PC upgrade

[PinkPig]

Hi,

I'm planning on upgrading my PC soon - the spec I'm planning on is as follows:

Arctic Cooling Accelero AC-S1 (7950/1950) £12.19 £14.32

Antec Solo Quiet Mini Tower ATX Case without PSU - Piano Black/Silver £46.69 £54.86

Abit IP-35E, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, ATX £51.89 £60.97

2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £34.98 £41.10

Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600 G0 SLACR, 95W, S775, 2.40 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache, Retail £137.95 £162.09

I will be grabbing the PSU and Graphics Card (an X1900XT), as well as HDD and DVD drives from my old computer. The Accelero S1 is for the graphics card because it has a loud and nasty stock cooler on it at the moment. I'm buying a new case because the old one's horrible!

This comes to about £350 altogether. Any comments or suggestions? I particularly want the computer to be quiet - is the stock CPU fan decently quiet? (the motherboard is passive, right?) I'm not planning on overclocking. Is my choice of Motherboard sensible, or are there big features I'm missing out on with the IP35-E? Are there any really significant differences between it and the IP35 vanilla or pro? Anything else important I've forgotten?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

Matt

[staffsMike]

IP-35E doesn't have RAID.. thats about it.

I've never used that case but the antec P182 is silent as they come (to me) extra £25 but it might be well spent if the solo isn't great (probably is though antec are pretty awesome)

The stock cooler isn't very quiet especially in a case which otherwise is.
I've used scythe ninja's in all the builds i've done recently (including a uATX ) because it is so quiet with the fan it comes with and can actually be run passive

I wen't on a mission to build a silent pc a while back which consisted of the Antec P182, passive graphics, corsair HX whiser, scythe ninja (fan on, doesn't need to be though) and a western digital AAKS, and.. it is so silent it actually stunned one of my mates who's been doing builds for years

[Sprite]

I disagree with you on the stock cooler, I find it relatively quiet, especially when the settings to enable the fan to ramp up and down in speed are turned on.

[staffsMike]

the Freezer 7 pro is noisey in my silent build, everything but the ninja has been noisey in it so far.

[Webby]

Looks all right to me, I would probably stretch the extra £15 for the IP-35 over the E you get more SATA connections 6 over 4 on the E and Firewire headers which may or may not be important to you. It would also be more suited to overclocking if you chose to in the future.

If your not overclocking then the stock cooler will be fine, so my suggestion would be to stick with it and see what you think of the sound level when you have it up and running. Alternatively you could go for an OEM CPU which has no cooler and use the £7 saved to go towards an after market cooler. My normal recommendations for CPU coolers are aimed at Overclockers and are the Thermalright Ultima 90 (with a 120mm fan) and the Scythe Ninja. You would probably not need anything with that much cooling potential if your not overclocking so maybe the Scythe Mine, or a lot of people will suggest the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro.

If your prepared to spend a bit extra in the Scan Mix-it bundles this week is an offer on the Q6600, IP-35 Pro, Akasa CPU cooler, 2GB Corsair RAM and a 500GB HDD for £376 plus your Graphics cooler and case totals £445, so thats £95 for the much better specced motherboard, CPU cooler and a 500GB WD AAKS Hard drive. Maybe an option?

[pepsi_max2k]

cclonline.com had the same ram, but CAS 5-5-5-12, for under £30 last night

[Sprite]

Yeah the freezer Pros are definitely loud on full speed

[Pob255]

Yes but the ACf7p at full speed are quieter than the stock coolers at full speed.
I rearly dislike the current stock cooler, only things going for it are small, light weight and easy to fit (well once you get used to the push pins, and the ease is generally down to the size after that)

Plus there is also a major dissadvantage to the stock coolers that will show up a couple of months down the line.
tthe top of the cooler is square cut and none too smooth. This means it forms a great dust&fluf trap, so a mat of dust&fluf builds up on top of the heatsink just below the fan which restricts the air flow cuaseing the temps to go up and the fan to speed up to cope.
So what is quiet to start with gets louder after a month or two with out regular cleaning. (got some Asaka coolers at work, which are made up of the stock heatsink and a better 92mm fan on top, they pump through more air than the intel fan at the same volume but the dust builds up quicker)

The ArcticFreezer 7 Pro or Asaka AK-965x3 are far better than the stock cooler as they will still be quiet with the fan speed temp control turned on and they don't build up dust at anywere near the same rate.

[Sprite]

"Yes but the ACf7p at full speed are quieter than the stock coolers at full speed"

You sure? My AC7 is A LOT louder than my Stock C2D Heatsink with both at fullspeed. In fact look at frostytech, they have the Pentium D stock heatsink (pretty much the same as the C2D heatsink) in the top 10 for Intel quiteness.

But yeah, AK965 FTW

EDIT: Frostytech article on the C2D heatsink is here:
Intel Stock Core 2 Duo Radial Curved Bifurcated Fin Heatsink Review - FrostyTech.com

[Pob255]

Well My ACf7p is quieter than the stock intell one was (on my pentium D)
Ok I'll admit I have no testing equipment execpt my ears, it might just be a differnt pitch that makes it seem quieter but it is less noticable.
I have it on a Zalman fan controller as the BIOS update on my ASRock broke the cpu auto fan control at 50% the ACf7p is not noticable and keeps my temps lower than the stock cooler.

EDIT: ALso forgot to say, that Frosty tech rate the AK-965x3 above the stock (quieter and better cooling) and they've not looked at the ArcticCooling Freezer7 pro so you cannot rate it vs the stock with there numbers.
Must say I hadn't realised the fan was differnt on the core2duo, although it makes sense as it's cooler than the D, it would also make sense to use a faster one on the quad core as it's a hotter cpu than the core2duo.

Given a choise I'd go with the Akasa AK-965x3 as it's £3 cheaper or something larger and more expensive (something with a 120mm fan)

[Sprite]

lol I agree with you, go for the AK965