Thoughts on quiet, reliable build for software-dev/gamer

[cnsstnthstrs]

Hello,
I'm yet another first-time hope-to-be hackintosh-er, who has been lurking around here for the past couple of months trying to figure out how it all works, and am now looking to finalise a build.

I apologise for this being overly long!! It was helpful though for me at least, laying out my options.

So, I have money for a high-end iMac but I don't need the display, wanted more graphics power and wanted more than one hard drive (or ridiculous over-priced Apple SSD) without the crappy external-drive experience.

My priorities with this machine are:
1. Follow the beaten path - I want the easiest, most fully working and maintainable option that is possible outside of an actual Mac and for it to hopefully work for good few years (although of course no one can guarantee this). I don't mind tinkering to an extent but once I get it set-up I want stuff to just work and hopefully at least make it through most point-updates with only a short trip through multibeast . There seems to be a lot of success with Z68 and it seems as though Mountain Lion is going to be fine, so this will be the basis of my build.

I could wait for Z77 and Ivy to be fully working, but I don't know how long it will be before that becomes a well tested and working option for people and the only thing that attracts me there is the possibility of a DSDT-less Gigabyte Z77 to have better long term compatibility prospects over Z68? Or is that just wishful thinking?

2. Quiet - This will primarily be a machine for software development so when I'm coding I don't want to hear it. I plan to do a fair amount of gaming too under windows so I don't mind some noise there but generally I want it to be very quiet when not under sustained load.

I'm very new to all this so sorry for any stupid questions, just tell me to search some more if something has been asked too many times before.

CPU:
i7-2600K (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004FA8NOQ/?tag=tonymacx86-21)
I will likely try to get a minimal, "free" over-clock to 4.2GHz and leave it at that.

Motherboard:
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0050BGGBG/?tag=tonymacx86-21)
This seems to be a well-worn and understood choice here and ticks all the boxes for me with regards to maximum compatibility (everything works it seems, even the USB3, although I don't currently need that).

Case:
Corsair Obsidian 550d (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cors...wer-case-brushed-aluminium-usb-30-atx-w-o-psu)
OR
Fractal Design R3 (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/frac...ase-new-cable-routing-noise-absorbing-w-o-psu)
Quiet-running is a major aim here so I want a case designed for that. I have seen recommendations for both of these two cases, so not sure which to go for, but hopefully cannot lose either way?

Replacement Case Fans:
3x Noctua NF-S12B FLX 120mm Fans
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120m...ultra-quiet-flexible-(veri-speed)-cooling-fan)
To complement the quiet case, I was planning to replace the bundled case fans with these, that I hope will run very quiet. I'm very confused though over how the power management of case fans works in general though; there is PWM that I believe is a common type of fan-speed control coming off the motherboard, which these fans don't seem to support, but apparently some Gigabyte motherboards also support other methods of adjusting the fan voltage (http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=faqs&step=2&products_id=25&lng=en#3).
-- Assuming that my motherboard would support this, does this *just work* on a hackintosh?
-- These fans have 3 speed settings, but as I understand it these are fixed and changed on the hardware via adapters - the fans don't dynamically change their speed depending on temperature? Is power management just a case of ON/OFF then, so if case is hot fans come on, and otherwise are off? And what on the motherboard is controlling when to turn the fans on or off - is it CPU temperature?
-- Is a separate fan controller useful or does the motherboard regulate case-fans well enough that this is overkill? And do they work fine with hackintoshes (do they even interact with the software at all or do they just regulate the voltage sent to the fans)?

Power Supply:
Seasonic-X-560-Watt
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0040N55VW/?tag=tonymacx86-21)
Again the priority here is to be as quiet as possible. I have seen people recommend the Seasonic X series as a quality range, that is very quiet. 560W I thought should be enough for a single GPU configuration.

CPU Cooler:
Noctua NH-U12P SE2
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/noct...cooler-intel-775i7i5-and-amd-am2-3-compatible
Noctua seem to have a good reputation for quality, quiet coolers, so this seemed like a good choice, while not being quite as massive as the NH-D14. I have seen other threads on good CPU coolers though, so if there are other recommended coolers that will do a decent job cooling and do it quieter, I would love to hear?

Graphics card:
XFX 6870 Double D cooling
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...hz-1120-stream-processors-2x-dvi-hdmi-2x-mini)
I've seen a number of builds with this card, so it should work. I've also read that this card is much quieter than its single fan sibling, however not sure how well it rates in the noise department compared to the 3-fan Gigabyte?

SSD:
Samsung 830 256GB
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256g...e-mcx-nand-flash-read-520mb-s-write-400mb-s-2)
The crown jewel of the build in my eyes, after seeing my wife's macbook air run rings around my previous laptop. The reason I picked the Samsung 830 is mainly on the basis that Anand of AnandTech recommends this for OSX (e.g.: http://twitter.com/#!/anandshimpi/status/185549518274703360, http://twitter.com/#!/anandshimpi/status/187370037408043009,
http://twitter.com/#!/anandshimpi/status/186278794687021056) and is using this in his own Macbook Pro without Trim. I want stability and reliability over being top of the benchmarks so it was between this and the Intel 520 in my eyes, however I will defer to him on this.

RAM:
16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR3 (Low profile) (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-11-11-11-30-15v)
I wanted 2x8GB because its only marginally more expensive than 4x4GB and then, this way, in a couple of years I can add another 2x8GB for a monster machine Low-profile is to give me more options when it comes to CPU coolers.

HDDs:
I have some drives suitable for backups already. I need a new 2TB media/data drive either:
WD Caviar Black 2TB (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb-wd-wd2002faex-caviar-black-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-64mb-cache-oem)
or
WD Caviar Green 2TB as it should be quieter. Although with this case, perhaps the difference is negligible? Is HDD noise significant in a build like this?

DVD Drive:
Don't really care too much about this as I hardly ever use one, but since the only other computer in the house will be a Macbook air, it would be handy to have one for those rare occasions. From other threads I believe this one will work fine:
Sony AD-7280S-0B (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sony...dvddl-dvdplusrw-x8-rwx6-12xram-sata-black-oem)
This might be a very very stupid question, but am I going to hear this drive if it's empty? It's not going to undermine the whole build by being constantly audible right???

Thanks for the patience if you made it this far! Any feedback would be awesome.

 

[Coupz]

Sir, you've done some good researching! Almost like my build


The XFX 6870 is really quiet, if it's under 50°C in my case. If it get's more then 50°C, I can hear it out of my case (just for short time, till my G5 case is modded).
I have a Caviar Blue 500GB in my build for Windows (gaming) and if I put away my headphones, I can hear it.
Noise is always a personal question, what's loud for me could be quiet for you

Your PSU choice is absolutely amazing, Seasonic is really one of the best PSU companies out there and it's a semi-passive psu, that means that if your PSU runs cool and your hardware don't need so much power (idle), the fan of the psu will stop spinning and start again if you need more power.

 

[sundanc3]

Hello,
I'm yet another first-time hope-to-be hackintosh-er, who has been lurking around here for the past couple of months trying to figure out how it all works, and am now looking to finalise a build.

I apologise for this being overly long!! It was helpful though for me at least, laying out my options.

So, I have money for a high-end iMac but I don't need the display, wanted more graphics power and wanted more than one hard drive (or ridiculous over-priced Apple SSD) without the crappy external-drive experience.

My priorities with this machine are:
1. Follow the beaten path - I want the easiest, most fully working and maintainable option that is possible outside of an actual Mac and for it to hopefully work for good few years (although of course no one can guarantee this). I don't mind tinkering to an extent but once I get it set-up I want stuff to just work and hopefully at least make it through most point-updates with only a short trip through multibeast . There seems to be a lot of success with Z68 and it seems as though Mountain Lion is going to be fine, so this will be the basis of my build.

I could wait for Z77 and Ivy to be fully working, but I don't know how long it will be before that becomes a well tested and working option for people and the only thing that attracts me there is the possibility of a DSDT-less Gigabyte Z77 to have better long term compatibility prospects over Z68? Or is that just wishful thinking?

2. Quiet - This will primarily be a machine for software development so when I'm coding I don't want to hear it. I plan to do a fair amount of gaming too under windows so I don't mind some noise there but generally I want it to be very quiet when not under sustained load.

I'm very new to all this so sorry for any stupid questions, just tell me to search some more if something has been asked too many times before.

CPU:

i7-2600K (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004FA8NOQ/?tag=tonymacx86-21)
I will likely try to get a minimal, "free" over-clock to 4.2GHz and leave it at that.

Motherboard:
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0050BGGBG/?tag=tonymacx86-21)
This seems to be a well-worn and understood choice here and ticks all the boxes for me with regards to maximum compatibility (everything works it seems, even the USB3, although I don't currently need that).

Case:
Corsair Obsidian 550d (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cors...wer-case-brushed-aluminium-usb-30-atx-w-o-psu)
OR
Fractal Design R3 (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/frac...ase-new-cable-routing-noise-absorbing-w-o-psu)
Quiet-running is a major aim here so I want a case designed for that. I have seen recommendations for both of these two cases, so not sure which to go for, but hopefully cannot lose either way?

Replacement Case Fans:
3x Noctua NF-S12B FLX 120mm Fans
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120m...ultra-quiet-flexible-(veri-speed)-cooling-fan)
To complement the quiet case, I was planning to replace the bundled case fans with these, that I hope will run very quiet. I'm very confused though over how the power management of case fans works in general though; there is PWM that I believe is a common type of fan-speed control coming off the motherboard, which these fans don't seem to support, but apparently some Gigabyte motherboards also support other methods of adjusting the fan voltage (http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=faqs&step=2&products_id=25&lng=en#3).
-- Assuming that my motherboard would support this, does this *just work* on a hackintosh?
-- These fans have 3 speed settings, but as I understand it these are fixed and changed on the hardware via adapters - the fans don't dynamically change their speed depending on temperature? Is power management just a case of ON/OFF then, so if case is hot fans come on, and otherwise are off? And what on the motherboard is controlling when to turn the fans on or off - is it CPU temperature?
-- Is a separate fan controller useful or does the motherboard regulate case-fans well enough that this is overkill? And do they work fine with hackintoshes (do they even interact with the software at all or do they just regulate the voltage sent to the fans)?

Power Supply:
Seasonic-X-560-Watt
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0040N55VW/?tag=tonymacx86-21)
Again the priority here is to be as quiet as possible. I have seen people recommend the Seasonic X series as a quality range, that is very quiet. 560W I thought should be enough for a single GPU configuration.

CPU Cooler:
Noctua NH-U12P SE2
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/noct...cooler-intel-775i7i5-and-amd-am2-3-compatible
Noctua seem to have a good reputation for quality, quiet coolers, so this seemed like a good choice, while not being quite as massive as the NH-D14. I have seen other threads on good CPU coolers though, so if there are other recommended coolers that will do a decent job cooling and do it quieter, I would love to hear?

Graphics card:
XFX 6870 Double D cooling
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...hz-1120-stream-processors-2x-dvi-hdmi-2x-mini)
I've seen a number of builds with this card, so it should work. I've also read that this card is much quieter than its single fan sibling, however not sure how well it rates in the noise department compared to the 3-fan Gigabyte?

SSD:
Samsung 830 256GB
(http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256g...e-mcx-nand-flash-read-520mb-s-write-400mb-s-2)
The crown jewel of the build in my eyes, after seeing my wife's macbook air run rings around my previous laptop. The reason I picked the Samsung 830 is mainly on the basis that Anand of AnandTech recommends this for OSX (e.g.: http://twitter.com/#!/anandshimpi/status/185549518274703360, http://twitter.com/#!/anandshimpi/status/187370037408043009,
http://twitter.com/#!/anandshimpi/status/186278794687021056) and is using this in his own Macbook Pro without Trim. I want stability and reliability over being top of the benchmarks so it was between this and the Intel 520 in my eyes, however I will defer to him on this.

RAM:
16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR3 (Low profile) (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-11-11-11-30-15v)
I wanted 2x8GB because its only marginally more expensive than 4x4GB and then, this way, in a couple of years I can add another 2x8GB for a monster machine Low-profile is to give me more options when it comes to CPU coolers.

HDDs:
I have some drives suitable for backups already. I need a new 2TB media/data drive either:
WD Caviar Black 2TB (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb-wd-wd2002faex-caviar-black-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-64mb-cache-oem)
or
WD Caviar Green 2TB as it should be quieter. Although with this case, perhaps the difference is negligible? Is HDD noise significant in a build like this?

DVD Drive:
Don't really care too much about this as I hardly ever use one, but since the only other computer in the house will be a Macbook air, it would be handy to have one for those rare occasions. From other threads I believe this one will work fine:
Sony AD-7280S-0B (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sony...dvddl-dvdplusrw-x8-rwx6-12xram-sata-black-oem)
This might be a very very stupid question, but am I going to hear this drive if it's empty? It's not going to undermine the whole build by being constantly audible right???

Thanks for the
patience if you made it this far! Any feedback would be awesome.

Important note: You need a 1TB or less drive for the boot drive. EDIT - i didn't see your SSD disregard....

Pretty jealous of this build. I'm looking into building my own but budget is much lower under 600$ so I'm going to build a little mini powerhouse

 

[cnsstnthstrs]

Sir, you've done some good researching! Almost like my build


The XFX 6870 is really quiet, if it's under 50°C in my case. If it get's more then 50°C, I can hear it out of my case (just for short time, till my G5 case is modded).
I have a Caviar Blue 500GB in my build for Windows (gaming) and if I put away my headphones, I can hear it.
Noise is always a personal question, what's loud for me could be quiet for you

Your PSU choice is absolutely amazing, Seasonic is really one of the best PSU companies out there and it's a semi-passive psu, that means that if your PSU runs cool and your hardware don't need so much power (idle), the fan of the psu will stop spinning and start again if you need more power.

Thanks, your build is actually one of the ones I had bookmarked during my researching, so the similarities are intentional

I was planning on a Caviar Black 500GB for the windows partition, but was hoping that the rubber mounts in the hard drive bays on this case would lessen the impact of this noise... may have to rethink the hard drives though if that's not the case.

Do you find your graphics card gets above that 50°C mark very often when you are not gaming? I think my build isn't going to be the coolest with all the case's noise dampening foam and the slower fans, but I'm hoping that things wouldn't get too hot in there outside of gaming or stressing the CPU for long periods.

Yeah, that is good news on the power supply, I really want things to idle well so that's why I'm happy to pay more for the Seasonic.

How do you find your CPU cooler, the NH-U9B since I think that is quite similar to the NH-U12P? Do you find you hear that a lot, or is it also quite quiet (again subjectively to you of course )? Is there any part of your build that you hear the most, and anything you would change if you could do it again?

Thanks for the input!

 

[cnsstnthstrs]

Important note: You need a 1TB or less drive for the boot drive. EDIT - i didn't see your SSD disregard....

Pretty jealous of this build. I'm looking into building my own but budget is much lower under 600$ so I'm going to build a little mini powerhouse

I saw this 1TB limit mentioned on another thread yesterday and couldn't fathom it... Although not a problem for this build, is that really the case, and why is there that limitation?

Thanks!

 

[Coupz]

After I changed my screen to the Cinema Display 27", I can hear my GPU more then before. I don't know if it's just because of the resolution, or because Google Chrome uses for every site GPU acceleration. So since my Display change, my GPU is most of the time over 50°C and louder, which I don't like tbh.

I almost can't hear the Noctua, but I didn't plugged in the CPU_FAN header on my mobo. I have 2 case fans (both PWM and UD3H-B3 has not much PWM fan headers) and will buy a fan-controller for my PWM fans, then I'll connect the Noctua back to the CPU_FAN header.
If I could do it again, I would get another PSU (Enermax E9 is pretty quiet, but not quiet enough for me ) and other fans and a bigger Noctua or even a liquid cooling like Corsair H80 or H100. And if I could do it again, I would go with a Nvidia GPU because of CUDA cores (for my Adobe apps), the Nvidia GTX 5xx series where not supported at the time, when I build my hack

But your chosen case is better then my actual case, so it should hold your parts cooler then mine


For 1TB boot drive: that's a OS X Lion feature, that you can't install it on a partition that's bigger then 1TB.

 

[cnsstnthstrs]

Thanks Coupz, that's interesting - my current screen is only 1680x1050 so hopefully it will run a little bit cooler.

Also, if you don't connect the Noctua to your CPU_FAN header, how does it get it's power? Do you connect it to something else?

I haven't really understood how the fans are managed/powered yet to be honest, that's a task for tonight . I do see though that the UD3H has a CPU_FAN header, 2 SYS_FAN headers, and 1 PWR_FAN header. If I have 3 case fans then, but only 2 SYS_FAN headers, not sure how I power the other one? Can you just plug them directly into the Power supply? Or is this why people buy fan controllers?

I am shocked at Lion not supporting a boot drive bigger than 1TB That seems nuts! Hopefully that is gone in Mountain Lion...

 

[Mate94]

Thanks Coupz, that's interesting - my current screen is only 1680x1050 so hopefully it will run a little bit cooler.

Also, if you don't connect the Noctua to your CPU_FAN header, how does it get it's power? Do you connect it to something else?

I haven't really understood how the fans are managed/powered yet to be honest, that's a task for tonight . I do see though that the UD3H has a CPU_FAN header, 2 SYS_FAN headers, and 1 PWR_FAN header. If I have 3 case fans then, but only 2 SYS_FAN headers, not sure how I power the other one? Can you just plug them directly into the Power supply? Or is this why people buy fan controllers?

I am shocked at Lion not supporting a boot drive bigger than 1TB That seems nuts! Hopefully that is gone in Mountain Lion...

The 1TB boot drive depends only on Chimera, not on the OS. But unlikely it will change.

 

[Mate94]

double

 

[Coupz]

Yeah I have the Noctua on my SYS_FAN1 i believe (I'm not at home, but I'll look for it when I'm at home).
I don't know how exactly I can change the fan speed of the Noctua, if it's plugged in the CPU_FAN header, my other 2 PWM fans (for case) are running at fullspeed. I bought them wrong and don't know how I can regulate the 2 PWM fans for my case at a 3 pin fan connection.
That's why I'm thinking of buying a fan controller.