A semi Quiet PC Gaming build. Suggestions.

[Luc]

Time for a new PC after many years of the old one which is laggy and well worn from 7 yrs of 24/7 use(only turned off occasionally in all that time).

 

Looking at getting back into some gaming via Steam and the build can reflect that as I only use the PC for normal home chores otherwise. AMD or Intel, being situated in my listening room it would be nice to have it as silent as I can get it.

 Young friends have come up with an initial build and I was going to throw it out here to see if anyone had suggestions or advice(damning or otherwise o.O ).

$1400 was the starting point but might be able to go higher if I can get it through as a tax write off , 2k tops.

What do you think?

 

[extract]

Since you will be gaming on it, that $49 wireless mouse/keyboard combo will not be adequate. Get a decent wired keyboard preferably a mechanical one with cherry mx switches. And also a decent wired mouse like a Microsoft Classic Intellimouse. That way you don't have to worry about slight lag and mucking around changing batteries.

[Luc]

17 minutes ago, extract said:

That way you don't have to worry about slight lag and mucking around changing batteries.

Got a G700s at the moment and love not having wired but I'm also not gaming either.  Dunno if icould go back to wireless but early stage at the moment.

[muon*]

If you were just doing normal stuff I'd suggest a fresh install of windows, it should be done at least every 2 or 3 years.

But looking at gaming again justifies a new build

[muon*]

Looking at that list, about the only thing I'd be tempted to change is the power supply and up it to 550w - 600w.

 

Edit: put everything into this calc and see what you need.

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by muon*

[Luc]

Thanks Ian, I'll chuck the system as it stands at the moment into that calc. The parts listed  were for the 1400 build but the Handbrake said I can go to 2k if needed. I've never built on before so it'll be a learning curve for sure.

[peterpan]

13 hours ago, Luc said:

being situated in my listening room it would be nice to have it as silent as I can get it.

seeing as noise is a factor I would consider water cooling either a 240 or 360 if you can fit it into budget and case? I am running a Ryzen 3700x with corsair 360mm water cooling and as I sit quite close that was a 

good investment, keeps the temps down too. The other thing I would suggest is an nvme m.2 drive as the main windows drive, does not have to be huge but 250 to 500 gbs should be good with a larger drive for storage duties, 

I know this adds to the cost but should still be below the 2k even with upping the psu as was suggested earlier which is a good idea. imho 

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by peterpan

[Batty]

I use an i5 with a RTX2070 GPU and 16Gb RAM, C drive is 1Tb M.2 plus 2x 4Tb WD red HDDs. normal thermaltake cooler and fan.

I game on steam and it is really quiet with no attempt at trying to make a silent PC.

The PSU fan hardly ever turns at all. CPU fan is running at 700rpm.

I use USB for sound output into a Topping D10.

[muon*]

@Luc they are easy these days, It's all plug n play, just observe anti static precautions and handle cards and the motherboard by the blank areas and edges, keeping away from the traces, chips and connectors. Avoid touching the connectors on CPU's too. But I'm sure this would be just common sense for you and most people.

 

Look at Noctua case fans as they are very quiet, and CPU water cooling kits are easy installs if you want to use one of those.

Edited April 5, 2020 by muon*

[Luc]

6 hours ago, muon* said:

But I'm sure this would be just common sense for you

For most people it would certainly be.

But not me

If there's a previously unheard of way to destruct the indestructible...I'll find it

 

@peterpan   Thanks for the advice! Currently running it past my distant guru's on our Discord chat. They're the ones who said i could build it myself and they'll help along the way. It's their choice of bit's that I've quoted. I've told them I'll start a thread on the build and ask what members here think. My current build, they designed 7 years ago and it's lasted till now.

[Baccy]

I can't imagine it being too loud mate, I have a similar build to that and it's dead quiet. I have nothing that is intended to dampen the sounds either. 
Took me a couple of days of tweaking but I used this video to get it all working. Highly recommend it

 to 

[muon*]

@Baccy I only watched 15 minutes or so, but a very good instructional vid

[Luc]

@Baccy I'll have a look at that vid tomorrow, thanks for the link.

 

I've got no further along the path than the list of components that I posted. but I will eventually!

[Baccy]

If you're able to stretch it, I'd go to 3200MHz on the RAM, from what I understand the 3600 really like's that. Get a 650w Power Supply as you'll likely never need to upgrade it again and gives a good ceiling just in case. Supposedly NVME SSD's are useful but I don't have much information on those. Other than that mate it looks good. That's the build I went with myself, It's practically the same and I've gotten nice results from it. I went with 1080p 144hz so there wasn't much point in going for a better GPU. The only real step up from there would be a 5700 XT or something but that would only really get any use if you decide to go for 1440p. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions.  

[Luc]

@Baccy  Are those prices local or USD?

[Baccy]

USD mate sorry, I forgot to swap it over. I purchased like 90% of the parts on eBay using the Pro membership or whatever, prices were generally lower and everything was shipped for free. All the big local computer part stores have storefronts on there generally. 

[Luc]

Ah I see.

[LogicprObe]

 

I've just ditched my water cooling as it just got noisier and noisier over time..................and started leaking!

 

Anyway, as I couldn't be bothered looking for my giant Noctua air cooler https://www.ijk.com.au/branch/ijk/product_info.php?cPath=108_367&products_id=124418 , I bought one of these to tide me over.......... https://www.ijk.com.au/branch/ijk/product_info.php?cPath=108_367&products_id=122868

 

Just as quiet as the Noctua and does the job with one fan...................you can add another if you were using it for gaming and I doubt it would make much more noise.

Much cheaper too!....................although the finish on the contact area of the heatsink was a bit rough and could do with a bit of lapping, I was in a hurry and just whacked it on.

 

edit - I just used one of the Crucial MX500 drives as well.............................nice drive but I don't have an M2 slot on this old i7 board.

M2 boot drive is the way to go as previously mentioned.

Edited April 8, 2020 by LogicprObe

[muon*]

I just replaced one of those coolermaster sinks in that link in my PC (but an older revision), with a Corsair H55 and set the fan speed in the bios to fairly low speed.

 

Yeah, old pumps in some kits seem to fill up with crud and get noisy, maybe different metals in the cooling system of them. This happened with a 3 or 4 year old Thermaltake Water in my flatemate's computer, I replaced it with a Silverstone kit.

Edited April 9, 2020 by muon*

[Pyramid]

If you're into online/competitive FPS games, can strongly recommend going the 144Hz panel route. Recommended looking up some performance benchmarks for games you are interested to check with kind of frames you are likely to see with your chosen specs. You will have no issues at 1080p, but 1440p is nicer at screen sizes of 27".

[Luc]

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/45202/corsair-carbide-series-275q-mid-tower-quiet-gaming-case-black

 

 

This looks pretty good

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Luc

[muon*]

Nice! Luc

 

I like the understated stealth look of cases like that one, not into the ones that look like an F! race car.

[Luc]

5 hours ago, muon* said:

Nice! Luc

 

I like the understated stealth look of cases like that one, not into the ones that look like an F! race car.

Yeah all those lights and clear sides ect are just bling aren't they.I like the removable dust filters.

 

This is some of the blurb.

 

High-density sound damping material in the removable roof and side panels deadens noise for your whole PC.

Connect up to six PWM fans to a single 4-pin PWM header, controlling multiple fan’s speed and noise from a single source.

Easily route cables behind the motherboard to optimize airflow. Rear-mounted steel drive trays provide room for up to two 3.5in HDDs and two 2.5in SSDs, with an additional two 2.5in SSD mounts.

 

So I think I'll go with this case at this stage.

 

[Luc]

What do you think of this build.

It's the absolute tops I could possibly go to as the bank is almost empty(this is the last of my pre-drought-pre-bushfire- current WTF!!!!-Covid-19 money I've had one job since early Dec that actually paid into my acc. Grim times)

 

I know very little about anything in it, this is put together by some young gurus I know well on our Discord Anime/Gaming channel. They absolutely laugh at us audiophiles and our HT builds and streaming builds and DACS ect ect and Roon and various other ideas we deliberate.

 

But they're trying to do the right thing by the old guy, nicely(that would be me) so they flick ideas around and this is the latest:

 

 

 

What do you think?

What am I after? Just something that I can install Steam on and then play whatever game I choose to play. Something I can set my network up with including my ridiculously priced streamer (We do some silly things don't we in the pursuit of music nirvana or ease of use) and just use the thing to stream Netflix etc and DL the odd torrent.

My current build they put together 7 years ago and it's run 24/7 ever since...I trust them!

[muon*]

I'm not into things as much as I was once, but it look nice to me

 

Plenty of ram for FPS games, and capable graphics card, may struggle with the latest most demanding games at highest res but what wouldn't. I'm not up on the AMD processors but it seems like you have everything under control.

Edited April 14, 2020 by muon*