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For those of you interested in the cheap RamDisk tech that Gigabyte is showing off at the show, the SPCR forums have a slight bit more information... http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=2 2448 Here's a quick summary: SATA Type: Unknown as of yet... Email sent to AnandTech about this topic... Maximum transfer rate of DDR200: 1600MB/sec Maximum transfer rate of PCI Bus (not used in this incarnation of the technology): 132MB/sec In addition, DDR266 and others should slow down to function at DDR200 speed without a problem.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/compute x05/paradox2.jpg

you can see the lack of Firewire.

RS

Why does the PSU have to be internal?

Why can't it be external like for laptops.

That way heat isn't dissipated inside the computer case.

The above subject might be a stupid question on /.

But still, buy a microATX board, get a suitable small casing, done! Why is it suddenly 'innovative' when Apple stuffs a PC in a small box?

I must say that after taking a look at the pics it does seem like a blatant ripoff. But that doesn't invalidate the earlier point: Why was apple's machine news in the first place?

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/compute x05/paradox2.jpg

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/compute x05/paradox2.jpg

What's the point? Get a normal tower case and put it under your desk where you can't see it. I don't want to see any case on my desk at all, I'd much rather have the space clear for useful equipment or something nice looking like a plant. Everyone has plenty of room under their desk and having the top of the desk clear except for the monitor, mouse and keyboard looks much better than having your case there with loads of wires coming out the back of it. The only reason I need to use my case is to turn the computer on and put a CD in it once a month. A small case just means less expansion slots and having little room to move inside it when you're upgrading. A small, nice looking 'case' is good for a portable, but the point of this for a immobile home machine alludes me.

Look at the photos for the macmini lookalike:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/compute x05/paradox.jpg

It's nicer looking than a normal case but why would you want it on your desk anyway? It's a waste of room.

Having a silent computer is good though, but you can do that with normal cases.

Silent PC Review has a couple photos.

Antec Phantom 350 PSU [silentpcreview.com]
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade) [cooltechzone.com]
Thermalright CPU heatsink [thermalright.com] with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket [zalman.co.kr] and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case [silentpcreview.com] with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.

The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.

Antec Phantom 350 PSU [silentpcreview.com]
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade) [cooltechzone.com]
Thermalright CPU heatsink [thermalright.com] with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket [zalman.co.kr] and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case [silentpcreview.com] with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.

The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.

Antec Phantom 350 PSU [silentpcreview.com]
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade) [cooltechzone.com]
Thermalright CPU heatsink [thermalright.com] with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket [zalman.co.kr] and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case [silentpcreview.com] with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.

The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.

Antec Phantom 350 PSU [silentpcreview.com]
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade) [cooltechzone.com]
Thermalright CPU heatsink [thermalright.com] with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket [zalman.co.kr] and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case [silentpcreview.com] with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.

The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.

Antec Phantom 350 PSU
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade)
Thermalright CPU heatsink with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.

The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.

Antec Phantom 350 PSU
Gigabyte 6800 fanless (only 12 pipes, but not a big sacrifice...though if this liquid metal stuff works it should make things easier the next time I upgrade)
Thermalright CPU heatsink with a 120mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket and set at minimum on a Zalman fanmate control.
All in an Antec 3700BQE case with quiet 120mm exhaust fan.

The annoying thing was that as soon as I got rid of one whining or droning noise I'd notice a slightly quieter one... Now, it's inaubible except in dead silence.

I know what you mean!

Try http://www.silentpcreview.com/, although not strictly low power, there is obviously a lot of overlap with silent computing. I for one find it to be a good site with a solid scientific approach.

In terms of video cards, a guy further up posted saying XBitlabs have a good overview, although I can't find the link on their site...

My personal recommendation for low power would be the ATI 9600 (perhaps the mobile version), although it's arguably also low performance, but then it's all relative anyway.

Silent PC Review is probably one of the most un-biased review sites out there. They have no problem calling a spade a spade.

Comes with a more respectable price too.

imho that case is just like any other generic HTPC set top case.

now thats a case.

Huh?? I have a FANLESS M10000. It's all in the case:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article143-page1.htm l

Yes, that's the number one reason to build your own computer: quality components, hand-picked by yourself, that are more stable and last longer. But here's another good reason to build: it's a great hobby and you learn a lot from it. I've gotten into the silent thing recently, and it really is addicting. Check out the forums at silentpcreview.com if you're interested.

The article is a nice start. For getting the lay of the land, I like the enthusiast sites like Tom's Hardware, AnandTech, and ExtremeTech. Silent PC Review shows some nice components for building silent PCs.

Usually, I buy CPUs that are not the latest (better bang/buck) but couple them with the new motherboards, decent (but not overextravagant) memory, and a nice video/TV card like the ATI All-in-wonder series. It's difficult to get the latest ATI A-I-W card from the stock computer builders. If you don't do excessive gaming, you can opt for slightly less CPU and a lower power ATI A-I-W; that will help you build a more silent computer. Building your own also lets you try out the better cases, so there's less Apple envy. Cool cases can be had from places like Ahanix, Lian Li, and Nexus (check out both the iStyle and Breeze cases).

this guy just built his system inside a file drawer.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Sections+index-req-p rintpage-artid-44.html

Actually the recent Seagate Barracudas aren't that quiet. The Cuda IV's are, but thats not a "recent" model. The current quiet champ for 7200 desktop drives is the Samsung Spinpoint series with Nidec motors. I have both the seagate and a samsung spinpoint, the samsung is quieter. check out SilentPCReview 's Recommended HDs

Maybe you're not interested in quiet computing, but plenty of people are.

According to TFA, Turion notebooks might have 1/3 the battery life of Intel's Ultra Low voltage products. Now, Intel has a separate line of ultra-low-voltage Pentium M's, not to be confused with normal Pentium M's. The ultra low voltage Pentium Ms are only available at 1-1.2 Ghz, Turion's bottom out at 1.6 Ghz. So it's not a fair comparison. Regardless, with the power taken from the LCD and hard drives and stuff, I doubt it's even possible for an ultra low voltage Pentium M having 3 times the battery life of a Turion using the same battery.

That's interesting because I have a Barracuda and it's probably the loudest drive that I've ever owned...

It depends on the model. I have a 7100.7 (or whatever it's called) and it does not support acoustic management. It has noticeable seek noise. The versions that became famous for quietness (the IV and V) were the previous versions to mine - these did support AM.

Meanwhile, all other manufacturers have started using FDB motors just like Seagate does, so the whine is gone, and if your drive supports acoustic management (almost all do, though you may need to download a utility to access it), then it very likely can be virtually silent too. There is no inherent advantage that the Barracuda models have in acoustics.

In addition to my Barracuda, I also have two Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9's and a Western Digital Performer 40 (this came with my TiVo but has been repurposed in my PC - you can't buy this drive separately). All three of these drives are quieter than my Barracuda with acoustic management set to "quiet" - in fact, one of the Maxtors is dead silent, and the other is so quiet I have to put my ear right up next to it to hear seeks. (There is a slight variation between the two units, even though they are the same model and capacity.)

I will say that one of my Maxtors was ear-splittingly loud when I first purchased it - ironically (or maybe not), it was the retail version. My other Maxtor was OEM. The retail drive was set to "performance" out of the box, whereas the OEM drive was already set to "quiet". Maybe this is by design, as Maxtor is obviously positioning these drives for different markets, but it has obviously led to a different reputation for Maxtor than Seagate has, despite Maxtor's drives being capable (like almost everybody else) of total silence.

The loudest part of most PC's other than the hard drive (which doesn't need to be loud at all) is the power supply. I've gone through a half dozen PSU's looking for a quiet one that's also beefy enough for my systems - I finally ordered an ironically-named Seasonic Super Tornado 350 today. Most people don't consider the PSU as a major source of noise - or if they do, they don't think they can do anything about it - but having swapped out enough of these things for one reason or another, I can vouch for the fact that not only is there a significant variation between PSU's in the volume of noise, they also can significantly affect the quality of noise from your PC. Right now I am using an Enermax PSU in one system and an Antec in another - both highly-rated PSU's from a power and build quality standpoint - but they both sound awful. They are not particularly loud (though they're louder than any other component I have), but they both emit sort of a low-pitched "buzzing" noise (it's not case vibration - I've checked - it's just the sound of the fans they're using), which I find extremely annoying. If you're looking to silence your PC, I'd recommend starting with the PSU.

Of course, most hardcore PC users really go overboard with fans too - I admit to having six case fans in one of my PC's (mainly for show, they're LED fans), but they're almost always turned down to minimum with a fan controller. Not silent, but not loud either. In my HTPC, I have three 80mm fans, one of which is disconnected, the others turned down to minimum using built-in manual fan controls. I have no stability or temperature problems with this machine at all, and except for the PSU (that's being replaced), it's very quiet.

• CPU fan: Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu (best one out at the time, around $30)
• Case: Antec SLK3700-BQE (again, best one out at the time, around $70 including reasonably quiet PSU and quiet 120 mm fan (especially at 5V))
• Hard drive: Samsung SP1614C (very quiet 7200 RPM, 160 GB SATA hard drive, also comes in IDE variant SP1614N, around $100)
• GPU cooling: NV Silencer 5 (added aftermarket as soon as it was available, around $30)

The rig has: A64 3000+, 1 GB PC3200, 160 GB HD, 6800GT. All it needs for cooling are the PSU, case, CPU, and GPU fans. By far, the loudest component is the NV Silencer 5. When I was using a passively-cooled GeForce 2 (waiting for the 6800GT to be reasonably available), the system was almost completely silent. If I had wanted to spend more, I could've made it absolutely inaudible, but it wasn't worth it to me. Building a quiet system is actually very easy and cheap, assuming you're buying all-new parts anyway.

Don't know why this is posted here, the guys at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ are working on this for years!

FYI, I'll soon be building a noiseless AMD A64-3500+ for our living room. Once you've read the articles at SilentPCReview, no problem.

BTW, the Seagate barracuda's are no longer the quiet drives they used to be, since their acoustic managment software has been disabled (pending a lawsuit I think)

Peter

I suggest you take a look at Samsung's SpinPoint drives. They're all the rage with Quiet PC enthusiasts (such as those at Silent PC Review). Barracuda's are quiet (I've got two V's right now), but they're certainly still audible, especially as they get older and the bearings wear. Apparently SpinPoints are quieter than Barracudas (at least initially).

I have been modding my PC's to be quiet for years - there is no need for any computer to sound like a leaf blower. Check out Silent PC Review for more info!

This should be a very interesting product for the silent computing community (check SilentPCRReview) if some manufacturer decides to make desktop motherboards for it. People are already using Mobile Athlon XP's and Pentium-M's in desktop computers because of their relatively low heat output.

My own wish would be to some day have a passively air cooled computer. Running an Athlon64 passively with only one big slow (=nearly silent) case fan is already feasible with carefully managed airflow inside the computer case. Turion could be theoretically cool enough to cool with convection airflow if the potential is realized with wellmade motherboards.

one site where people actually take the time to characterise drive noise from sensical distances, silentpcreview.com, has ignored storagereview's noise measurements for some time now, as they are out of touch with reality. the difference between a 7200.7 and a samsung sp1614n is night and day, if you actually own one of each as i do.

luckily, mike chin has access to some of the best sound measuring equipment and an office with an ambient background noise of 15 dBA or so. he's done some great reviews of fans in this environment, but hasn't turned to hard drives yet. but here's a silentpcreview article comparing the samsung directly to the 7200.7, i think you'll see how much more effort they put into acoustics than storagereview.

http://www.silentpcreview.com//

Please do not follow the recommendations in the article. Visit the above link for an overview of better parts than this article recommends.

Aluminum case was much noisier than my steel case, given that I have many more things in my case. Thicker materials (obviously) cut down on noise levels.
Indeed, as said on silentpcreview, there is no reason to by aluminium, except for weight reasons:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article75-page2.html
Quote:
The Aluminum Myth - Some favor aluminum cases, citing an ability to better cool components mounted within. This is a myth. No heat producing component benefit in any significant way from being inside an aluminum case. The only heat producing devices that are normally mounted in direct contact with a case are the drives, particularly the hard drives. The difference between aluminum and steel in this cooling fuction is insignificant.
This does not mean aluminum cases cannot be used to make a silent computer, just that there are disadvantages with them when compared to similarly constructed steel cases. Regardless, many aluminum cases certainly look nice.

The Aluminum Drawback - One consistent acoustic property seems unavoidable: Aluminum cases tend to pick up hard drive and fan vibrations more readily than steel cases, and make a higher pitched, more audible humming or buzzing sound. This quality is directly related to the density of aluminum: It has only about 30% of the density of the cheaper, more commonly used steel. Internally applied panel damping materials (especially the heavier kinds) appear to damp the resonance down fairly effectively, but it is sometimes difficult and an added expense to eliminate entirely.

For very complete and more practical information, reviews and good advise for silencing your computer I can really recommend SilentPCReview.

The article is just a simple summary... check out Silent PC Review for really in-depth coverage.

Some hardware review sites are dedicated to cooling equipment. One of them is Pimp My Rig.

Personally, I replaced my Intel stock fan with the Thermalright XP-90 + Panaflo 92mm L1A.

You'd think he'd reference the guys who are diehard fanatics instead of the some guy who has 5 ideas. This is the place to find all the info, comparisons, and information for people who want more than just "you should think about changing out some parts in your system".

The new Antec P-180

Primer at www.silentpcreview.com

std. disclaimer: i am just a fan. ba dum bum.

There are much better power supply reviews available at Silent PC Review. The SPCR guys are very silent-centric, but also test the efficiency, temperature, and stress test the power supplies as well. They have many more pictures, and even analyze the heat sink and fan configuration. These Trusted Review guys aren't even close.

Also note that Intel's thermal design power correspond to "typical usage" (whatever that means) and thet AMD's TDP is absolute max (see this)

Actually, this might be interesting to use for underclocking. Take your Mac Mini 1.42, underclock it a bit to 1.25, and it's even less likely that the included fan will turn on. Makes it all the more of a silent computing solution.

They do this type of thing all the time at silentpcreview, although they gain a bit more (by way of silence) because they can also adjust the CPU voltage down once the clockspeed is reduced. Just a thought. -- Paul

I happened upon a homebrew PC mini worth taking a look at.

This is the only link i could find with such figures, but the numbers are a tad high; i think that's the power consumption for the whole system rather than the CPU alone.

Anyway, all modern CPUs increase their power consumption under load; P4s and Athlon XPs do a passable job, Dothans (Pentium-M) do a terrific job there, and Atlon-64s are said to scale power very well with load.

here's a few sites so far:

http://mini-itx.com/
http://damnsmallinux.org/store/
http://idotpc.com/
http://logicsupply.com/

so far, none of these sites(except maybe mini-itx.com) have a way to configure a complete system; mostly they don't stock all the necessary components.

oh, i forgot, "spcr.com" is actually http://silentpcreview.com/

Silent PC Review has a good review of the Zalman Reserator 1, the only product I know of that even comes close to qualifying. It's nearly silent, more or less easy to install (if you built your computer, you can put this together, but I wouldn't recommend it for my mom), and can cool even the hottest processors and videocards simultaneously. It is not cheap, however, at around $240 shipped. I just installed mine, and it's the quietest, coolest-looking computer cooling part I've bought in years. Unfortunately, there really isn't another silent/easy/cheap option available. Seems like it's a "pick any two of three" situation.

Silent PC Review has a good review of the Zalman Reserator 1, the only product I know of that even comes close to qualifying. It's nearly silent, more or less easy to install (if you built your computer, you can put this together, but I wouldn't recommend it for my mom), and can cool even the hottest processors and videocards simultaneously. It is not cheap, however, at around $240 shipped. I just installed mine, and it's the quietest, coolest-looking computer cooling part I've bought in years. Unfortunately, there really isn't another silent/easy/cheap option available. Seems like it's a "pick any two of three" situation.

Rubber bands or rubber grommets cut the noise pretty well, but since you're decoupling your drive from the metal drivecage, it will get noticably hotter.

I'd recommend checking out Silent PC Review. They have a lot of great tips and neat ideas for silencing.

Why not run this
with mythtv or freevo?

Not that I've done it myself yet.

You are not correct in that they are quiet. It was only within the last year that Shuttle made some design changes to make them quiet. I have a 2 year old XPC that is not quiet & it was made before they switched to a different powersupply manufacturer. My PS has a 40mm fan that buzzes & the 80mm main fan even with variable speed temp control is simply too loud. If you are interested in the small form factor XPC line, then get a new one like the one in the review & not an older one which you might get dirt cheap.