have the option of playing some of the new games if i want. Also - don't ask me why, but I'm an Intel guy. given the choice I always tend to chose Intel since a long time ago I've had some trouble with AMD. I stil thing that every second iteration of windows is terrible, so in my mind windows 8 is a bad choice. but it seems that windows 8 is quite good at managing the cpu. and It gets a higher framerate out of the gpu as well... I might start with windows 7 and switch to 8 if I get to buy a touchscreen monitor. Ther's another christmas present.

 

Scia, Thanks for the links. tha pcpartpicker site is great! The priceranges seem a little high for me, though. Adobe is pertering up with AMD? I didn't know that... interesting. I use a bunch of adobe products. Hmmm. Thanks for the FD R4 Case tip. I havn't even begun thinking of the case, and that's a good starting point. and the noctua fans seem excelent. An 128gb SSD is enough for the OS, right? what is my "PS and stuff" My Game files, and personal stuff? As I work with sound and Video, I need a mighty harddrive for all that, so an SSD is out of the question. Maybe in the future when prices come down and using RAID... that'd be great.

As for my SDD choice - This is totaly new to me and I've got no idea about what's out there. I don't think that an SDD should be extremely fast. I'm swiching from a normal Harddrive to an SDD, so even a slow SDD should be great. Do you think a cheap SSd will do the job or is there something special I should Look for?

 

KyonCoraeL, I'll elaborate, shure. I want my computer to use only the wattage that I need. The GPU should be able to know when I'm playing Portal2 from when I'm on a forum. I should be able to swich the onboard GPU off. and I know that there is loads of other stuff that I havn't even heard of that helps save energy. Some sistems should go idle when I don't need them. I'm still searching the forum for information about this, but for now It seems that the Z77 motherboard is quite smart in that respect.

 

Wooden Marker. Good Question. I'd like to say that the budget is no problem, but to be true, it's a huge problem. The thin is that I want a good computer that will stay true for a long time, so I know that I will have to buy some quality parts. Now, I might buy the parts seperately as the money comes in. As of now I think That the whole computer should come in around the 1300$ range. less is preferable of course.

 

So, If I end up choosing an i5-3570K a msi N660 Ti Power Edition and a P8Z77-V, I think I'l be allright. But please tell me about RAM memory for this sistem. As i said the last RAM I bought was DDR2, and I've no idea about what's out there. I will look for info, but You might give me some personal experience help.

 

Again, thanks for all your help and see you soon.

 

Marc

[parchow]

Hey, Scia, you mean

case, Right? (the Fractal Design Define Mini mATX)

does the ASUS P8Z77-V LK and the Msi N660 Ti fit into a mATX tower?

[WoodenMarker]

Hey, Scia, you mean

case, Right? (the Fractal Design Define Mini mATX)

does the ASUS P8Z77-V LK and the Msi N660 Ti fit into a mATX tower?

The atx motherboard will not fit. That case will only fit micro atx and mini itx motherboards.

[WoodenMarker]

Alright--Here you go: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/12XeH

 

The Xeon is like the 3770 but 0.1ghz slower with 0.2ghz less turbo and a good deal cheaper. You should be able to knock out editing more easily than the 3570k with the 8 threads. It's quite fast and will not (in all practicality) bottleneck anything anytime soon. 

The Noctua NH-C14 is basically The Noctua NH-D14's little brother. It's smaller, a bit cheaper, and slightly quieter despite how quiet the NH-D14 already is. Since you're not going to be overclocking the Xeon, you can tone down the fans to "near silence".

The motherboard works and has decent onboard audio. Nothing much special about it. It's Msi so the brand is good.

16gigs of CL9 memory should be enough for weighted multitasking. You can upgrade to 32gigs if you ever wish to do so.

The GTX 770 is a powerful card. I would like to stick in a 780 but that's more for a budget along the lines of $1450 and above. Regardless, you can lower the fans but it's pretty quiet at stock--especially if you manually tune down the fans with Msi Afterburner.

For a quiet case, I went with the Fractal Design R4. It has a nice modern fridge look to it. You could however go with any case since it's an aesthetic thing. I do recommend going with this case if you like it though. 

I hope the 550w isn't too high to upset you but the gold rating should provide clean power without breaking the bank. This psu will be more than enough for some decent overclocking if you ever feel like it.

[parchow]

Hey WoodenMarker, thanks a whole bunch for your reply. It looks good and the GPU is excelent. 

The case is great as well, i've seen some unboxing videos, and I like it. Nevertheless I fell for the smaller case, the Define mATX. I've been measuring my workspace and that would fit in here just like a glove. So that would lead me to changing the motherboard and here is another idea I've had: I'd like to have onboard wifi and bluetooth. Does that make sense? Onboard wifi is faster than a wifi pen, and bluetooth is just handy. So i'm looking for the right motherboard. The Cooler sounds great. as do the hard drives. 16 gigs of memory - excelent. I'll check the prices here in Portugal. Things are a bit more expensive here. I'll try to learn something more about the CPU. The xeon series is for servers, right? it doesn't overclock, tough... But as I want something a bit more quiet There is no need to overclock. or is there... well you gave me something to think about.

Thanks!

[VVR4ITH]

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[parchow]

Hi VVR4ITH -  tanks for the guidelines, but I'm OK. Don't bother about the budget. What I want from you guys is tips and personal choices so I can learn and make my own choice. If it wasn't for this tread I would have never discovered the Fractal Design Silent Cases, the norcura cpu cooler or the E3 1230 processor. I'm glad for your Replys and After making up my mind I'll See where and how cheap I can get here in Portugal what i want. thanks.

I

[WoodenMarker]

Hey WoodenMarker, thanks a whole bunch for your reply. It looks good and the GPU is excelent. 

The case is great as well, i've seen some unboxing videos, and I like it. Nevertheless I fell for the smaller case, the Define mATX. I've been measuring my workspace and that would fit in here just like a glove. So that would lead me to changing the motherboard and here is another idea I've had: I'd like to have onboard wifi and bluetooth. Does that make sense? Onboard wifi is faster than a wifi pen, and bluetooth is just handy. So i'm looking for the right motherboard. The Cooler sounds great. as do the hard drives. 16 gigs of memory - excelent. I'll check the prices here in Portugal. Things are a bit more expensive here. I'll try to learn something more about the CPU. The xeon series is for servers, right? it doesn't overclock, tough... But as I want something a bit more quiet There is no need to overclock. or is there... well you gave me something to think about.

Thanks!

Yeah, the Xeons are meant for servers.

Here's an edit with a motherboard with built in wifi/bluetooth and your preferred case: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/13wMe

Keep in mind the motherboard's an itx form factor

[parchow]

Thank you WoodenMarker. I'm already searching for where to buy the parts here in Portugal.

I might post some pictures of the final build.

[parchow]

So This is what I ended up with:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 
Cooler: Noctua NH-C12P SE14
two extra Noctua NF-F12 PWM
MB: Maximus V Gene
GPU: ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II OC
RAM: Corsair 16GB Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 CL10 - CML16GX3M2A1600C10
SDD: 2 Samsung 840 Pro 128GB
HD: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB (WD20EZRX)
PSU: Seasonic SS-660XP Platinum Series
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini

 

It's an excelent and fast rig. I'm quite happy. 

Thank you all, guys!

[WoodenMarker]

Scia, Thanks for the links. tha pcpartpicker site is great! The priceranges seem a little high for me, though. Adobe is pertering up with AMD? I didn't know that... interesting.

Not exactly. Adobe along with everything else is moving towards OpenCL over CUDA which AMD is better at than Nvidia.

OpenCL isn't strictly AMD as it is open source but they are currently the best at it.

[plutomok]

Not exactly. Adobe along with everything else is moving towards OpenCL over CUDA which AMD is better at than Nvidia.

OpenCL isn't strictly AMD as it is open source but they are currently the best at it.

 

just to be clear nvidia cards also support openCL right. and AMD cards just happen to be better at using it?

[WoodenMarker]

just to be clear nvidia cards also support openCL right. and AMD cards just happen to be better at using it?

Yes. OpenCL is essentially open source CUDA and that's why everyone is moving towards it.