Shuttle SB51G - Advice Please

I have a Shuttle SB51G with following components installed which contibute the most towards noise and heat:

Celeron 2Ghz Processor
40Gb 5400rpm HD
120Gb 7200rpm HD
SilenX 80mm Fan set to run fairly slow (for CPU cooling)

The CPU temps are reasonable, but the hard drives do run at around 45 - 55 deg C during load. The noise is louder than I would like!

I am considering adding a Radeon 9600XT 128 Mb graphics card.

How much extra noise and extra heat is likely to be generated?


Thanks

p.s. are newer Shuttles any quieter than the old ones???

Not sure about how much extra noise the radeon would make. I have an X800XT in mine and it's virtually silent. The more recent graphics cards are quite good at quiet cooling so I would have thought it would be OK.

I would guess though that the hard drives make a bit of noise, especially if they're more than a year or two old. Like the new graphics cards, new hard drives are getting very quiet, even the 7200rpm ones. I think Samsung Spinpoint drives are probably the quietest of the lot.

I'm considering building a Shuttle for my dad and quietness is vital, so I'm having to think really hard about what components to chose. I think the newer Shuttles can be very quiet due to effective cooling technologies - fans only make as much noise as they need to for a given amount of heat. So if you have cooler components, they're virtually silent. But I'd like someone else to say whether that's true or not ;)

Hopefully someone with a bit more experience will suggest something :)

Hi there,

In answer to your question regarding the 9600XT I would say not a lot. The hard-drives as tfboy mentioned would most likely generate more heat than the 9600XT.

Regarding newer Shuttles, yes they are very quiet. I have an SN25P and it is a lot more quiet than my previous midi-tower build and is probably on par with my laptop to a certain extent. I have also heard similar reports for the ST20G5 which is allegedly the same if not better than the SN25P (Noise Wise that is). The newer Shuttles are a lot more better at shifting heat due to the better cooling solutions (ICE Cooling System).