Silencing my pc - need advice which way to go

[Schakal_No1]

Hi,

 

I live in a small 12sqm room in which I sleep, work and live. Because of that my PC is too loud. Typical use-cases where I need it to be quiet:

- continue to download during the night (needs to be silent)

- watching movies (needs to be quiet enough to not disturb the movie sound)

- programming / compiling (I have a hard time focusing on my work if it is too loud). Since I'm running up to 6 virtual machines at the same time the cpu can really get hot and noisy.

 

I could just buy some silent office-PC (like an intel nuc), this would run me around 600EUR. So this project should not be much more expensive than that.

 

These are my current PC-specs:

CPU: Intel i7-2600k, currently cooled by stock cooler (my after-market cooler broke recently)

GPU: XFX 7970

PSU: Seasonic 650W Semi-Passive

SSD: 256GB Kingston

RAM: 16 GB of RAM

HDD: 3TB Seagate (will be replaced as soon as I find some good 1TB SSD Deal)

Case: Corsair 600T

 

These scenarios are considered by me:

1. I have a NAS which is inside a Define R4 dammed case and cooled by two noctua 140mm case fans.

Since this case is in the cellar I would change cases and put my PC in this one. Then I would only need to buy a new CPU-cooler (e.g. some Noctua for 70EUR) and could buy a GTX 970 with a semi-passive cooler (like the asus strix 970).

 

2. Build a complete water-cooling solution. I'm not quite sure if 600EUR are enough and if that would really be more beneficially for my use case than solution 1. Good silent water-cooling solutions seem to be 1000EUR and up.

 

3. Skip all build-plans and buy a NUC

 

4. Any solutions you people come up with.

 

I'm grateful for any tips.

[Raudi_]

Lager low speed fans in a case, and anti vibration mounts on everything you can put them on.

Another option for a semi-passive GPU is the MSI 970 Gaming, it has better power delivery.

[Schakal_No1]

Lager low speed fans in a case, and anti vibration mounts on everything you can put them on.

 

As I said I already own 2 140mm Noctua case-fans, are there any other that you would choose over them? And is my dammed R4 case the best way to go or are there other cases better suited for the job?

[Raudi_]

As I said I already own 2 140mm Noctua case-fans, are there any other that you would choose over them? And is my dammed R4 case the best way to go or are there other cases better suited for the job?

Nanoxia Deep Silence 140mm Ultra-Quiet PC Fan, 1100 RPM

These are rated at 14.4 dba only downside is that they are green.

[Schakal_No1]

Nanoxia Deep Silence 140mm Ultra-Quiet PC Fan, 1100 RPM

These are rated at 14.4 dba only downside is that they are green.

 

This case really looks great. I do not care about the color of my fans at all.

 

Now I have to choose a cpu cooler, I think I'll go for a Noctua DH-15 or 14.

[Raudi_]

This case really looks great. I do not care about the color of my fans at all.

 

Now I have to choose a cpu cooler, I think I'll go for a Noctua DH-15 or 14.

D15 should be quieter due to the larger fans. Plus it will give you better temps.