- The Silent Type - My first build in over 12 years

[6oh4]

I guess I'll start off by saying that I've been lurking around on these boards for quite some time now, but never really felt that I had a reason to make an account and post something until today. The last time I built a computer was in 2002, and I enjoyed the experience immensely. My dad helped me purchase all the parts and with the assembly, I ended up using that computer for at least 4 or 5 years for gaming as well as school. The next time I bought a computer was in 2010, a mid-range ASUS gaming laptop. That's been my only PC since, and I'm still using it today, begrudgingly.

 

Having been inspired by the recent silent build that LTT showcased on Youtube I have decided that its finally time to upgrade from this worn out laptop and build myself a custom gaming rig once again. I really found the idea of a nearly silent, passively cooled, balls to the walls, all out gaming PC to be pretty cool, something worthy of luring me back to the PC world. I thought it would be a good idea to post a thread and get some feedback before I went out and bought a bunch of parts to possibly find out that something may be incompatible.

 

1. Budget & Location – I live in BC, in the Lower Mainland. Budget isn't really too much of a worry, I'm not trying to get the best $/performance and I do have money to burn right now.

2. Aim – Gaming at 1440p being the main focus, maybe some RAW image editing with Lightroom, but nothing crazy. Might do 4K in the future.

3. Monitors – I’m pretty confident that I will never use a multi-monitor setup for gaming, just one screen at a time. The real question is should I go for 144hz 1080P, or 1440P, or just but the damn ROG Swift and have both? IPS vs TN? G-sync vs Freesync?!? TOO MANY CHOICES

4. Peripherals – I will need to get a copy of Windows 8.1, and I will end up picking up a new mouse and keyboard eventually, but I’m not really thinking about that right now.

5. Why am I upgrading? – My 4+ year old laptop doesn’t cut it anymore, simple as that.

 

6. The build itself - This is just what I have come up with so far (all prices from NCIX as that is most likely where I will be purchasing all the parts from):

CASE – bequiet! Silent Base 800 - $129

PSU – Seasonic Platinum 520FLII Fanless - $159

CPU – i7 4790K - $399

CPU Cooler – bequiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 - $99

MOBO – Asus Z97 Hero VII - $254

GPU – Asus GTX 980 Strix - $689

RAM – 16GB Kingston HyperX Fury DDR3 1866mhz 2x8GB - $179

SSD – 2 x Crucial MX100 512GB – 2 x $259 = $518

FANS – 4 x bequiet! Silent Wings 2 PWM 140mm – 4 x $25 = $100

             1 x bequiet! Silent Wings 2 PWM 120mm - $22

TOTAL - $2548

 

I want to make this a passively cooled, super quiet gaming rig. I plan on copying what Linus did with their build and will strip off the fans on the CPU cooler so that way the only moving parts are fans for the GPU and case and then tuning those to be off when in idle. The case comes with bequiet! Pure Wings 2 fans, which are not as quiet as the Silent Wings 2 fans. I plan to replace the stock two front intake 140mm fans, add two 140mm fans to the top in exhaust, and install the rear 120mm fan as an intake with a filter on it. Also, based off “eXtreme PSU Calculator” I should have enough headroom on this build with the 520W PSU to power 2 GTX 980’s in SLI should I want to upgrade in the future, but I would prefer to keep this a single GPU build.

 

There are a couple things I was hoping you guys could provide guidance with (in no particular order):

• Do you think there is a better motherboard to use than the Hero VII? I would like an ASUS board but am not sure if there is a better choice. Possibly the Sabertooth?
• Any clearance issues with this Mobo/Ram/CPU Cooler configuration?
• Should I just get an i5 4690K for my purposes to save a few bucks, or is the slightly higher clock rate on the i7 4790K going to make a difference?
• Should I wait until after CES 2015 in early January to make any purchases?
• Should I use low noise adapters on the fans?
• Should I just keep the stock case fans instead of replacing them all with the Silent Wings 2 fans?
• What kind of monitor should I get, let me know what you guys think would be the best fit for this system.
• RAID0 for the SSD’s?

Well, that’s about it. I hope some of you can let me know what you think, I’m looking forward to this build and might end up posting a bit of a build log on these forums once I get going.

[Sauron]

• Do you think there is a better motherboard to use than the Hero VII? I would like an ASUS board but am not sure if there is a better choice. Possibly the Sabertooth?
• Any clearance issues with this Mobo/Ram/CPU Cooler configuration?
• Should I just get an i5 4690K for my purposes to save a few bucks, or is the slightly higher clock rate on the i7 4790K going to make a difference?
• Should I wait until after CES 2015 in early January to make any purchases?
• Should I use low noise adapters on the fans?
• Should I just keep the stock case fans instead of replacing them all with the Silent Wings 2 fans?
• What kind of monitor should I get, let me know what you guys think would be the best fit for this system.
• RAID0 for the SSD’s?

 

First off, I'd like to tell you to get a 970 instead of a 980 the 980 is not worth almost twice the price, not even close.

 

I would get a 4690k if the purpose is mostly gaming, the extra frequency is basically irrelevant since the 4690k is unlocked and fully overclockable and it wouldn't make a huge difference anyway.

 

Waiting is always a good idea if you can afford to. It all depends on how badly you need this machine.

 

You're probably fine with 2 less 140mm fans. You can keep the stock fans and add one or two. If the stock fans are too loud you can always remove them or replace them later.

 

Raid 0 on 512gb ssds is probably overkill, but if you need more space and you don't want hdds it's still better than a single 1tb ssd.

 

For a 970/980 (the extra performance REALLY isn't worth the extra money!) I would either go surround 1080p, ultrawide 1440p, 120hz 1080p, or even straight up 4k if you're fine with lowering settings a little.

 

Welcome to the forum! Please remember to follow your topics

[6oh4]

Thanks for the fast reply!

 

I think you are right about the GTX 970, I can always upgrade in a few months when the next GPU comes out if I save some cash and get the 970 instead.

 

I don't plan on doing any overclocking seeing as the CPU will be passively cooled, so that's why I was thinking about using the i7 4790K vs the i5 4690K, just because it has a slightly higher clock rate with hyperthreading. If that really won't make much difference, then I guess it would be smarter to go with the i5.

 

What is a good 1TB SSD that you could recommend?