Looking for a quiet case

[achapman]

As the title says, I am looking at the Corsair 600T White for myself. However heard reviews that it is not the quietest of cases. Any help in this would be grateful.

Thanks

[Pob255]

The 600t has a built in fan controller, with the fans on their lowest setting it is quiet, at max they are louder but still not really noisy.

[Phage]

How hot is your system ? Fractal R3 ?

[ik9000]

I'm using the Bitfenix Survivor - does just fine and is surprisingly good for a £50-60 case (if you get it on Scan's Today Only when it pops up). Just choose a decent additional rear fan and mount it on rubber isolators rather than using hard metal screws into the case. The Bitfenix 120mm fan I bought for the rear is fine, but it only came with metal screws so I used the rubber lugs off the Akasa Apache I use for the CPU (which is itself held on to the Megahalems by wire clips so the lugs were spare).

My machine can pump out a fair bit of heat judging by the way it warms my room - but I've never been bothered by the noise of my machine, the cooling inside is fine and it chucks the heat outside without ever getting noisy. That said I did cherry pick all components to be low noise to start with.

(If you're running a standard GTX480 short of making an anechoic machine or using watercooling I just don't think any case will give low noise... presume you're not though )

Other useful thing to do is use isolation washers/vibration dampers to all HDD and Optical Drives to reduce resonance.

[Orthux]

Fractal R3, last time I checked it cools better than the 600t and cuts out a lot of sound.

I'm using it for my silent build.

[achapman]

Thanks peeps, At the moment I have a Lian-Li case which is a good case never overheats but thinking of passing that to my daughter and investing a new system. Fractal R3 looks really nice but still prefer the 600t. But if it is silent...............

[Pob255]

It's not better than the corsair 600t at least not with just the two stock fans, quieter but not better cooling.
Once you start adding in fans to the R3 the cooling does get far better.
At the same time you can add sound damping material to the 600t with ease, there's so much space inside.

The main things the R3 has going for it over the 600t are the hard drive caddies/trays which while not tooless do use thicker grommets and have no contact with the drive.
The other thing the R3 has going for it is the door, a door greatly help cut down on noise, esp from the front fans which will seem louder as they are closer to you and without out a door the sound has a direct path to your ear, down side of a door is it does tend to restrict the air flow slightly.

The main things the 600t has going for it are the greater space inside, esp in key areas like behind the motherboard tray and behind those hard drives (key areas for cable management)
The general build quality is a bit better and it's made from thicker steel (R3 0.7mm vs 600T 0.8mm)
Not to say the R3 is flimsy, it's not, just the 600t is that little bit more ridged and sturdy.

ether would be a good option, the R3 probably better if you've got some hard drives with fairly high vibration, but don't forget to buy some low rpm fans for it as just 2 fans at stock don't make for great cooling.

[DoomMarine]

What about the Antec P182, http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=8863 seems to fit the bill.

[dfour]

Also the Antec sonata series Designed as quiet cases.

[Phage]

I've never liked the power button and ports halfway up the case. Makes no sense at all.

[ik9000]

I've never liked the power button and ports halfway up the case. Makes no sense at all.

+1 much prefer buttons on the top - and under a lid. Just another reason I like my case.

[shaithis]

How about the Raven 3? With it's thermal design I would have thought you could keep it pretty quiet.

[ik9000]

How about the Raven 3? With it's thermal design I would have thought you could keep it pretty quiet.

Unfortunately it's butt ugly. and plastic to boot. The Fortress 2 is wayyyy nicer, though it's pricey too.

[this_is_gav]

Another vote for the Fractal R3 (or the XL if you want a larger option with more 5.25" slots).

[Orthux]

According to a Bit-Tech review the R3 does run cooler than the 600t, I'd post an image but it seems I can't.
Stock fans are quieter than my Noctua's at full speed and push a decent amount of air. I came from a Lian-Li (A71b) too and I'd rate the R3 above it.

[Pob255]

Only with extra fans added, remember at stock it only comes with two 120mm 1350rpm fans

Bit tech have a big thing against any fan larger than 120mm which is part is down to their fan testing method, which is to inflate a bag, it's easy and cheap to do but is highly influenced by back pressure, as the bag fill the pressure inside increases so the fan has to work harder to push air in against this pressure.
Some fans cope better than others, very large fans are generally quite bad at it, but this situation just doesn't occur with case fans, where it's about air flow through the case.

Also having the vents on the R3 covered or uncovered makes a difference.

Still not saying the R3 is a bad case because it's not, just the corsair 600t isn't bad ether.
And the 600t has a lot of nice little features, these do however add to the cost
There's also the 600t white edition and 650D (which is a the same case but with obsidian styling) both of these improve the cooling by having higher rpm fans

Another one to look at is the NZXT H2 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...r-black-no-psu however for the money the R3 is a better deal.

For the money the R3 is a great case, I'd not say perfect, the steel is a bit thin (but not too thin) and it could do with a bit more space behind the motherboard tray for cables but it's only £74 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/fract...r-case-w-o-psu but you'll probably want to spend £15-25 on 3 additional fans (one for the front and two for the top)

And there is still the good old Antec P183 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/antec...s-case-w-o-psu which is still a decent case.

If you want cheap and slick Have a look at the bitfenix shinobi add in some extra bitfenix fans (very good low cost + low noise fans) and some sound damping foam