quiet/occasional gamer pc?

[oldson]

Hi
i am new on here, and am looking to replace my current desktop.

i generally use the pc for surfing, storing photos, listening to music (thru separate dac, amp and headphones) and occasional gaming.

on the occasion i do play games, i want the machine to play current games well, but not extreme.

when i want to listen to music, i want the machine to be quiet.
my headphones do not isolate the noise made by my current pc's fans.
this is not a problem when gaming, but is annoying when listening to music.

i have been drawn to pcs by the general reviews i have read.

the 2 systems that have caught my attention are
vortex 1000 gaming pc. http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-1000-gaming-pc/
and DAW 1000 pc. http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/DAW-1000-PC/

the latter is in the pro-audio section.
i have noticed they share the same cpu/ cooler, does this mean the GPU is the component that produces most noise?

any advice on this would be appreciated.
cheers
Simon

 

[mantadog]

Good choice on PCS, whatever you order you will be pleased.

What makes the noise in a PC are the fans on the case and components, to a lesser extent the HDD/DVD drive. The CPU cooler in those 2 pre built systems is about as quiet as it gets, i have bog standard cooling and case fans and they do make a bit of a noise, however it's not something that bothers me at all.

If you want the quietest system possible, with plenty of power this would be idea.


Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE This case helps with keeping the noise down.
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache More than enough power to do anything you like for a long time.
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX Basic motherboard but i doubt you will need anything the more costly ones offer.
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) Plenty
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - DVI,HDMI,VGA **SPECIAL OFFER** Slightly more power for gaming, the 550ti is at the bottom of the tree when it comes to gaming power, a 560 or perhaps a 560ti if you could afford it and want a slightly better gaming experiance, would be ideal
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW) OS + main applications run from this, silent and very quick indeed
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHEGreat storage drive, very quiet and still a nice fast drive.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69) PSU is nice and quiet, plenty of room to add a better GPU if you wish later. It will support a top of the range one should you wish to get into serious gaming
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19) Again very quiet
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,019.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/

Don't know anything about soundcard etc, i really don't get music (yeah im strange like that) but that spec is the basicis of what you will need.

 

[Karnor00]

Modern GPUs are typically quite/very noisy when they are being pushed hard (i.e. playing games) but reasonably quiet otherwise.

 

[oldson]

Good choice on PCS, whatever you order you will be pleased.

What makes the noise in a PC are the fans on the case and components, to a lesser extent the HDD/DVD drive. The CPU cooler in those 2 pre built systems is about as quiet as it gets, i have bog standard cooling and case fans and they do make a bit of a noise, however it's not something that bothers me at all.

If you want the quietest system possible, with plenty of power this would be idea.


Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE This case helps with keeping the noise down.
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache More than enough power to do anything you like for a long time.
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX Basic motherboard but i doubt you will need anything the more costly ones offer.
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) Plenty
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - DVI,HDMI,VGA **SPECIAL OFFER** Slightly more power for gaming, the 550ti is at the bottom of the tree when it comes to gaming power, a 560 or perhaps a 560ti if you could afford it and want a slightly better gaming experiance, would be ideal
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW) OS + main applications run from this, silent and very quick indeed
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHEGreat storage drive, very quiet and still a nice fast drive.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69) PSU is nice and quiet, plenty of room to add a better GPU if you wish later. It will support a top of the range one should you wish to get into serious gaming
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19) Again very quiet
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,019.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/

Don't know anything about soundcard etc, i really don't get music (yeah im strange like that) but that spec is the basicis of what you will need.

Mantadog
thanks for the reply.
i could stretch to the 560ti.
if i do get back into games, i would like the option to add another 560ti in the future. so i would have to go up on the motherboard option.
if i did this, in the future, would the case still be ok , on the cooling front?

i was expecting to need 16gb of ram, but if 8 as you say is "plenty" , happy days!
would there be a noticable improvement in performance if i upgraded to faster ram?
thanks again

 

[mantadog]

Modern GPUs are typically quite/very noisy when they are being pushed hard (i.e. playing games) but reasonably quiet otherwise.

That's a point i ment to make myself ( +rep for Karnor), unless your gaming you wont really notice your GPU because they do run very quiet when not in use. Infact some of the latest models turn off and run from the onboard graphics to save power and produce less noise. Anyway you don't need to worry about the GPU being loud when not gaming, so will be ideal for your music etc.

 

[oldson]

ok this is probably a silly question but would an overclocked system be quiet when not being used for gaming?
for instance :-
The Vortex 1000 OC ??

 

[bigben]

ok this is probably a silly question but would an overclocked system be quiet when not being used for gaming?
for instance :-
The Vortex 1000 OC ??

1. There is no need to overclock for gaming.
2. The system would be noisier as the fans would be going faster to keep it cool enough.

 

[mantadog]

1. There is no need to overclock for gaming.
2. The system would be noisier as the fans would be going faster to keep it cool enough.

Partly right, in that their is no need for an overclock for gaming. However running at idle the temps would hardly rise so when your not pushing the system you should still have a nice quiet system. I would skip an overclock to be honest, as even with 2 x 560ti's you wont be pushing the CPU - the GPU's will still be the bottleneck.

You will be glad of a 560ti, and if you need to you can always add a 2nd in the future, however if were talking a couple of years down the line you may well be better just getting a mid range card from the available at the time like the 760 or 860 or whatever is launched at the time. If you would just like to ad a 2nd 560ti, just make sure you have a big enough PSU and as you said upgrade the motherboard.

As it stands modern games use 4GB of RAM, so that gives you double the headroom which the next generation of games will start to use. If your happy to add a 2nd GPU later then adding 2 more stick of RAM is really no problem so if on the off chance you do need to it wont be a problem. The faster RAM is pointless, any performance you gain would be impossible to notice unless you ran some benchmarks and even then your talking 1-5% from what i understand( depends on the application). Most benefiting at the lower end by far.

 

[oldson]

Partly right, in that their is no need for an overclock for gaming. However running at idle the temps would hardly rise so when your not pushing the system you should still have a nice quiet system. I would skip an overclock to be honest, as even with 2 x 560ti's you wont be pushing the CPU - the GPU's will still be the bottleneck.

You will be glad of a 560ti, and if you need to you can always add a 2nd in the future, however if were talking a couple of years down the line you may well be better just getting a mid range card from the available at the time like the 760 or 860 or whatever is launched at the time. If you would just like to ad a 2nd 560ti, just make sure you have a big enough PSU and as you said upgrade the motherboard.

As it stands modern games use 4GB of RAM, so that gives you double the headroom which the next generation of games will start to use. If your happy to add a 2nd GPU later then adding 2 more stick of RAM is really no problem so if on the off chance you do need to it wont be a problem. The faster RAM is pointless, any performance you gain would be impossible to notice unless you ran some benchmarks and even then your talking 1-5% from what i understand( depends on the application). Most benefiting at the lower end by far.

many thanks for the advice. i now have a much clearer picture of what i want/need!
cheers

 

[oldson]

one last thing!
assuming i forget sli and stick to single gpu.
which ati card is rough equal of the 560ti?
cheers

 

[bigben]

Partly right, in that their is no need for an overclock for gaming. However running at idle the temps would hardly rise so when your not pushing the system you should still have a nice quiet system.

My mistake then, I'm still a bit new to this

 

[chrcar59]

Can I ask why you have chosen a low performance green hdd over a black high performance?

Would you run the games on ssd?

Also, if you are going for the green I have noticed the 2.5 is only £20 more, which is why I am asking this question.

 

[mantadog]

Hmm, a 7850 is a little more cash but it is faster, other than that the only thing PCS stocks would be a 6870, which isn't as good as a 560ti. My own personaly choice would be a 7850 as it is a good bit faster than a 560ti for about an extra £20.

 

[mantadog]

My mistake then, I'm still a bit new to this

No problem, i was in your situation a couple years back. Just for future info, it's because modern CPU's underclock (and overclock for that matter) dynamically to save power, heat and noise. So even if you overclock it, it will still only go into overclock mode whenyou really need it to.

 

[mantadog]

Can I ask why you have chosen a low performance green hdd over a black high performance?

Would you run the games on ssd?

Also, if you are going for the green I have noticed the 2.5 is only £20 more, which is why I am asking this question.

I hadn't noticed the 2.5TB drive was only a little more, good spot (i hardly ever spec machines with them in so thats my excuse, and im sticking to it!) The reason for the 'low performance' green drive was because the OP wanted "when i want to listen to music, i want the machine to be quiet". The green is still a fairly speedy drive, so no realy worry about it being a slow machine, especially with a SSD for windows etc, but because the OP wanted a quiet machine it is slightly better suited. I have the caviar black, and if you push it hard like an antivirus scan or something while listning to music it would be a little loud.

 

[chrcar59]

Thanks, I'll stick to black.

 

[oldson]

Hmm, a 7850 is a little more cash but it is faster, other than that the only thing PCS stocks would be a 6870, which isn't as good as a 560ti. My own personaly choice would be a 7850 as it is a good bit faster than a 560ti for about an extra £20.

thanks for the gpu suggestion, reckon i will go with the 7850

 

[oldson]

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-3570k Quad Core (3.40GHz @ max 4.60GHz)

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Free Item
Free Item
FREE DIRT SHOWDOWN GAME with any AMD 7000 Series GPU!

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity 1

@ £1151
by my research this should be a quiet(when idle) capable gaming rig.
any thoughts?
ready to pull the trigger on this

 

[oldson]

looks like i will have to go for it and find out.

 

[PokerFace]

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-3570k Quad Core (3.40GHz @ max 4.60GHz)

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Free Item
Free Item
FREE DIRT SHOWDOWN GAME with any AMD 7000 Series GPU!

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity 1

@ £1151
by my research this should be a quiet(when idle) capable gaming rig.
any thoughts?
ready to pull the trigger on this

oldson,

I see your build has an SSD included, but what about a HDD for storage? Did you forget to include it, or are you installing your own HDD?