Need a quiet new PC. Pre-build recommendations?

[DavidA]

I've persuaded myself to buy the 30" Dell screen and thought I'd upgrade my PC at the same time.

Previously I've built my PCs myself but I've always found it time-consuming and stressful. So two questions:

1) Does this sound about right?
- A good AM2 mobo of some kind. Recommendations?
- AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4200+ WDual Core 2.2GHz, 512KB x 2 Cache. £125.
- A quiet heatsink, if the bundled one is loud (?)
- 1GB RAM.
- NVIDIA Fanless 7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E. £150.
- Antec P180 quiet case. £100.
- About 1TB striped raided HD.
- DVD-R.

I use my PC mostly for web browsing. Don't play many games but good Vista support preferred.

2) Anyone recommend someone to put a rig like this together?

Thanks in advance!

[BlindMelon7]

I'd go for Core 2 if I were you. Whats the budget?

If you can afford it you could buy just a dell and add a fanless water cooling system yourself (it might cost quite a bit).

[DavidA]

Don't know anything about Core 2. Man, I'm always one step behind! I guess I'm thinking about £800 on the machine and £1000 on the monitor, but I'm flexible.

My current PC I've had in one shape or form for four years, upgrading parts when necessary. I worry that I won't be able to do that with a Dell.

[cotswoldcs]

My advice would be :

go for an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU rather than AMD.
Scan were selling the Antec P180 at under £90 a little while ago.
Scythe or Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 is a good choice of HSF if you want something quiet
Go for 2Gb RAM if you can afford it. If you can't start saving!!!
If you want Vista in Jan/ Feb (ie ASAP) consider buying one hard drive now and one later when Vista arrives. You will be able to buy the OEM version that which will save you some £££. However this may your opportunities to upgrade your PC - read about this in other Vista threads.
I like your idea of a fanless graphics card but I'm sure you could find something cheaper seeing that you don't play games much.

Putting a PC together isn't too difficult but if you don't fancy it consider a system from Mesh.

Good luck!

[TheAnimus]

30" requires dual link graphics card.

You'd be suprised how much CPU a reasolution of that nature requires, even for 2d. PCIe and good CPU with oodles of cache (core 2) is a must.

its not un-common for someone to want to have 8 screens on a single PC at the company i work for. These are 19" nec ones. But after 4 1280 res panels the PC just can't cut hte mustard (dual xeon). So we have to use two normally. With a screen of that magnutiude you don't want to be tight fisted on the box. Just remeber you need dual link for that tft

[cotswoldcs]

The 30" Dell has a native resolution of 2560 x 1600

THAT'S JUST CRAZZZZYYYYY !!!!!!!


Make that a much better graphics card than I previously thought. Not sure fanless is a good idea - will probably get very hot.

If it were me I would consider a Dell 2407WFP - 30" is a lot of screen area!

I'd also consider a Zalman Reserator 2 - but then I'm a huge fan of fanless cooling systems (pardon the pun). This will keep both your CPU & GPU cool & quiet! Check Quietpc.com for more...

[BlindMelon7]

I'd also consider a Zalman Reserator 2

Thats exactly what was on my mind when I said water cooling. How easy is water cooling to instal?

[DavidA]

Thanks for the great replies already.

The reason I'm looking for pre-built is because I'm a hamfisted idiot when it comes to these things. I've broken components, stabbed myself with a screwdriver, misconfigured components. Even when I've built it and it seems to work I have this nagging sense that I've messed something up. I guess I could spend some time on it and get it right, but I'm still looking for pre-build recommendations; I'll try Mesh.

I currently have 1GB RAM and don't see Windows hitting the pagefile too often. Is there a noticeable difference? Hard to think that resident apps need more than 1GB. I've heard 2GB recommended before so I'm not questioning it. Just curious.

Good idea about saving an HD back for a Vista OEM. I'll look at those threads.

I'll look at the Reserator 2. I too prefer fanless where possible. I've bought quite a few components from Quiet PC before. I wish they sold pre-built machines.

Regarding the video card, which seems like it might be an issue, what do I need to power the screen? The card I linked to is already Dual Link DVI and I've never really understood why so much RAM is needed on a graphics card (isn't it just width x height x colour depth?). Do I just need more horsepower? More fanless options here.

Is 30" too much? Well, there's a question. I already have the 24" which I upgraded from a 20". Since I stare at it quite a bit and I'll keep it for some years then I think it's worth it. I heard Apple have a 50" planned. Mmm...

[htid]

Well maybe you don't see windows hitting the pagefile too often and 1gb may be fine for web browsing, but you said you want good vista support so that is probably why people are recommending 2gb, i guess.

[DavidA]

True. Vista might be a little bit RAM hungry. Sounds like 2GB is a good idea.

Hadn't realised the Reserator was external. I think I'd prefer something contained.

[cotswoldcs]

The Reserator 1 or 2 is easy enough to install. It's a good choice for a really quiet system although not great for heavy overclocking and not the cheapest either. Definitely recommended though (I have the v1 at the moment).

[YorkieBen]

Dell's pcs are pretty quiet

[DavidA]

Okay... so I've narrowed it down a little more. Bear with me; I'm muddling through this.

As a reminder, I'm looking for a quiet, fast PC that powers a big monitor. No particular budget in mind.

Motherboard - £???
This is one of the ones I'm not sure on. I'm not going to be overclocking a great deal and I don't need it too feature rich. Needs decent RAID support though. In the past I've disliked the VIA chipset and preferred nForce. I guess I'm limited to Intel P4 (Intel 965/975) motherboards, yes?

CPU - £152
Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13ghz - Skt775 Fsb1066 2mb Cache from Scan.

Heatsink - £37
Scythe Ninja-PLUS Rev B Heatpipe CPU Cooler. According to this it's one of the better ones. I suppose I'll need to attach the fan?

RAM - £120?
Sounds like getting 2GB is a good idea. What speed? Does it depend on the motherboard?

Case - £95
Antec P180 Silver Advanced Tower Case w/o PSU. I heard there was a new revision to this case. Anyone know if the one at Scan is the latest?

PSU - £n/a
I already have a Zalman ATX Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W ZM400B-APS. Is that enough?

Graphics - £180
NVIDIA Fanless 7900GS 256MB DDR2 PCI-E. I need Dual-DVI to power the big monitor (below). It's mentioned above that driving so many pixels might overheat this passively cooled card. Does that seem likely?

Hard Drives - 2 x £105
Samsung T-Series HD300LJ 300GB SATA-II 3 Gb/s Hard Drive. I'll get two of these since I like the space. I currently have 2 x Western Digital WD2000JD 200GB Serial ATA150 7200rpm 8mb Cache. Do you think I'll notice the speed difference?

DVD - £28
Samsung Writemaster SH-S183A/BEBN SATA DVD Drive, Black. Is there much between DVD-Rs these days?

Monitor - £1,000
Dell 3007WFP. This is actually the motivation for my PC upgrade. Ebay folks seem to be selling £300 less than Dell at around £1,000. What's the catch?

So that's about it unless I've forgotten anything.

This forum has been a load of help already. Any further advice would be very much appreciated.

[BlindMelon7]

As you probably cant overclock at all with pasive cooling you wont need an amazing motherboard. Do you want SLI? That might be usefull if you want the computer to last. Instead of replacing the current card you can just buy another.

[Clunk]

The Asus P5B deluxe wifi is a good board, not the cheapest, but is rock solid and will work well with your other bits. SLI is crap

[DavidA]

SLI is fairly new to me. If I understand it right it's a second PCI-Express slot on the mobo which lets me run two SLI enabled graphic cards in parallel. Is that right? Are you suggesting that I can buy one graphic card now and then run a second one in parallel at some point later?