Guest James Posted March 30, 2006 Report Share Posted March 30, 2006 As in my Blog , I am currently building a home Games/media center PC that needs to be very quiet but also needs to have good performance for games etc (nothing specific, and nothing extremely high end required). I already have myself the case (Silverstone Tech) and a Power Supply (580W Hyper Type-R) I have been looking at the 7800/7900GT cards but have also been looking at the 6600GT's as the old technology is cheaper but at the end of the day it has to be as quiet as possible, i am in favour of passive cooling but am not sure about liquid cooling systems! Could anyone suggest a card that would tick all my boxes? i would love some tips on the hardware.... Currently Have: Case: Silverstone Tech LC14M (Silver) PSU: Hiper 580W Type-R Currently Plan To Get: Videocard: none yet ;) Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual Core Memory: X2 512 DDR400 PC3200 Matched Pair Soundcard: Trust 5.1 Sound Expert Optical Storage: 2 X Maxtor 250GB SATA + CD/DVD drives and 2x digital TV tuners.... no idea yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 anyone? I would at least thought I would of had a few replies by now ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fluffcat1 Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 anyone? I would at least thought I would of had a few replies by now ;) I use Thermaltake's Aquarius III for water cooling both of my GFX6800GT and AMD 64 3400 in my main PC. It only cost about a ton and looks cool as there is a seperate cooler the pipes watr into the computer that looks very 70's high - tech.... No leaks so far ;) As for Media Center - my brother has a one box HP unit, and I have an MSI mega PC running media center, so can't advise on build specs, but I would suggest you get a modem and some software to link the media center in to your phone system so caller id comes up on screen when your phone rings and pauses whatever's playing back. Very cool. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tech Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 bad idea on the CPU nuff said ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fluffcat1 Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 bad idea on the CPU nuff said ;) eeeerrrrr, no..., 'nuff *not* said - what units have you used and what problems did you have? Flow control issues? Uniform temperature problems?Or just just stating your opinions as fact? Again. :roll: A system that leaks just hasn't been assembled properly so you can't mean you had a leaking system, surely? ;) Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 nuff said???? right! :/ thanks for the reply rich, what's the noise like from your cooling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest whitestar Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 On the video front if you're looking to reduce costs but still have decent performance I'd go with a 6800GT, I have one and have been very happy with it. If however cost isn't a factor then go with the 7900GT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fluffcat1 Posted April 2, 2006 Report Share Posted April 2, 2006 what's the noise like from your cooling? Variable! The pump itself is fairly quiet and the fan that draws the air over the radiator has a speed control to quieten it down. There are also temp sensors that monitor the temp of water in the pump unit and at the processor heatsink so you can set the fan speed and flow control to the optimum to keep the temp constant at the level you want while reducing noise. Plus as it's offboard you could have it away from the comp in a noise proof box should you wish. You can also add a second radiator ( I used one from the Aquarius II ) inside the main box to allow you to reduce the fan speed. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 thanks again rich.. anyone know of hard drive noise? Big driver = Big noise??? also if any are quieter than others? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fluffcat1 Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 There are various commands you can use when configuring maxtor drives to force them into slower spin speeds - you get more drive accesss but as the spin speed is lower the noise is less and there is less of the 'ticking' noise of the head flicking back and forth when accessing as it is moving more slowly as well. Maxtor drives are used in sky+ boxes and other PVR's because of this capability - I don't know whether other brands can do this. 5 yr warranty on drives these days as well. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 AH! did not know that! thank for the info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 just bought the motherboard! ABit Fatal1ty ooooo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul [MVP] Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 Ouch! :| I've just bought a Biostar iDeq with Sempron 3000 64 proc to replace my faulty Media Center Shuttle, that has now started working again... DOH! Anyone want to buy a part built Media Center? ;) P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fluffcat1 Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 just bought the motherboard! ABit Fatal1ty ooooo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul [MVP] Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 Why only 1GB RAM and not 2GB James? For the price, and since you're going top spec, i'd go for more RAM! P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul [MVP] Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 Are you hoping to use Freeview / Analogue / Sky / NTL or something else? ;) P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 24, 2006 Report Share Posted April 24, 2006 Richard: air coold system with lots of big/silent fans and none of those tiny whizzzzy fans, will be tuned to be as quite as possible on the Guru panel. Paul: 1GB is enough for me at the moment ;) also will hopfully using 2 x Digital recievers maybe Hauppague WinTV-HVR1300's i have bought the Hard disks and the Graphics card :P Hard Disks x2 : SpinPoint P120 Series 250GB SATA II http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/components/sp-p120 also the Card is a passive 6600 with 512MB that i am adding a quite fan for just a little bit more cooling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 24, 2006 Report Share Posted April 24, 2006 can't believe how expensive this is getting ;) still need the processor and memory... wondering about the memory? and suggestions what's is good or bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest neo89 Posted April 25, 2006 Report Share Posted April 25, 2006 well i have to say that your pc looks impressive, well if your after memory look on ebuyer or ebay even. On your new PC picture i see you have 4 slots, you could buy 2gb cards, up to four of them, now that would be impressive, and they don't make any noise (that i know of?). And if your after a graphics card, have a look at the GeForce PNY 6600 at PCWORLD.co.uk, i have that in my Computer and its great, plays High Definition Content so smoothly, if you have SLI capability, have a look at the GeForce 7900, powerful stuff and have up to 2 of them, powerful stuff!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted April 25, 2006 Report Share Posted April 25, 2006 thanks mate. already bought a 6600 (see post above) should be good! i recon the 7800/7900 will produce too much heat and have loud fans :P max memory on my motherboard is 4GB so can't do the 2Gig sticks... I did not opt for the 8Gig version ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted May 15, 2006 Report Share Posted May 15, 2006 got the processor and the memory now... fired it up today and its bloody loud.. ;) looks like its going to be harder than I thought to get it quiet!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tech Posted May 15, 2006 Report Share Posted May 15, 2006 it will be unfortunatly just the way things are these days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted May 16, 2006 Report Share Posted May 16, 2006 yeah, i have used the uGuru Bios to slow all the fans down as much as i can, but the main 120mm case fan is still Loud! I am waiting to install the OS first then i will work on the fan situation, i may be that i am able to slow the fans down further.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nevawlkalone Posted May 16, 2006 Report Share Posted May 16, 2006 There are various commands you can use when configuring maxtor drives to force them into slower spin speeds - you get more drive accesss but as the spin speed is lower the noise is less and there is less of the 'ticking' noise of the head flicking back and forth when accessing as it is moving more slowly as well. Maxtor drives are used in sky+ boxes and other PVR's because of this capability - I don't know whether other brands can do this. 5 yr warranty on drives these days as well. Richard Slightly off topic but any hu.... What are these commands you speak of lol? I have a 80Gb disk in my Fujitsu_Siemens Celsius at home and it is noisey as HELL... I have fast boot enabled and ssilent boot also enabled...i cant find any of the other usual options to quieten the drive so hance my post ;) Also what is the best SATA HDD to buy at a reasonable price...i did have 300GB disk's but there are IDE and dont work..not even with an IDE Controller so i need something to store data and backup to...Preferably internally as there is a sevear lack of USB ports! Cheers M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest James Posted May 16, 2006 Report Share Posted May 16, 2006 ok! finished the main system and got the disks set up RAID 0 (2 x 250GB)! installed MC2005.. just need to populate it with all my software and media.... going to take a while!! ;) then get the tv card/kyb+mouse/AV... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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