How to Build a Fast Air-Cooled Quiet PC

msolnik writes "Tweak3D.net has posted an article over how to build yourself a fast box that doesn't sound like an airplane hanger. Its nice to find something like this - most articles are just about speed this article combines performance and usability. If your interested in building a fast pc that you don't have to put in " See my thoughts on this as well.

Comments

for the money

[NotAnotherReboot]

It seems to me like it'd be a better idea to build a system that isn't quite the highest end, and don't buy expensive overclocking equipment. Then, when it seems to be getting a little slow, buy a new processor that will likely be faster than anything you could have overclocked for the same or less money. Sure it sounds cool to say you have an ultra high clocked system, but in 6 months when there's faster non-overclocked, who's laughing?

Re:Noise Schmoize

[Barbarian]

Yes, you just need to add noise-dampening panels to the sides of the case.

A lot of the noise you hear when the case is closed is the case resonating at the 1/2, 1 and 2 * wavelengths of the sound coming off of the cooling equipment (the fans tend to put off white noise of many wavelengths).

You just gotta make sure you aren't obstructing the airflow. I'm going to do this myself, and on my case, you can put panels on the left and right, top and bottom without obstructing airflow. Front and back have to remain unblocked, although the front is possible to do too if room is left where the built-in vent areas are. Worse designed cases may make this impossible.

The stuff I'm going to use goes for about $4 per square foot, and is about 1/4 inch thick.

If you can't get this type of noise-reducing panel from your local computer retailer, go to a hardware store and get drop ceiling tile, as thin as possible (preferably 1/4 inch if they make it), cut it to size, and glue it into your panels.

Quiet CPUs

[kcbrown]

While the Athlon is far and away a better deal than the P4, there's one thing the P4 has in spades over the Athlon: it does exactly the right thing when it overheats -- it steps down its speed.

Now, most people aren't going to care about this but those who are trying to build a quiet PC are -- if you put a P4 in your system you could conceivably cool it passively and take the performance hit. I don't know how much of a performance hit you'd get by cooling passively versus actively but the video on Tom's Hardware about what happens when you remove the heatsink from various processors shows the framerate of Quake III returning to something close to the original just by reattaching the heatsink to the P4...and the fan isn't running on it at the time. Of course, that's probably because the heatsink itself is cool and will warm up significantly after being attached to the CPU for a while.

My question is this: what heatsinks exist out there that are designed for passive cooling purposes? I'm sure the design of such heatsinks differs significantly from those designed to accomodate a fan.