Silent Solution, case, card and fan?

[Jakshak]

I am going for the below configuration for my first project (running an audio Hackintosh with a firewire audio interface).
My question is, what would be the best silent case and cooler for me to buy that would house all the below, I will be recording audio in the same room as the machine, I don't need it to be absolutely silent, but would like it to be as quiet as my current late 2012 mac mini is.

I chose the Graphics GTX 750ti because it has two HDMI outputs, however it does look like its going to be a loud card, I do need to run two screens and one of my screens only has a HDMI input, but the other has a DVi and serial. What would be a good but silent card I could use? I'm not going to run games on my machine but I will be doing some audio post for video.

I also don't know if the power supply I have chosen is a) powerful enough and b) quiet enough for my needs?

My Budget for the case, fan and graphics card all together would be around £300, but the cheaper I can keep it the better!

• Core i7 6700k
• Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX 750Ti 2GB PCI-E Graphics Card
• 64gb DDR4 Ram
• Seagate 2TB SSHD for system Drive
• I have 3 SATA drives for project files and sample libraries and back ups
• Corsair CS 550 (Is this powerful enough?)
• Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH

Thanks in advance!

 

[DrBEN]

Fractal Design Define R5 (windowless model)
http://www.fractal-design.com/home/definer5landingpage
http://techreport.com/review/27719/fractal-design-define-r5-case-reviewed

 

[kiiroaka]

You'll probably want a video card with heat pipes in the heat sink. Like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121896 and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F84BC9771 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127783

Fans should be Noctua, obviously, perhaps the NF-S12A FLX with LNA that can bring the RPMs down to either 1200 or 900 RPM. They are not cheap, though. Figure $15 - $22 apiece. Heat sink should be the Noctua NH-U14S, about $75.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9PV3Y64278&cm_re=noctua-_-35-608-037-_-Product

 

[Jakshak]

You'll probably want a video card with heat pipes in the heat sink. Like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121896 and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F84BC9771 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127783

Fans should be Noctua, obviously, perhaps the NF-S12A FLX with LNA that can bring the RPMs down to either 1200 or 900 RPM. They are not cheap, though. Figure $15 - $22 apiece. Heat sink should be the Noctua NH-U14S, about $75.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9PV3Y64278&cm_re=noctua-_-35-608-037-_-Product

Thanks guys,

If I went with the Fractal Design R5 with my set up how many case fans would you recommend buying for it?

 

[DrBEN]

The Fractal R5 comes with 2 fans and the graphics card you have chosen also comes with 2 fans, for a total of 4. And the cooler you choose will have 1 or 2 more. You might want to see how they perform before buying any fans.

 

[kiiroaka]

http://www.fractal-design.com/media/52b1fe9f-2c48-48a1-92f7-a8a309cac4f7 See page 10 - the fan connectors are two pins so they'll be running at top speed.

You'll probably want at least two more fans. Me, I'd install two 140mm fans at the top as exhaust fans, then add a 140mm rear fan and then move the old rear fan to the front so that it would have two intake fans. But, me, personally, I'd load it up with all 5 fans being Noctua 140mm fans. ymmv.

http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a14-uln - I'd probably install two of those in the top. Those are 3 pin connectors, though.
http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a14-flx - are the three that I would install in the rear (1) and in the front (2). You can do these at a later time.

You could go with PWM in the top exhaust but then they may not blow all the time. Your choice. PWM fans are 4 pin. You might be able to connect at least one to the mobo. How many, and what type of, fan headers does your mobo have?

The reason to install the top two (or three - if you're not going to use a DVD burner) is because they may become a pain to install once the motherboard is in place. The reason to install the one in the rear is for the same reason, although it shouldn't present too much of a problem after the mobo is in place. The rear fan should probably be a 1200 RPM fan. The only fan that should be 1500 RPM, imo, is the heat sink fan. Once you hit 1500 RPM the fan starts to get loud. For example, if you install a water cooler/radiator the pump can go as high as 2500 RPM - in which case you will be able to hear it.

Depending on the number of HDDs and SSDs, you may get away with just one front fan.

As far as the case goes, I prefer the Arc Midi R2.

 

[Jakshak]

You could go with PWM in the top exhaust but then they may not blow all the time. Your choice. PWM fans are 4 pin. You might be able to connect at least one to the mobo. How many, and what type of, fan headers does your mobo have?



As far as the case goes, I prefer the Arc Midi R2.

Thanks so much for your detailed reply, what advantages do I have going with the Arc Midi R2, sorry for my ignorance, I am very much a noob.

The Mobo I am going with has (Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH);
1 x CPU fan header
4 x system fan header
1 x front panel header (from the specs on the website, Im not sure if this header is for fans...)

 

[kiiroaka]

IMO, the Arc Midi 2 has better air flow, the R5 seems to have more restrictive airflow because of the front door.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2014/11/24/fractal-design-define-r5-review/3

But even that test may have to be taken with a grain of salt since chances are that only the two stock fans were used. Once you load up the case with four or five Noctua fans the temperatures should drop substantially.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Case_Basics_and_Recommendations

As you can see, the Fractal Design R5 is an Editor's Choice Award case. so they must like it. Just remember that the list is dated.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1422-page2.html

The stock R5 fan is at least as quiet as the Antec TrueQuiet 140, which is one of the quietest we've measured. So there's no benefit at all to swapping out the R5 fans. They are as quiet any 140mm fans we've heard.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1422-page4.html

Something to consider: http://icrontic.com/article/pc_airflow_heat_cooling_guide

The reason for front fans is not necessarily to keep the PC cool, it is to keep the disk drives cool; SSDs may throttle down when they get hot, so it's best to try to always keep them cool. That is one reason why I reject certain cases - because the HDD cages are too air restrictive (usually thick plastic). To that end it may be better to have the air flow over the length of the drive, say as in an Antec 300, versus flowing across the drive, say as in an Antec 302. But today most users like having cables out of the way, so they like their drives mounted cross wise, where the wiring is accessed from the side panel rather than from the inside of the case where the connections are on the rear of the drive.