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Mods which ruin a WORKING antique and/or rare instrument are no cool regardless of the coolness of the mod itself.
I have actually been looking for a Geiger counter for years, and the first time I hear about someone having a spare Geiger counter it is gutted to insert a bloody iPod?!?

Although geeks usually are not so much into woodworks, I would say that retrofitting modern gadgets into wooden boxes,
made remotely with the same care as a musical instrument or decoration item, would score many more geek points than just fitting
one item into another box after some gluing and soldering.

This guy has actually silenced his noisy PC by putting it into a wooden case, so it could even be of some practical use to use wood too!

You really can't beat the Seasonic S12 series. Extremely low noise (silent for most purposes under normal conditions), clean power, high-efficency (less heat / wasted power), active PFC (easier on the power lines), auto 120/240 voltage.

The S12 comes in a 330W version that should be fine for your PC. It runs around $55-$65 on the 'Egg or other online stores.

Pair it with a nice case (Antec 3000SLK or perhaps P180), a decent CPU heatsink (Scythe Ninja, Zalman, or a number of others), and a decent mobo/GPU (no fan), and a nice drive (Samsung is the best, Maxtor/Seagate/WD FDB drives can be pretty quiet as well), and you have a nice quiet system.

Check out http://silentpcreview.com/

Don't forget the PentiumM based SD11G5
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article274-page1.htm l

or you could get a 150W PSU and DC-DC Converter Kit to make your own power brick setup from http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=10#dcdc

Shuttle's ST62K has an external power supply, and uses socket 478 cpus:

Review at Silent PC Review
Shuttle Product Page

$215 at Newegg

Probably the best PSU for your use is a Seasonic S12-330W. About $50, and coupled with a Antec 3000B or similar less than $80. If you want more powerful, I'd look at the Antec P150 with included NeoPower 430.

do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?

Here's a photo tour. A small review. A larger review.

You also might want to ask on the forums at Silent PC review. There are people there who have a lot of experience building silent PCs and will be able to let you know if there is an external power supply that would fit your requirements.

do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?

Here's a photo tour. A small review. A larger review.

You also might want to ask on the forums at Silent PC review. There are people there who have a lot of experience building silent PCs and will be able to let you know if there is an external power supply that would fit your requirements.

do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?

Here's a photo tour. A small review. A larger review.

You also might want to ask on the forums at Silent PC review. There are people there who have a lot of experience building silent PCs and will be able to let you know if there is an external power supply that would fit your requirements.

do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?

Here's a photo tour. A small review. A larger review.

You also might want to ask on the forums at Silent PC review. There are people there who have a lot of experience building silent PCs and will be able to let you know if there is an external power supply that would fit your requirements.

Think more along the line of three to five computers if they are high end AMD based computers. A high end amd computer will on avg, use 200-300w from the wall when running at max speed.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page4.html

Quiet is all well and good, but if you want a *silent* HTPC, there is only one place to go: http://www.silentpcreview.com/.

Full disclosure: I write news stories for SPCR.

Seriously, if you want real reviews on noise&heat, just go to SPCR, at least these guys know what they talk about and their Recommended sections give you all the damn facts you need in the easiest possible way to read them

Seriously, if you want real reviews on noise&heat, just go to SPCR, at least these guys know what they talk about and their Recommended sections give you all the damn facts you need in the easiest possible way to read them

Here's a review of a current Antec PSU: "2. EFFICIENCY was a little disappointing for a model that claims to be high efficiency. The meassured efficiency peak of 79% is three percentage points off the 82% claimed for 115VAC input. Because our methodology for testing efficiency has just been revised, we do not yet have a large database of efficiency data to compare our results to, but preliminary testing has turned up at number of power supplies that peak above 80% efficiency. It would not be correct to say that the Neo HE is inefficient, merely that it not as efficient as Antec claims, and it is not quite in the top tier when it comes to efficiency."

So, not great, but you're a bit harsh. The power factor of the model tested in the review is essentially 1 for all relevant voltages - you obviously got a model without PFC, so the bad power factor isn't really surprising. Recent models all have active PFC because it's required for use in the EU.

im doing the same thing but just not on the same schedual you are i just ordered one of these to better understand the power draw on various componants the pro model is a data logger the cheap and dirty method can be found at.. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article19-page1.html A $5 DIY Power Meter

Purchase a little dongle to test how much power your utilities consume while you plan this project. I'd much rather have empirical knowledge about power consumption on a given system rather than trying to piece together information from shottily written technical documents on the internet. My family owns one of these devices from http://www.seasonic.com/, and I recommend purchasing something from their S-12 power supply line. Supposedly they have the highest ratio of power drawn to power consumed by the system, and all of their gear is tagged "80 plus" for 80% efficient or better. Also see this article: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article261-page1.htm l.

Sounds like you should really take a look at http://silentpcreview.com/

That said, for high-power applications, you should avoid the latest Pentium 4/D/Xeon chips in favor of the latest Athlon64/Opterons, but it's still only a few percent of the TCO.

This thing uses twice as much power as a 7800gtx/6800ultra.

How bad is that? It can be quantified: A 6800gt, lower clocked & only 12 pipelines, sucks down 38 watts at idle: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page4.htm l
38 watts doing nothing!

Accounting for more pipelines & higher core & memory clocks, the 6800ultra sucks down around 50 watts at idle. The 7800gtx & x850xt burn roughly the same: http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2496&p=1 0

And here: http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article id=734
we see the x1800xt burns 50 watts more than the x850. Ergo, this sucker burns around 100 Watts just sitting there.

Going by the anand results, the 7800gt uses 27 Watts less than an ultra, which would means it uses less than the 6800gt, 50-27=23 watts at idle. We have a winner!

Yeah. I had to make a custom sound-deadening enclosure with it's own series of fans to get my HDD's down to a reasonable volume. Of course, I also need a computer capable of running games... My fanless C3 is with a 1GB flashcard is pretty quiet, but try getting that to run Half-Life 2. So I'm stuck with the more noisy one. But there is a lot you can do to get the noise down.

It sounds like you're already hooked up, but just in case I recommend Silent PC Review. They were one of the first sites dedicated to the topic, and they're still the best.

The most powerful PC in this test on Silent PC Review draws 214W. Granted, you can built a machine that draws more: two graphics cards, four or six HDs instead of just two,elaborate lighting setups. It probably still won't draw 500W, though...

This is a typical PSU review, that is to say worthless. The problem is to do a good PSU reivew you actually need quite a bit of hardware, most little online sites lack even the most basic testing tools (a good multimeter and a controllable load). They make no mention of how they measured the voltages (software, or voltmeter, and from where, pigtail, ATX connector, somewhere else), they put a system that probably doesn't draw 125W DC at load to test out a 500W PSU, they have no real PSU temperature or efficency information. Typical of a site who's reviewing expertiese consists soley of swaping out parts, running 3D Mark and reporting the difference.

Silent PC Review does half way decent reviews, and over the last year or so XBit Labs has starting doing very good PSU reviews. Beyond that there aren't too many places that consistantly hit the mark.

For a silent PSU (not sure why this is that big of a deal, I have a TruePower 330W and can't hear it over the HDD, but I guess some people will always pay for that last dB quieter), there's of course the Phantom 300, the SilverStone 'NF' series, a 300 and a 400W version, the Fortron Source Zen 300; recently reviewed on XBitLabs and Silent PC Review, with just rock solid voltages across the spectrum. And of course the SeaSonic S12 line while not fanless is known to be extremely quiet and highly efficient

This is a typical PSU review, that is to say worthless. The problem is to do a good PSU reivew you actually need quite a bit of hardware, most little online sites lack even the most basic testing tools (a good multimeter and a controllable load). They make no mention of how they measured the voltages (software, or voltmeter, and from where, pigtail, ATX connector, somewhere else), they put a system that probably doesn't draw 125W DC at load to test out a 500W PSU, they have no real PSU temperature or efficency information. Typical of a site who's reviewing expertiese consists soley of swaping out parts, running 3D Mark and reporting the difference.

Silent PC Review does half way decent reviews, and over the last year or so XBit Labs has starting doing very good PSU reviews. Beyond that there aren't too many places that consistantly hit the mark.

For a silent PSU (not sure why this is that big of a deal, I have a TruePower 330W and can't hear it over the HDD, but I guess some people will always pay for that last dB quieter), there's of course the Phantom 300, the SilverStone 'NF' series, a 300 and a 400W version, the Fortron Source Zen 300; recently reviewed on XBitLabs and Silent PC Review, with just rock solid voltages across the spectrum. And of course the SeaSonic S12 line while not fanless is known to be extremely quiet and highly efficient

Do you really need that much power?

here

that should be http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Parent (ghostmaker) is exactly right. Despite 10 years of computer building experience, I spent a good part of last week diagnosing what went wrong with my 3.2Ghz P4 'baby' that I built a year ago. The intermittent startups, shutdowns, and freezes screamed "RAM problem!" but even after swapping out the RAM, the problem persisted. Not wanting to believe that it could be a CPU or Mobo related problem, I scoured the internet for symptoms of a faulty PSU, but there is surprisingly little information. Before dropping 150-300$ on another replacement part, I hooked up a friend's 300W PSU, and VOILA! Sure enough, my cheapo 400W PSU was throwing out crazy, fluxuating voltages, thus freezing the CPU. This accounted for the highly variable success in starting the computer.

I purchased a new PSU this weekend based on the PSU ratings at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ because for me (and my roommates), an efficient, quiet PSU was essential, so I settled on the Seasonic S12 300W. It's great to see PSU reviews getting more press these days, as they are probably the last part of computer building that is very, very unreliable. Builders know where to get quality motherboards, RAM, CPUs, drives, and even cases at a cheap price, but power supplies are the wildcard. There is no governing body for PSU quality except Intel's "recommendations", and until lately, very little reviews besides NewEgg.com user comments to guide one's purchasing.

Thanks Hexus, Tom's, and SilentPCreview for filling in the gaps!

Well, you could suspend your 3.5" drives in a 5.25" cage to get rid of vibration (reducing noise).

I was thinking of suspending a smallish 3.5" cage inside the 5.25" one.

Anyone knows where one can get old, possibly broken, computers for free in the Toronto area for such experiments?

Silent PC Review has had a review of this drive up for some time. Some desktop users prefer using notebook drives for generally quieter performance. Naturally, the SPCR review will focus more on the acoustical properties of the drive, but it's at least a different perspective and an interesting read.

• low noise fans, such as the Nexus 120mm
• hard disk drives, currently Samsung has the quietest
• power supplies, the site rates fanless PSUs
• cases, i.e. best PC case for airflow and such

Apex of enclosure technology to date?

Not bad but I think this Antec is more so: Antec P180

C'mon Slashdotters, how many times must we quiet/silent PC enthusiasts link it before you actually take a look and read what constitutes a silent PC? http://www.silentpcreview.com/

This site has a lot of ideas:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

An earlier guy wrote about how he ran cables to his garage and kept his keyboard, monitor, mouse, so he couldn't hear any noise from his computer. It only cost him a few hundred plus labor. But there are alternatives.

Here's some of mine:
Get a passive power supply (check the article this whole thing is about, or google for some, or check the SPC site at the top of my post)

Get a passive CPU cooler (they do exist) or use one of the ones that can mount a 120mm fan, make sure all fans are very low noise 120mm fans that can move more air than smaller fans, but at much less noise.

Here's an example of a passive CPU heatsink (its quite big, but can handle fast modern CPU's)
http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/4in1heatpipe/cl -p0071SonicTower/cl-p0071.htm

You may want to consider some of the recent AMD64 cpu's that run quite cool and low voltage, but yet very good performance. Like the venice version of the AMD64 90nm 939 pin 3000+ cpu.

Memory doesn't matter so much, you can use them as is.

Get a graphics card that is passivly cooled. For example, I bought this one and I love it:
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV- NX66T128VP.htm
Its a nvidia 6600gt pci-express.

An alternative is to get one of the mobos that support the Pentium M CPU. That cpu is normally for laptops, but has great performance and very low power and heat. You can also get older graphics cards that are cheaper and passively cooled and put out less heat (my 6600gt gets pretty how) if you aren't going to do any gaming.

Replace the chipset fan with a heatsink
I used this one on my asus a8n-sli deluxe mobo:
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx= 71&code=014

As for hard drive, check this:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article258-page3.htm l
Its a 200 gig SATA hard drive with noise levels of 21db idle and around 24db while writing.
If this is still too much, get an older 5400 rpm hard drive and enable the noise reduction technology on it. Many many hard drives have utilites you can download from manufacture to enable noise reduction in operation. It slows the performance a slight amount but can often reduce noise quite a lot. I dont know if laptop drives are any quieter, but you could purchase one and use one of those adapters to plug it into a normal IDE plug.

Get a well designed case. Here's a review of a system that runs cooler than an open air test bench and can use a single 120mm 5.5 volt case fan:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article254-page4.htm l

Or if you really want to go extreme in case design, there was a case a couple years ago that was almost $1000 and it was basically one giant heatsink with stuff so you could passive cool cpu and video card to the outside of the case, so you could operate it fanlessly if you wanted.

For fans, if the uber quiet 120mm fans are still too noisey, then run them at 7v or 5v instead of the normal 12v. You can greatly reduce the noise this way and its not a hard thing to do.

This page has a bunch of info and PDF/xls tables on differant fan characteristics with undervolting. You can get fans down to 15 or less db when you run them at 5 volts (the ones that work at that speed)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article25-page1.html

If this is still too much, you can go with eve

This site has a lot of ideas:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

An earlier guy wrote about how he ran cables to his garage and kept his keyboard, monitor, mouse, so he couldn't hear any noise from his computer. It only cost him a few hundred plus labor. But there are alternatives.

Here's some of mine:
Get a passive power supply (check the article this whole thing is about, or google for some, or check the SPC site at the top of my post)

Get a passive CPU cooler (they do exist) or use one of the ones that can mount a 120mm fan, make sure all fans are very low noise 120mm fans that can move more air than smaller fans, but at much less noise.

Here's an example of a passive CPU heatsink (its quite big, but can handle fast modern CPU's)
http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/4in1heatpipe/cl -p0071SonicTower/cl-p0071.htm

You may want to consider some of the recent AMD64 cpu's that run quite cool and low voltage, but yet very good performance. Like the venice version of the AMD64 90nm 939 pin 3000+ cpu.

Memory doesn't matter so much, you can use them as is.

Get a graphics card that is passivly cooled. For example, I bought this one and I love it:
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV- NX66T128VP.htm
Its a nvidia 6600gt pci-express.

An alternative is to get one of the mobos that support the Pentium M CPU. That cpu is normally for laptops, but has great performance and very low power and heat. You can also get older graphics cards that are cheaper and passively cooled and put out less heat (my 6600gt gets pretty how) if you aren't going to do any gaming.

Replace the chipset fan with a heatsink
I used this one on my asus a8n-sli deluxe mobo:
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx= 71&code=014

As for hard drive, check this:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article258-page3.htm l
Its a 200 gig SATA hard drive with noise levels of 21db idle and around 24db while writing.
If this is still too much, get an older 5400 rpm hard drive and enable the noise reduction technology on it. Many many hard drives have utilites you can download from manufacture to enable noise reduction in operation. It slows the performance a slight amount but can often reduce noise quite a lot. I dont know if laptop drives are any quieter, but you could purchase one and use one of those adapters to plug it into a normal IDE plug.

Get a well designed case. Here's a review of a system that runs cooler than an open air test bench and can use a single 120mm 5.5 volt case fan:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article254-page4.htm l

Or if you really want to go extreme in case design, there was a case a couple years ago that was almost $1000 and it was basically one giant heatsink with stuff so you could passive cool cpu and video card to the outside of the case, so you could operate it fanlessly if you wanted.

For fans, if the uber quiet 120mm fans are still too noisey, then run them at 7v or 5v instead of the normal 12v. You can greatly reduce the noise this way and its not a hard thing to do.

This page has a bunch of info and PDF/xls tables on differant fan characteristics with undervolting. You can get fans down to 15 or less db when you run them at 5 volts (the ones that work at that speed)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article25-page1.html

If this is still too much, you can go with eve

This site has a lot of ideas:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

An earlier guy wrote about how he ran cables to his garage and kept his keyboard, monitor, mouse, so he couldn't hear any noise from his computer. It only cost him a few hundred plus labor. But there are alternatives.

Here's some of mine:
Get a passive power supply (check the article this whole thing is about, or google for some, or check the SPC site at the top of my post)

Get a passive CPU cooler (they do exist) or use one of the ones that can mount a 120mm fan, make sure all fans are very low noise 120mm fans that can move more air than smaller fans, but at much less noise.

Here's an example of a passive CPU heatsink (its quite big, but can handle fast modern CPU's)
http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/4in1heatpipe/cl -p0071SonicTower/cl-p0071.htm

You may want to consider some of the recent AMD64 cpu's that run quite cool and low voltage, but yet very good performance. Like the venice version of the AMD64 90nm 939 pin 3000+ cpu.

Memory doesn't matter so much, you can use them as is.

Get a graphics card that is passivly cooled. For example, I bought this one and I love it:
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV- NX66T128VP.htm
Its a nvidia 6600gt pci-express.

An alternative is to get one of the mobos that support the Pentium M CPU. That cpu is normally for laptops, but has great performance and very low power and heat. You can also get older graphics cards that are cheaper and passively cooled and put out less heat (my 6600gt gets pretty how) if you aren't going to do any gaming.

Replace the chipset fan with a heatsink
I used this one on my asus a8n-sli deluxe mobo:
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx= 71&code=014

As for hard drive, check this:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article258-page3.htm l
Its a 200 gig SATA hard drive with noise levels of 21db idle and around 24db while writing.
If this is still too much, get an older 5400 rpm hard drive and enable the noise reduction technology on it. Many many hard drives have utilites you can download from manufacture to enable noise reduction in operation. It slows the performance a slight amount but can often reduce noise quite a lot. I dont know if laptop drives are any quieter, but you could purchase one and use one of those adapters to plug it into a normal IDE plug.

Get a well designed case. Here's a review of a system that runs cooler than an open air test bench and can use a single 120mm 5.5 volt case fan:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article254-page4.htm l

Or if you really want to go extreme in case design, there was a case a couple years ago that was almost $1000 and it was basically one giant heatsink with stuff so you could passive cool cpu and video card to the outside of the case, so you could operate it fanlessly if you wanted.

For fans, if the uber quiet 120mm fans are still too noisey, then run them at 7v or 5v instead of the normal 12v. You can greatly reduce the noise this way and its not a hard thing to do.

This page has a bunch of info and PDF/xls tables on differant fan characteristics with undervolting. You can get fans down to 15 or less db when you run them at 5 volts (the ones that work at that speed)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article25-page1.html

If this is still too much, you can go with eve

This site has a lot of ideas:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

An earlier guy wrote about how he ran cables to his garage and kept his keyboard, monitor, mouse, so he couldn't hear any noise from his computer. It only cost him a few hundred plus labor. But there are alternatives.

Here's some of mine:
Get a passive power supply (check the article this whole thing is about, or google for some, or check the SPC site at the top of my post)

Get a passive CPU cooler (they do exist) or use one of the ones that can mount a 120mm fan, make sure all fans are very low noise 120mm fans that can move more air than smaller fans, but at much less noise.

Here's an example of a passive CPU heatsink (its quite big, but can handle fast modern CPU's)
http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/4in1heatpipe/cl -p0071SonicTower/cl-p0071.htm

You may want to consider some of the recent AMD64 cpu's that run quite cool and low voltage, but yet very good performance. Like the venice version of the AMD64 90nm 939 pin 3000+ cpu.

Memory doesn't matter so much, you can use them as is.

Get a graphics card that is passivly cooled. For example, I bought this one and I love it:
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV- NX66T128VP.htm
Its a nvidia 6600gt pci-express.

An alternative is to get one of the mobos that support the Pentium M CPU. That cpu is normally for laptops, but has great performance and very low power and heat. You can also get older graphics cards that are cheaper and passively cooled and put out less heat (my 6600gt gets pretty how) if you aren't going to do any gaming.

Replace the chipset fan with a heatsink
I used this one on my asus a8n-sli deluxe mobo:
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx= 71&code=014

As for hard drive, check this:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article258-page3.htm l
Its a 200 gig SATA hard drive with noise levels of 21db idle and around 24db while writing.
If this is still too much, get an older 5400 rpm hard drive and enable the noise reduction technology on it. Many many hard drives have utilites you can download from manufacture to enable noise reduction in operation. It slows the performance a slight amount but can often reduce noise quite a lot. I dont know if laptop drives are any quieter, but you could purchase one and use one of those adapters to plug it into a normal IDE plug.

Get a well designed case. Here's a review of a system that runs cooler than an open air test bench and can use a single 120mm 5.5 volt case fan:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article254-page4.htm l

Or if you really want to go extreme in case design, there was a case a couple years ago that was almost $1000 and it was basically one giant heatsink with stuff so you could passive cool cpu and video card to the outside of the case, so you could operate it fanlessly if you wanted.

For fans, if the uber quiet 120mm fans are still too noisey, then run them at 7v or 5v instead of the normal 12v. You can greatly reduce the noise this way and its not a hard thing to do.

This page has a bunch of info and PDF/xls tables on differant fan characteristics with undervolting. You can get fans down to 15 or less db when you run them at 5 volts (the ones that work at that speed)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article25-page1.html

If this is still too much, you can go with eve

Bad link, here's a good one: Silent PC Review

I always feel a little bad for Mike when a topic like this hits /., but then I figure it's his fault for being basically the best at what he does. I just hope the add revenue makes up for the server pain!

Direct Link to recommended PSU article

The poster makes us go through 13 ad-filled pages and then concludes that all the power supplies are great.

Check http://silentpcreview.com/; it has a lot more information about silencing a PC and less ads.

You're right, he does, although he doesn't use those words exactly. It's still all on a very low level, really just extremely common sense stuff. This is what I consider a real article about airflow strategy.

Video card: Model "e-GeForce FX5200(128-A8-N304-LX)"

chris at beefstew dot net

First off, I like quality components so price is not that far different Before this announcement I was thinking about getting this Case for my next PC:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article249-page1.htm l

Now that is a $160 just for the case, No power supply. Now build a PC up like this, choosing quality components for each system and I think you will discover that Apple pricing won't be that far off the mark.

Apple will get some economies of scale benefits from working with Intel and these will be passed on. In an effort to boost volume, I expect apple will also relax margins a bit. So prices will be closer.

Personally I am waiting for the dust to settle to see if my next "PC" will come from Apple for the first time in 20+ years of owning computers.

Having OSX run on low end junk would do Apple little good. The whole package buisness model makes sense for Apple and they should stick with it.

I still think they will expand their market share and increase appeal among former PC users even if the OS is locked against running on generics, and cruicually, is open for dual booting windows. It becomes the perfect migration path.

I have been a Wintel user for years, but if my next machine can be a mac OSX machine, that can also dual boot into windows, that will be a significant differentiator. So I will be considering Mac HW for my next computer.

I am so intrigued by this idea that all my PC HW purchase plans are off the table until the MacIntels appear. Not the Osborne Effect everyone was expecting eh. Macs announcement has me killing a Wintel purchase plans while I wait.

Ergonomics (esp noise) and design do matter to me, so I never buy crappy low end PC cases/junk power supplies etc, so it is not like I am getting $300 computers anyway.

If I don't get a MacIntel next, I am thinking this will be my next case:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article249-page1.htm l.

That is $160 just for the case with no PS. Custom build choosing high quality components and you get close to Mac prices anyway. I strongly suspect Apple will have some really nice lower priced Mini type computers for those who are price sensitive.

IMO those who want junk commodity HW probably don't care that much about getting a high quality OS (if they actually even purchase it).

Go MacIntel.

People can also check out this article. I have searched for it but to no avail. I would love to be able to play around with that one.

People can also check out this article. I have searched for it but to no avail. I would love to be able to play around with that one.

People can also check out this article. I have searched for it but to no avail. I would love to be able to play around with that one.

People can also check out this article for an excellent primer on its use.

While over there don't miss Bryan Cassell's excellent article comparing the Athlon to Pentiums for 'quiet power'. He points out that Intel's TDP numbers are not maximums, but that AMD's numbers are. A very interesting read.

I am quite surprised that no one has leaked a copy of AMD's own PSTcheck as mentioned in this article. I have searched for it but to no avail. I would love to be able to play around with that one.

People can also check out this article for an excellent primer on its use.

While over there don't miss Bryan Cassell's excellent article comparing the Athlon to Pentiums for 'quiet power'. He points out that Intel's TDP numbers are not maximums, but that AMD's numbers are. A very interesting read.

I am quite surprised that no one has leaked a copy of AMD's own PSTcheck as mentioned in this article. I have searched for it but to no avail. I would love to be able to play around with that one.

These aren't going to fit everyone's need. One particular place that comes to mind is high level amateur audio/video processing and recording. At this level one will need special cards, more ram, more hard drive space, and a little more raw processing power than a laptop can really handle. Add to this multiple CD/DVD burners, multiple displays and special breakout boxes and the tablets/laptops that transmeta chips are designed for become a no-go for your system. Doing basic google, froogle and new egg searches, as well as Transmeta's website made no mention was made of a desktop based solution. Via's website seems to be down right now, and I can't find much info on their silent computing initiative.

While professionals will be able to pretty much acoustically separate their computers from the recording area, this is usually not economically reasonable at the amateur, or even some small scale amateur levels. Pulling some tricks like passive cooling, usage of remote disk space (not necesarilly an option due to performance concerns,) a low noise power supply, DIY acoustic insulation (EG a box with insulating material with only enough openings for cooling and cabling, plus access for removable drives) can bring the computer's sound profile down to acceptable levels. Underclocking and undervolting a CPU can be an important step in achieving passive cooling, as many DIYers have found.

I believe the hardware data indicates that PS3 and XBox 360 games can outperform PC games in every way, turning the tables on the high-end PC video card market. When and if that becomes the case, I will happily purchase a dedicated gaming console, and then downgrade my HTPC video card to something fanless. Of course, I'm assuming the new consoles will be fanless as well. I need HTPC functionality and gaming, but I hate the sound of whirring fans in my living room.

I'm aware of the XBox HTPC project, but it just didn't cut it for my needs (DVD duplication, auto-commercial advance, etc.) Perhaps someone will figure out a way to bring all the HTPC goodness to the PS3 or XBox 360, then I will have only one silent machine to do everything. :)