A Silent tardis!

[Random_guy]

Hopefully I haven't got any doctor who fans too excited with that title. A friend of mine has asked me to help build him a new gaming rig, but wants it as small and as silent as he can get it. To top it off he fancies a 5850 or 5870 so being able to accomadate those cards would be helpful.

My knowledge is lacking on cases so does anyone have any suggestions? He prefers mini towers but is open to the idea of a cube type case.

It's probably asking the impossible but if it is I'm sure you guys will soon tell me.

As for budget, the max is £100, but around the 60 mark would be preferable.

If it doesn't fit a 5870 it's not the end of the world, but it would have to fit a decent card in it.

Thanks in advance.

[arthurleung]

Small and quiet don't normally come into the same sentence.

If you want small, a shuttle XPC is a very good choice. I have one and it is very transportable and it probably can fit a 5870. The noise could be a hit and miss depends on what PSU you are using.

Overclocking wise it is not bad either. Only problem is it only have 4 ram slots.

[kalniel]

The tardis can be silent as long as you don't drag the brakes...

[The_Wheelhouse]

The tardis can be silent as long as you don't drag the brakes...

Use the blue stabilisers...

BTW You build your own http://forums.hexus.net/project-logs...d-mitx-pc.html

Amazing read IMHO You could get a few ideas from there.

[Indieboi918]

Not too sure about cases, mine fits a 5850 but is huge, just like the 5850. Depending on the position of the hard drives in the case you may have trouble finding a small case to fit a 5850. I had to move a hard drive to a different bay so that the GPU would fit in.

[McPhee]

Small, cool, quiet. Pick Two.

That's generally the way of things. You can get small and quiet, but temps suffer. I've got my SG05 running near silent but on the down-side the CPU and GPU are pushing 60'C at idle (load temps aren't much higher though, the fans ramp up under 3D or when temps hit 65).

I'd actually suggest the SG05 tbh. The stock PSU might be able to handle a 5850, depending on what else you want to put in there and the new 450W PSU should be able to handle up to the 5870

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Lian Li PC Q08 is also worth a look at too!

[Jasp]

Hmmzzz Antec P180? will fit a 5970 if you remove the HD cabe, its not exactly small though considering it takes micro ATX boards.

[KidChameleon]

I've been very happy with my Antec p183. It seems to now be about £20 more than when I bought it. The smaller version is the p180 Mini, around £60-70 I think.

With the fans turned down a bit, I can't hear my pc over the pipes in the house. It's not entirely silent but there have been a few times I didn't realise my PC was on when I came into the room. I think a big help is the silicon grommets for mounting the hard drives. They really cut down on the humming. Removing drives is nice and easy with the hard drive cages. There is plenty of space to keep cables out of the way. It came with two case fans included, each with a hard-wired speed switch. I found them quite loud, even on a low setting. So I swapped them for some yate loons without switches.

I can only go by what I've seen in reviews, but the p180 Mini seems to have a lot of the same features as the p183, so I would assume it has similar performance with cooling and noise.

[Behemoth]

I thought this was a Doctor Who PC Case mod Me is disappointed that its not

[arthurleung]

My first hand experience is that the mini P180 is nowhere near quiet for a machine that draws 50W. On the other hand the P180 which draws 300W is much more quiet

[Pob255]

Depends on what setting you put the tri-cools on, on low they are very quiet, however the mini p180 is not that small, it's the size of most standard mid towers

You could consider the NZXT Panzerbox, it's not actually that small it just seems it because it's shorter than normal but wider instead.

For a cube try the Lian Li PC-V351B although it's not really small.

The Sliverstone SG03 would be good, it's limited on cooler size but you could use it with a corsair h50 or CoolIT eco

Cheaper, Blockbuster Storm http://www.maxpoint.de/en/products/c..._objectID=1187 not lian-li or silverstone in trems of quality but it was one of the better matx cube cases which where not that pricey.

If you can hang on a bit the silverstone SG07 should be great, it's just not out yet
http://tv.hexus.net/show/2010/03/CeB...verstone_SG07/
EDIT: that is mITX not mATX btw

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Lan Gear Da Box 100 is coming out in June supposedly:

http://www.lan-gear.com/

[Random_guy]

Thanks for all the replies so far (and sorry for getting hopes up of a doctor who case mod, one day maybe...).

I'm actually suprised by the number of viable suggestions, I thought this would be an impossible ask. I particularly like the SG03 + H50 idea, but unfortunately its not my build!

I'll get my mate to have a look at these solutions and see what he thinks.

In terms of compromising, I imagine he'd rather have something slightly bigger than compromise on acoustics or choice of gfx so is there anything around the smaller end of the mid towers that would fit the bill?

I'll be clicking the 'thanks' button when I get home from work, as it doesnt work on my phone...