Small Quiet PC


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Yeah...

 

So OK, look, let's revise the question?

 

I wish to build a smallish PC that runs an i7, 16gb ram, ssd.  If I ould go with iris Pro 5200 then great but if not then cool.

 

And nice quite fans ;)

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Intel NUCs are great idea, but they are underpowered. They use mobile CPUs for better cooling and effeciency.

 

OP could have a look at the Gigabyte Brix and Zotac barebones that can be had with great specs albeit a little $$ (you pay for the form factor).

 

My ultimate recommendation would be custom with a strong CPU (high i5, low i7), and a small, quiet GPU. All that in a Fractal Design Node 304 which is a SFF case that was very well recommended for acoustic and airflow and still small. You can even put a couple hard drives in there which could help with large video files.

 

IMG0037108_1.jpg

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you want quiet, you want to make sure any fans in the system do not spin up to high speed.

This is where I would say that some sort of water cooling may be best, doesn't take much fan speed to cool down liquid in a radiator. But you want small...\

take a look at this (it is fanless, so very quiet):

http://www.amazon.com/CompuLab-Intense-PC-Pro-Win7/dp/B00C1LO0BQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1414101941&sr=1-1

the downside to any mini computer will be getting a dedicated graphics card in there.

water cooling?! ouch!! VERY noisy. small fan and all but the water needs flowing and the pumps are really noisy. what you want is huge fans that spin slow and a good air flow design (push/pull)

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water cooling?! ouch!! VERY noisy. small fan and all but the water needs flowing and the pumps are really noisy. what you want is huge fans that spin slow and a good air flow design (push/pull)

 

False. I own a Corsair H80i, and I never notice the fans or pump... And I have 2x 120mm fans on it...

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No more noisy than a power supply fan. Don't know what you were using, but most air cooled setups were louder than my old koolance case. It was amazingly quiet. Perhaps the cheap setups that they have now make then noisy. Psu fans are usually louder.

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How about:

 

 
Motherboard: Asus H81I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (?56.14 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (?122.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (?139.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card  (?103.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)  (?69.29 @ Aria PC) 
Total: ?868.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-23 23:58 BST+0100
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 You might wanna swap out that SanDisk SSD for something better, the Samsung PRO Series / Crucial MX Series are no more money on Amazon and better performance/reliability.

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How about:

 

 
Motherboard: Asus H81I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (?56.14 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (?122.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (?139.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card  (?103.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)  (?69.29 @ Aria PC) 
Total: ?868.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-23 23:58 BST+0100

 

 

Mine for comparison: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/b/DNccCJ

 

I have no issues with noise from it :)

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Nice.  Why so many SSD?

 

They're silent, extremely efficient, fantastic performance for just about anything you could need, generate little heat, low power & why not? They're an accumulated purchase as well (spanning the last two years).

 

Replaced the Intel with a 500GB Samsung 840 EVO to give my server more space for VM's.

 

1x 500GB 840 EVO for Windows / Steam & Battle.net / Documents / Media / VM's

2x 250GB 840 EVO in stripe just for Steam

1x 128GB 830 Series for OSX 10.10.0 & Battle.net

1x 128GB 830 Series for Ubuntu / Xubuntu / OSX 10.9.5

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Aaaah, I thought you decked it out like that from day 1.  Chers.  So that cooler you are using, is it ready to go out of the box, or?

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Aaaah, I thought you decked it out like that from day 1.  Chers.  So that cooler you are using, is it ready to go out of the box, or?

 

Absolute ~%"?!@#! to get it to fit due to my motherboard's Intel WiFi card but works out of the box. Becomes faster to remove but not easier over time. I've had it out a few times and now it takes me up to 6 minutes. The original installation was over four hours (mostly due to cable routing for HDD's/ PSU, fans etc).

Corsair Link however, that's a bit of a different story. I have it now finally working after two firmware updates, latest software release and using only the internal USB 2.0 header.

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So you like corsair then?  Recommend them as a company?  As their case also looks suitable too.

 

I do like the idea behind that cooler, and it looks like the "safe, user friendly" edge of watercooling :)

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So you like corsair then?  Recommend them as a company?  As their case also looks suitable too.

 

I do like the idea behind that cooler, and it looks like the "safe, user friendly" edge of watercooling :)

 

To be honest, I just wanted everything to match. Originally I was looking at Coolermaster but then I found that the Corsair 250D would take a double radiator and a lot of HDD's. ;)

 

The first Corsair PSU failed on day 3 and the software / support experience with the H100i has been pretty horrendous (if you have an issue, they pretty much just want you to post it back to them and wait for a replacement - even if it's not a hardware fault). At the moment, I have my H100i working correctly but it's taken nearly 3 months to get there. It will of course just work without any software interaction but you can do a lot of thermal profiling to control settings per fan etc.

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  • 2 months later...

So.... Am back, and now have funds ready to start building.

 

Can anyone recommend a nice quiet, smaller (not tiny, but smaller) case suitable for above type specs?

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Intel NUCs are great idea, but they are underpowered. They use mobile CPUs for better cooling and effeciency.

 

 

To be fair, the Mac Mini uses mobile CPUs also.

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So.... Am back, and now have funds ready to start building.

 

Can anyone recommend a nice quiet, smaller (not tiny, but smaller) case suitable for above type specs?

 

Again, Corsair 250D. It's cubic capacity occupation is less than the BitFenix case you linked.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-case-cc9011047ww

 

Related to your earlier post last year:

It took 3 months to get working driver support for the Corsair Link for Windows 8.1 x64. Works fine now.

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OK, so I was going to buy the new Mac Mini, because they are small, powerful (enough - up to i7 with 16gb) and VERY quiet.  I wanted those three things.

 

But there are a few letdowns in the design that are pushing me back towards a PC.  I have decided that a shuttle pc may be where I am headed.

 

I'm looking towards a (new revision) Haswell system, 16/32 gig ram, SSD and seeing as Intel HD5000 isn't all that great - then MAYBE a dedicated graphics card.

 

What will it be used for?

 

* Obviously day-to-day usage (word, excl, photoshop, etc)

* Video editing (min 1080p)

* Hopefully some light gaming

 

Now my requirements are as before, small and quiet.  I understand that the shuttles are shoebox size, that's still small enough for me.  I am looking at this one:

http://global.shuttle.com/products/productsDetail?productId=1855

 

My only issue could be noise, they are obviously noisier than a Mac Mini (What isn't?) but am already seeing 2 fans in the base system (processor cooling and power supply).

 

Anyone offer any other advice here?

 

Thanks

I have 6 fans in my PC case and the only noise I hear is from the additional 2 fans on the Nvidia 970 GTX (while gaming no noise when idle). The case fans are 120mm and high quality and emit no perceivable noise whatsoever. 

Also, I have an EVGA 1000 watt PSU that I cannot hear either.

 

http://www.quietpc.com/casefans 

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Mobile != ultra low power consumption (used in NUCs) though.

 

Except the ones in the late 2014 Mac Mini are ultra low power U-series CPU-s, same as found in NUCs.

I'd even go as far saying that NUC is a better option, since there is now Broadwell NUCs available.

 

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