# Preparing a PC build - advice appreciated for minimizing noise!



## Andrew Aversa (Feb 25, 2014)

So, here's the build I have picked out so far.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2ZRG0

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

*CPU:* Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($499.99 @ Microcenter) 
*CPU Cooler:* Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC) 
*Thermal Compound:* Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($6.69 @ OutletPC) 
*Motherboard:* Asus Sabertooth X79 ATX LGA2011 Motherboard ($314.99 @ Amazon) 
*Memory:* Corsair XMS 64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($599.99 @ Amazon) 
*Storage:* Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($199.99 @ Amazon) 
*Storage:* Samsung EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($499.00 @ Amazon) 
*Video Card:* Asus Radeon HD 7790 2GB Video Card ($144.98 @ SuperBiiz) 
*Case:* NZXT Switch 810 (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($149.98 @ OutletPC) 
*Power Supply:* Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($157.98 @ Newegg) 
*Optical Drive:* Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.98 @ OutletPC) 
*Operating System:* Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($134.94 @ OutletPC) 
*Other:* RMe HDSPe AIO ($849.00)
*Total:* $3607.49
_(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)_
_(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 12:44 EST-0500)_

I am a little concerned with noise & cooling though. What steps can I take to reduce noise across the board here, without sacrificing cooling? I.e. Water-cooling? Special case fans? Different CPU cooler? Better video card / power supply? Different case?

Thanks in advance!


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 25, 2014)

I've got a similar build that's being put together as I type. I went for 2x fanless graphics cards (GT 610), and also not the Sabertooth board, which has a small fan or two in it (and small fans spell trouble to me) - I went for the x79 deluxe. My case is the Fractal Design R4, but the NZXT looks good too. I'm not overclocking, to keep the system running not at full tilt.

The UK company putting it together (Solid Hawk, audio specialists) say that I should have no real heat issues with that rig, and it should be very quiet.


----------



## emid (Feb 25, 2014)

Guy, how much that costs you in pounds please?


----------



## Ozymandias (Feb 25, 2014)

I wouldn't bother with Arctic Silver 5. It does the job, but there are better compounds around for the same money, such as Arctic Cooling MX-4/2 and the Noctua stuff.


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Feb 25, 2014)

Really? Looking at reviews, it seemed like Arctic 5 had the best by far.


----------



## TravB (Feb 25, 2014)

I started a reply picking apart your selections, suggesting alternatives, inquiring about your DAW building experience, explaining how I've successfully designed and built scores of DAWs since before DAWs existed, bla, bla, bla... but let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Of ALL the custom DAW builders still in business today, the VERY BEST, in my humble opinion, is Jim Roseberry of StudioCat.com. Even if you choose not to purchase one of his models, he offers an outstanding service where he will consult with you on your personal build, helping you to make the best parts decisions for your needs/budget. Even with my years of DAW design/build experience, I personally consulted Jim on my most recent build, and it was worth every cent (only $40 a half hour last time I checked). 

I offer this advice because I've witnessed (on various audio forums) countless well-meaning DAW do-it-yourselfers drive themselves absolutely crazy trying to chase down technical issues instead of being creative and productive. Save yourself the the agony and at least talk with a true professional like Jim.

For the record, I have no financial interest whatsoever for recommending Jim's products and services. I've sent many DAW users Jim's way, and ALL have given outstanding reviews of his DAWs, and equally important the friendly/experienced quality of his service both before and after the sale. I should point out, however, as a passionate DAW user (and computer hardware junkie), I do get personal satisfaction out of seeing/hearing someone have the experience of putting a well-designed DAW to its intended use.


----------



## Ozymandias (Feb 25, 2014)

zircon_st @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> Really? Looking at reviews, it seemed like Arctic 5 had the best by far.



There isn't a lot to choose in terms of performance. It's fine in that regard, but unlike the others it takes a while to cure.


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Feb 25, 2014)

I appreciate the input. I have no doubt that guy is good at what he does. And honestly, I have no interest in actually assembling this PC myself. I would take it to my local Micro Center for them to put together and test. That way, if there are problems with parts, they can easily just swap things in and out. I don't need to worry about mailing things back to manufacturers, shipping, RMAs, etc. Even the best PC builders can have stuff damaged in transit (I'm on the East coast) and I think dealing with that headache is reason enough for me to prefer the local route.

Were I local to a builder like that, I would much more strongly consider working with them...

Looking into motherboards & graphics cards a bit more, the Sabertooth does seem to be the best reviewed of anything I looked at. Extra fans are unfortunate but I'd rather have a reliable board in the end. A lot of the other x79 boards had very high %s of 1-star ratings at newegg, from people that had DOAs or problems within 6 months. I definitely don't want to deal with that. 

For video cards, I hadn't considered fanless. I would want something comparable to the card I picked out though, and it seems like that's tough to find - most fanless options are significantly less powerful (I do some gaming & video editing, hence the 'ok' card)


----------



## snattack (Feb 25, 2014)

The most important aspects to consider when reducing noise are the following:

- large CPU cooler

- large diameter and low rpm of fans

- good airflow to reduce the amount of fans. The airflow out of the case should be higher than the airflow in.

- quiet power supply, preferably fanless

I wouldn't use a fulltower. I use a mATX solution with a Lian Li PC-V351, because it shortens the distance for air to flow. Both my slaves have ONE fan placed on the CPU cooler that shoot air straight into the power supply above. My fans and cpu coolers are always from Noctua with an low noise adapter attached to the power cord of the fan. Cooler master aren't as quiet.

You're using an regular ATX mobo, you'd need at least a midi tower. Here's how I would do:

1. Get a midi tower with the PSU in the top back of the case.

2. Place one Nocuta fan in the lower front of the chassi with an ultra low noise adapter with airflow in.

3. Use a Noctua CPU cooler that places the fan vertically angled compared to the motherboard, aiming the air direction towards the back.

4. The PSU will push out the air from the cpu cooler.

Best,
A


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 25, 2014)

zircon_st @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> For video cards, I hadn't considered fanless. I would want something comparable to the card I picked out though, and it seems like that's tough to find - most fanless options are significantly less powerful (I do some gaming & video editing, hence the 'ok' card)



I'm not sure how great an idea it is to mix gaming and DAWing, but leaving that to one side, I just ordered a Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X 1 GB for my son. It's not super-high powered but benchmarks in the midrange for gaming I think. I only mention it cos that model is specifically engineered for quietness - it's 25db apparently and stays cool.

Emid - not sure how meaningful that is here, but there's a whole other thread out there regarding the full specs for my rig http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36770 . Solidhawk's website - http://www.solidhawk.co.uk/ - has prices for similar systems to mine - just contact Adam there for advice and a quote for anything specific. He's very quick at responding and seems very knowledgeable with audio requirements (but of course as I'm writing this, I've not taken delivery yet).


----------



## snattack (Feb 25, 2014)

Fyi: custom thermal paste has minimal effect on heat distribution from the cpu. The paste that comes with the Noctua coolers does the job as good as any of the "hocus pocus" products.

Edit:
Also an add: Corsairs power supplies (at least the one i bought once when I had a power failure and nothing else was in stock in the local store) are incredebly noisy. The rolls roys of PSUs are Seasonic, but they are quite pricy. I usually go for OCZ Modstream which have a good noise level and have a good power/heat efficiency.


----------



## rgames (Feb 25, 2014)

The absolute best noise reduction is placing the machine in a different room. It's also one of the cheapest approaches.

Nothing else comes close.

rgames


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 25, 2014)

rgames @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> The absolute best noise reduction is placing the machine in a different room. It's also one of the cheapest approaches.
> 
> Nothing else comes close.
> 
> rgames



Building a machine room is not usually a particularly cost-effective option, but it is very nice if you have one.


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Feb 25, 2014)

It's funny, my basement is actually pretty big - a good 20 feet long, and 12 feet wide - but there isn't any adjacent room I can put the PC into. I'm in an end-unit townhome and everything else is either the outside, or the one neighboring room... which is where I do my recording (oops). Then again I have central heating causing noise as well, so maybe I'm overthinking it 

Thanks for all the help so far.


----------



## Ozymandias (Feb 25, 2014)

snattack @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> Also an add: Corsairs power supplies (at least the one i bought once when I had a power failure and nothing else was in stock in the local store) are incredebly noisy. The rolls roys of PSUs are Seasonic, but they are quite pricy.



It's worth noting that a number of Corsair's PSUs are made by Seasonic, so I imagine they're not all bad.


----------



## rgames (Feb 25, 2014)

It doesn't have to be a dedicated machine room. Mine are in a cabinet in the laundry room. In my old house they were in a cabinet in the family room.

They just need to be in a different room separated by a wall - any wall is much better sound isolation than any sound isolation you put in the room, itself. Actually if you can put them on a different floor then that's even better. My quietest studio ever was one I had in my basement with the machines on the floor above.

You should still put sound-conscious components in but they don't have to be expensive. The advantage of high-price sound-dampening cases is very small compared to the advantage of having the machine in a different room. Putting the machine in a different room is also a *lot* less expensive.

rgames


----------



## rgames (Feb 25, 2014)

zircon_st @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> It's funny, my basement is actually pretty big - a good 20 feet long, and 12 feet wide - but there isn't any adjacent room I can put the PC into. I'm in an end-unit townhome and everything else is either the outside, or the one neighboring room... which is where I do my recording (oops). Then again I have central heating causing noise as well, so maybe I'm overthinking it
> 
> Thanks for all the help so far.


You responded while I was typing - see my comment about the basement!

Drill a small hole to the floor above - that is ABSOLUTELY the best sound isolation setup.

You won't hear a thing from even the loudest machine.

rgames


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Feb 25, 2014)

Surely there must be some expense though in getting 20-30 ft cables for USB, hdmi, etc.? Or is that basically nominal?


----------



## rgames (Feb 25, 2014)

zircon_st @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> Surely there must be some expense though in getting 20-30 ft cables for USB, hdmi, etc.? Or is that basically nominal?


The cables are pretty cheap - you need an ACTIVE USB extension cable for best use. They're usually about $15 or so for a 30 ft cable. I run that into a hub in the room to run my MIDI controllers. Some MIDI controllers don't like the hub and need their own extension, so you might need 2 or 3 of them depending on how finicky your hardware is.

The HDMI/DVI cables are also about $15 each for 30 ft length or so.

It's much better to have a single, long cable than daisy chain several smaller cables - you lose more of the signal at the connections so you want to minimize the number of connections to minimize the possibility of connection problems.

I keep my USB 3 eternal drives connected via short cables at the computer so I'm not sure about longer USB3 cables.

rgames


----------



## emid (Feb 25, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Tue Feb 25 said:


> Emid - not sure how meaningful that is here, but there's a whole other thread out there regarding the full specs for my rig http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36770 . Solidhawk's website - http://www.solidhawk.co.uk/ - has prices for similar systems to mine - just contact Adam there for advice and a quote for anything specific. He's very quick at responding and seems very knowledgeable with audio requirements (but of course as I'm writing this, I've not taken delivery yet).



Thanks for the links, Guy.


----------



## Andrew Aversa (Feb 25, 2014)

Hey folks, any thoughts on DDR3-1333 RAM vs 1600 or even 2400? Have there been benchmarks for this sort of thing in terms of DAW performance?


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 26, 2014)

zircon_st @ Wed Feb 26 said:


> Hey folks, any thoughts on DDR3-1333 RAM vs 1600 or even 2400? Have there been benchmarks for this sort of thing in terms of DAW performance?



I know it's generally regarded to be virtually irrelevant (which seems counter-intuitive I realise).

On the point of putting the crate(s) in another room - it's great if logistically it's possible, but it often isn't (and isn't in my case).


----------



## LFO (Feb 28, 2014)

I've read through the replies and have a few thoughts for you.

I just built a 4930 x79 Deluxe box and am using the Noctua NH-D14 cooler. I also have a fanless video card, 4 SSDs a single Hard disk drive and an optical drive all in a Fractal Design R4 case.

I've not done any hard, full load testing yet, (though I will post results in another thread when I do this weekend) but at this point the box is very, very quiet. When the optical drive kicks in during the boot up process it is by far the loudest thing that I hear and then it spins down. I've cranked the fans up to see what happens and the amount of noise I hear is still very soft. I have to figure out how to measure dbs and I'll post them.

Overall, I wanted a quiet (no build is silent) case and so far I have been very happy!

On another note, thermal paste is a huge topic of debate. My experience has been that the well made pastes, including what comes with the Noctua fan, are pretty much equal.

Hope this helps,
Kevin


----------



## minimidi (Mar 6, 2014)

snattack @ Wed Feb 26 said:


> The airflow out of the case should be higher than the airflow in.



The inlet and outlet air mass must always balance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass


----------



## Hans Adamson (Mar 6, 2014)

I haven't read through all the answers here, but I'll contribute my 2 cents anyway...

I have had a top of the line liquid-cooled desktop Sony Vaio for a long time and it always was super quiet. One day the power supply quit. I bought a new one that was supposed to be extremely quiet. However, it could not compare to the custom Delta power supply that came standard with these machines. In the end I found out the initial problem was not the power supply but the motherboard. So I could once again install the original power supply and get my silent computer back.

Conclusion: You can build the most quiet computer, but the power supply fan may ruin the whole thing. Get the highest quality, lowest noise power supply.

/Hans


----------



## Guy Rowland (Mar 7, 2014)

Just piggy-banking this thread because I've got a concern about my build. I had the same PSU as in the OP, and it was horrendous - a very noticeable high pitched whine. The unit went back for this and other reasons, and they've just told me they've put a 750w Fractal Design PSU in instead (without asking me first). I've looked up the reviews of the Integra (the only 750w supply they do) and they all say this is a noisy PSU ("The fan is very noisy, and is even audible when delivering a load of 300 watts" - http://www.kitguru.net/components/power ... -review/6/ ). So I might have to get them to change it yet again before its shipped back to me.

Was I super unlucky with my Corsair model? Any other suggestions gratefully received.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Mar 13, 2014)

Just a quick update here (the noise thread) on my build - now here back after a reconfig following multiple problems with the first attempt. It's the 650w Seasonic PSU, Noctua N14 CPU fan and Fractal Design R4 case, with 2x fanless GT610 graphics cards (otherwise similar spec to OP).

It's silent. I can't hear anything at all unless I put my head right behind the outlet fan. Astonishing. Far quieter than my old rig, which was Noctua / Fractal Design. Not tried it under load yet, just installing stuff. I'll update my thread after some proper use in due course.

(incidentally - system idles at 67w, which is quite impressive I think).


----------

