Olaf's "Work In Progress" & NAS build.

[OlafTheBeard]

Hello all Nerds!

 

I finally have joined the forum in hope that I will find nice people here to help me with the tips I need to finalize my gamer build.

To make it easier for me to monitor my thread here, I will post my two builds in the same thread.

The "Main" and "NAS"

 

The specs for my main computer/gamer build is this:

 

OS: Win7

MB: ASUS Maximus VI Formula

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.4GHz at the moment

GPU: Dual ASUS AMD Radeon HD 7970  @ Stock clock (reference cards)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 with x2 Noctua NF-F12 iPPC-2000 fans

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz 16GB ( 4x4GB )

SSD's:

Corsair Force GS 128GB x2 in Raid0 (For OS)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB x2 in Raid0 (For Games)

Corsair Force LS 120GB as storages for VM VirutalBox drive files.

HDD: Western Digital Green 1TB (General small storage)

Case: Corsair Carbide Air 540 Cube

CaseFans: Corsair SP120 PWM Quiet Edition x6 (3 front intake, and exhaust 2 roof + 1 back)

PSU: Corsair AX 760 with all Black Individually Sleeved Cables

Screens: Dual AOC 24" LED e2462V

Peripherals:

Qpad MK-85 Keyboard with CherryMX Brown switches, Logitech G700 wireless mouse, Microsoft LifeCam SudioHD, memory card reader and some more crap...   

 

The specs for my NAS build:

 

OS: FreeNAS 9.3 (Build. 9.3-STABLE-201412200530)

MB: Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WiFi (with dual GB NiC onboard)

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K @ 3.40GHz with a vCore on 1.05 volt stable.

CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler

RAM: HyperX Fury 1600MHz 16GB ( 2x8GB )

Case: SilverStone SST-DS380

CaseFans: Corsair SP120 Quiet Edition x2 (side intake) + Corsair 120 PWM from a H55 kit (rear exhaust)

PSU: SilverStone SST-ST45SF-G 450W

USB stick: Sandisk 8GB for OS.

HDD's:

Western Digital WD Red 1TB x5 in Raid Z ~ 4 TB usable storage as backup archive. (RaidZ is comparable to Raid5)

Western Digital WD Red 2TB x2 in Raid 0 ~ 3.6 TB usable storage as media share archive.

Western Digital Caviar 500GB as temp drive for SABnzbd.

etc: SDM PCIe SATA II 300 RAID 2P (SiL3132)

 

This machine is setup to manage my media archive with Plex Media Server, SickRage for a PVR-function on TV-shows, CouchPotato for updating the movies. 

And SABnzbd to handle the "updating-traffic" from SickRage and CouchPotato.

It's a really nice way to auto-manage the system and working right now on a setup for either OwnCloud or Syncthing for the backup solution from my main pc (and laptop). Not 100% sure on what will fit my needs best yet.

 

 

And here is the pictures of the main rig.

(Will try to manage a couple of pics on the nas this next weekend.)

 

 

The Western Digital WD Red 2TB in the pictures are no longer present in this build, they have moved to my little nas build.

 

[OlafTheBeard]

The main story with my thread here is to get tips and inspiration for rebuilding my gamer. This one is WAAAY to loud when gaming. Headphones is not optional, they are required.

With that said I'm looking into finding a good idea for making this bastard more silent... With water cooling as a big option. 

So bombard me with tips of silent clean looking cases that would fit this stuff and a possible future water build.

 

The fans on my CPU heatsink is pulling air through the heatpipes, not pushing like the "normal" setup is from Nocuta. This is due to clearance for the memory modules. I actually had to dremel out the lowest 4 fins on the heatsink to make room for the memory modules. 

 

CPU temp never goes over 68 °C (154 °F) under 99% load and the case+cpu fans acually don't make that much of a noise. Well you can hear them but not so "headset mode = ON" is necessary. :lol:

And all fans is PWM modulated from the motherboard via the Asus AI suite/fan expert. So the rear fan only kicks in when the temp inside the case goes over 40 °C (104 °F) and goes from 500-900 rpm, the top fans is temp regulated between 400-900 rpm and front ones are locked speed at 900 rpm. The CPU fans have "free roaming" in speed, but they never goes over 1000 rpm in my logs (it's the iPPC-2000 rpm versions). 

 

So the noise maker in my build is those famous reference AMD blower fans 

The GPU's will gladly jump to 75-85 °C (167-185 °F) under load like gaming or folding. That equals to almost 3000 rpm on those blower fans. 

 

My first plan is to change the thermal paste on the cards to see if that will help. As the cards is a year or two now...  

[pwn_intended]

first of all let me say that is one sexy looking rig.

and that an unlocked i5 may be a little overkill for a NAS, but I tip my hat to that.

 

The only way to quiet those 7970's is to put them on water. A silent case such as the Fractal Define R5 may help a bunch, but you still have a pair of leafblowers in your case. And then you wont be able to show off your awesome looking build through the soundproof solid panels.

 

Either water, or a new GFX card (or 2) with a better cooler would be your best bet.

[OlafTheBeard]

first of all let me say that is one sexy looking rig.

and that an unlocked i5 may be a little overkill for a NAS, but I tip my hat to that.

 

The only way to quiet those 7970's is to put them on water. A silent case such as the Fractal Define R5 may help a bunch, but you still have a pair of leafblowers in your case. And then you wont be able to show off your awesome looking build through the soundproof solid panels.

 

Either water, or a new GFX card (or 2) with a better cooler would be your best bet.

 

Thx! Yep, I like it clean.. And this one is way to messy for my taste...  :rolleyes:

 

That i5k for overkill? Hehe, well I built the NAS after I upgraded to the i7k in my main rig. But I sure love the low vCore I run it at. 

Next step for the NAS is some small xeon or avoton octa-core build with ecc memory..

 

Water is almost 100% sure for the upgrade if not the DX12 release will make that I have to change the GPU's.

But I'm still not sure what case I will go for, the R5 is sure one "simple choice". And there is something with that case that doesn't float my boat but I can't put my finger on what.  :blink:

[TheElt]

~Snip~

 

But I'm still not sure what case I will go for, the R5 is sure one "simple choice". And there is something with that case that doesn't float my boat but I can't put my finger on what.  :blink:

 

I'd avoid the R5 if I were you, I'm hardly impressed with mine. It does an alright job of making things quieter, but those 7970s will still sound like leafblowers, just slightly muffled. Best bet would be to put them under water, nothing is gonna silence those reference coolers unless you move your PC in another room away from you.

[OlafTheBeard]

welcome to the forums and that is some great cable management, great build bro!

Thanks! 

 

I'd avoid the R5 if I were you, I'm hardly impressed with mine. It does an alright job of making things quieter, but those 7970s will still sound like leafblowers, just slightly muffled. Best bet would be to put them under water, nothing is gonna silence those reference coolers unless you move your PC in another room away from you.

Good to know, it is like I suspected then.. Had a old Fractal XL case before this. And it was not "so" quiet.

 

First thing I'm going to try is new thermal paste on one of them and test run it, if it makes it a bit lower noise.. the second one will have the same medicine.  

If not.. I just have to wait and get some water on them.

[Phorlorn]

Nice build! Looking forward to see pics of NAS

 

Glad to see new awesome people on the forum, btw : )