Silent computer
07 May 2010

Since my first pc a 486dx2 50 I have been more or less allergic to noisy computers. The noise in the 486 was easy fixed, placing a long pencil in the PSU and the all the sound was gone. After that I had a couple of other computers sounding more or less, but I didn’t do anything to stop the noise. But for the last 5 years I have been experimenting with a couple of different solutions. Mostly based on silent fans and silent computer based cases. But these solutions has all been failures, at least to my sensitive ears.

My current 2 years old rig is pretty silent, but not enough. I can still hear the fans and the hard drive. Here are some pictures from the building of that computer.

So now I feel it’s time again for a new computer. This is the computer I should have build two years ago. I was looking into it, but did choose to spend the money on high end computer parts instead of an expansive passive cooled case. This time I will spend the money on both high end computer parts and a passive cooled case. =)

Motherboard: 980 Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 (misco.se)
http://anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3652
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=467973
CPU: 2549 Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80GHz
5546points 95w Socket 1156 (misco.se)
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
http://anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3641
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=461772
Harddrive: 1728 OCZ Vertex Series SATA II 2.5″ SSD 30GB (misco)
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403
http://www.sweclockers.com/articles_show.php?id=6190
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=379311
Memory: 995 Kingston HyperX DDR3 PC12800/1600MHz CL9 2×2GB (inwarehouse)
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/kingston_hyperx_cl9/
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=524821
PSU: 1285 Silverstone Nightjar ST30NF (hfx.se) (inwarehouse)
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=40218
GFX: 425 Sapphire Radeon HD4550 HDMI 512MB 361 8-18.5w (inwarehouse)
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16325
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=393294
Case: 4313 HFX Classic – black (14.7 kg) (hfx.se)
Cpu cooler: 738 BorgFX CPU (hfx.se)
VGA cooler: 813 BorgFX VGA (hfx.se)
MB cooler: 613 BorgFX Bridge (hfx.se)
Extensions: 300 4*Heatpipe D6 long

Kylpasta: 170 HTCP Värmeledande pasta (www.elfa.se)
Cleaning: 56 Isopropylalkohol (apoteket.se)

Shipping: 79 Misco.se
Shipping: 99 Inwarehouse.se
Shipping: 536 HFX.se
TOTAL: 15679SEK

GFX Professor

Some gfx cards I did also look at. The videocardbenchmark.net is a good source to get a quick performance comparison between different cards. The numbers below is a passmark G3D rating.

GeForce 8800 Ultra 1154 My current card.
Radeon HD 5750 1329 16 – 86w power consumption
Radeon HD 4550 361 8-18.5w power consumption
MSI NX 6600GT 245 272 This card is in my wife’s computer.

Grafikkort: 1091 Sapphire Radeon HD5750 HDMI DisplayPort Dual-DVI 512MB (misco.se)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_5750/
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=517954

Hard drive

It’s said in different reviews that the intel X25-M is the fastest SSD disk, but it’s more expansive and wasn’t available in any of the webshops at the time I did order the computer parts.

Harddrive: 2045 Intel X25-M G2 80GB (misco)
http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=459908Professor

The professor

Some CPUs I did also look at. The cpubenchmark.net is a good source to get a quick performance comparison between different CPUs. The numbers below is a passmark CPU mark. I have also added the power consumption and a price in SEK.

Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66GHz 3672 65w 2223:- Socket 775
Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80GHz 5546 95w 2477:- Socket 1156
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2913 95w 2095:- socket 775 (Current cpu)
Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.67GHz 4165 95w 1759:- Socket 1156

Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz 5460 130w 2548:-
Intel Core i7 720QM @ 1.60GHz 3354 45w 3349:-

Intel Core2 Duo P7350 @ 2.00GHz 1376 25w 1779:- socket p
Intel Core2 Duo P9500 @ 2.53GHz 1750 25w 3100:- socket p

Intel Core2 Duo T9600 @ 2.80GHz 1965 35w, 3100:- socket p
Intel Core2 Quad Q9000 @ 2.00GHz 3004 45w, 3101:- socket p

AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core BE-2400 1241 45w, 950:- socket am2
AMD Athlon II X4 600E 3043? 45w, 1324:- socket am3

Intel Atom 230 @ 1.60GHz 311
Intel Atom 330 @ 1.60GHz 621

Different builds by other people

HFX micro M2 with DG45FC (Swedish)
HFX Classic “MKII” (2009 Core i7) (Swedish)
HFX Classic (Swedish)

Software

Core Temp: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
CT Grapher: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/addons.html
Prime: http://mersenne.org/freesoft
ORTHOS: http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm
PSU calculator: http://www.antec.outervision.com/PSUEngine

Prebuild

mCubed HFX Micro Business Quiet PC, atom 330, $648*1,25=5628SEK + shipping
HFX micro – business S13 – 6188SEK

Assembly

Here is Medium pictures and Hires pictures from the assembly.