Anyone can build a gaming PC. Seriously, it’s easy. Minus a few technological bits of know-how here and there, there’s really nothing that tough about buying the fastest components you can afford and slapping them in whatever chassis you happen to have on hand. Done, right?
Maximum PC never shies away from a challenge, however, and Sr. Associate Editor Nathan Edwards has upped the ante for this month’s build-it. One of the key problems of building a tricked-out rig is that you’re sure to increase the ambient volume of the system as you increase its power. But I’m not here for a trade-off: No, I’ve accepted the challenge to build a gaming system that’s as quiet as a mouse.
Spoiler: It’s a lot harder than it seems.
Case Silverstone PS05 $50
The backbone of my proposed gaming PC is fairly standard: a Core i7 CPU paired with an Nvidia GTX 480 videocard. That is more than enough to frag my friends in any title I toss at it, and more to the point, if you already own a PC you want to hush, these are parts that a Maximum PC reader could very well have. Of course, you don’t need these exact components—though the total cost of my silenced rig exceeds $2,000, the cost for the sound-damping materials (including case) is less than $300, and you can easily apply those materials to the PC you already have.
There’s no shortage of devices that promise awesome performance at an ultra-low acoustic profile. My plan was to stick as many quiet-themed products in my PC as possible—including a silent CPU cooler, an aftermarket cooler for my videocard, quieter fans, and as much acoustic padding as I had room to mount into the case.
But that’s not all. For comparison’s sake, I also decided to build a rig inside of Fractal Design’s R3 chassis—a $120 case that arrives on your doorstep pre-configured for silence (see review here). Besting this quiet beast was my secondary goal.
Thermaltake
Jing With two 12cm fans to push air over the heat fins, it’s a much quieter cooler than the stock Intel model that came with our CPU.
Zalman VF300F
This aftermarket GPU cooler replaces the hot-
and-noisy stock cooler of our EVGA GeForce GTX 480 with something larger and quieter.
Fan Controller
The inside of our case looked a lot cleaner before we inserted the PCB for our fan controller (and its tangle of fan cables and temperature probes).
Small Extras
Rubber mounting pegs rather than screws cut down on fan-vibration noise.
Staring at an empty case can be a daunting moment for the would-be soundproofer. Every part of the building process must be meticulously planned to avoid inducing rage and/or headaches caused by backtracking. The last thing you want is to try tacking acoustical foam all around a chassis once you already have your parts and wiring in place. I cannot think of a greater frustration than that, save for stripping the super-tiny screw on a videocard. More on that later.
Because of this, it’s really important to start this kind of build by determining how much soundproof padding you’re going to need and where you’re going to place it. You can pick up acoustical foam in a variety of configurations and sizes. Without getting too much into the intricate details, a simple rule of thumb is that more foam equals more soundproofing. Yes, you can buy super-fancy foam packs that are composed of multiple layers of various densities, but a single ordinary (albeit thick) density is fine.
Mounting the foam in my case was a relatively simple process. Next, I installed two 12cm fans into the chassis, using their included rubber fasteners rather than metal screws to adhere them to the case. The more I can cut down on unnecessary vibrations, the better.
You have to be careful, yet firm, when pulling the rubber fasteners through the fan and case. Too much pressure and you’ll rip the rubber fastener in two.
Although I intended to use some Yate Loon D12SM-12C fans, the 1,500rpm Silverstone fans that shipped with my chassis actually turned out to be a little quieter in an impromptu head-to-head contest. As always, the rear fan on the case was installed to push air out of the case, with the front fan sucking air in across the hard drive bays.
The Jing’s two fans pop off easily, which is good because you can’t install the cooler when they’re mounted.
I tossed in the system’s standard DVD burner to reward myself for my efforts thus far before tackling the elephant in the room: the aftermarket Thermaltake Jing CPU cooler that I picked up to replace the stock Intel cooler. Thoroughly describing how to install this particular add-on would require an article in itself. The short version is that it involved such enjoyable tasks as using two different cleaners to wipe thermal goop off the CPU; installing all sorts of screws, dividers, and other such accessories just to mount this behemoth of a cooler; and replacing one such mission-critical screw upon finding that it had snapped off within one of the mounting brackets. Thank [deity of your choice here] for spare parts.
Big and gaudy, just the way we like our CPU coolers.
Why go aftermarket, you ask? By slapping an ungodly large dual-fan cooler over the Intel Core i7-930 CPU, I believed I could achieve stronger cooling without having to crank the device’s fans to ear-splitting revolutions.
I slapped the cooler onto the CPU, then screwed the whole assemblage—motherboard and all—onto the chassis using the case’s built-in mounts. At this point, it appeared that I had reached the halfway point in our little adventure. The sweet silence of raw gaming power was in my grasp!
Comments are closed on this article
aviaggio
January 20, 2011 at 9:51am
Did you even read the article? Or are you just fixated on the pictures? If you RTFA you'd know that the fan controller had a serious number of cables to it. Second, the application of the foam greatly reduces (or completely eliminates) the channel spaces one typically uses to route and hide cables.
TheMurph
January 19, 2011 at 11:22pm
Sorry. The focus was on noise, not beauty. But we'll do a better job tidying things up for the photo shoot next time around.
Cache
January 19, 2011 at 5:23pm
How is the NZXT Sentry LXE? I still have the original Sentry LX in two dedicated bays--and have considered moving to the LXE, but I am honestly still undecided at the end of the day. Also, how much clearance was there with that CPU cooler?? That thing really was huge looking!
TheMurph
January 19, 2011 at 11:20pm
I enjoy the LXE myself, if for nothing else than the touch-screen display that you can mount on your desk. Talk about easy modifications.
Clearance? Barely any. The door just fit on with a fraction of space to spare.
Havok
January 19, 2011 at 4:59pm
When was the last time Dave 'The Murph' Murphy did a PC build for Maximum PC? WAs it the hobo-rig-in-a-cardboard-box build?
SilverSurferNHS
January 19, 2011 at 6:06pm
P6X58D, just sayin... or is it a new board, looks new (like the usb3 board)
13thwarrior
January 19, 2011 at 8:41pm
For those questioning Murph's choice of parts, you have to remember some things. This was an article that was printed in the magazine. Magazines like MaxPC are being put together sometimes up to 2 to 3 months in advance, So when Nathan built this rig he and the rest of the MaxPC crew were still under NDA by Intel so he couldn't use Sandy Bridge stuff. Well he could of if he possibly had some early samples given out to reviewers, or maybe these are just some spare parts laying around the lab. The only thing I question is why you didn't use an SSD for the boot drive instead of the Raptor, as it has been a trend lately in your builds to use small sandforce SSDs to help boost performance. Again this could just be that he didn't have one laying around in the lab, or they wanted to test the new SATA 6.0gbps Raptor.
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