Comments on my potential build?

[koocha]

Hi all

Currently I've got an HTPC behind my telly. It's an old Thermaltake mid tower case with an Intel Q6600, 4GB DDR2, ATI 4890 graphics card, 4 x 2TB drives and 1 x 500GB drive for Windows and installed programs.

I'm looking at doing something with it as it's getting slow, can't run CoD Ghosts (need 6GB RAM) and it's very noisy (graphics card to blame).

As it's on 24/7 I am looking at efficient components and silence.

Here's what I've come up with so far. There's no way I can do this in one go, so I'd also like suggestions in which order to upgrade stuff.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2W4Lk

There's no case on there as I'm looking at the Gelid Darkforce from QuietPC (they're not listed on the site): http://www.quietpc.com/gel-dark-force

Also, there's 2 SSDs on there - the mobo has an mSATA slot, but only rated at 3gbps. So I didn't know if it would be worth using it, or getting a separate SSD and using a 6gbps SATA port.

Thanks in advance.

[mikeo01]

So although you can't spend all this in one go I am confused on why you need two 480GB SSDs? Depends how much storage space you need I suppose. Could always opt for a low 5200RPM hard drive for storage stuff.

Based on a Haswell build

PSU XFX Gold
I5-4570S OR the I5-4440. Should perform slightly better whilst consuming less power than the I5-3350P. Plus you have iGPU to rely on in future.
Thermalright AXP-200R cooler OR Silverstone HE02 Heligon. Silence and efficiency usually means some sort of active cooling.

GTX 750 is efficient however. Performance wise it's not good bad.

What's going to be using 16GB of RAM by the way? May be worth looking into 8GB if that saturates your needs.

The motherboard not entirely sure on as there aren't many good options for around that price point except THIS GIGABYTE one

[herulach]

Honestly, an i5 is a bad choice if you're not doing it all at once. One of the new Kaveri A10 parts will give you playable frame rates at low detail settings for about the same price as an i5 on its own, particularly if you get 2400 memory (although if budget is an issue 2133 isn't much of a climb down. Both are a waste of cash on an intel system).

If you're set on an intel build then you don't have a lot of choice but to do it all in one. An A10 would give you the choice of just doing mobo, cpu & ram (probably about £250) then the rest later whilst still being able to play games in the meantime.

[koocha]

So although you can't spend all this in one go I am confused on why you need two 480GB SSDs? Depends how much storage space you need I suppose. Could always opt for a low 5200RPM hard drive for storage stuff.

Based on a Haswell build

PSU XFX Gold
I5-4570S OR the I5-4440. Should perform slightly better whilst consuming less power than the I5-3350P. Plus you have iGPU to rely on in future.
Thermalright AXP-200R cooler OR Silverstone HE02 Heligon. Silence and efficiency usually means some sort of active cooling.

GTX 750 is efficient however. Performance wise it's not good bad.

What's going to be using 16GB of RAM by the way? May be worth looking into 8GB if that saturates your needs.

The motherboard not entirely sure on as there aren't many good options for around that price point except THIS GIGABYTE one

Thanks for the reply.

I don't need 2 SSDs - I mentioned that the mobo has an mSATA connector on it so I could use one in there, but it's rated at 3Gbps, so I didn't know if it would be worth getting a normal SSD and use one of the 6Gbps ports.

I've gone for the i5-3350P because of its lower TDP than the other 2 Haswell CPUs you mentioned. Having a lower TDP will mean it'll run cooler and I will be able to get away with a passive heat sink. Saying that though, I've read a review of the Phanteks PH-TC12DX and like the sound of that one.

I went with the Corsair PSU because it's Gold rated, fully modular and part of their quiet series.

I've dropped the RAM - maybe 16GB was overkill for this system.

[koocha]

Honestly, an i5 is a bad choice if you're not doing it all at once. One of the new Kaveri A10 parts will give you playable frame rates at low detail settings for about the same price as an i5 on its own, particularly if you get 2400 memory (although if budget is an issue 2133 isn't much of a climb down. Both are a waste of cash on an intel system).

If you're set on an intel build then you don't have a lot of choice but to do it all in one. An A10 would give you the choice of just doing mobo, cpu & ram (probably about £250) then the rest later whilst still being able to play games in the meantime.

I've looked at the Kaveri CPUs and like them, but as the system is used for everything I'm wanting something with a bit more CPU grunt. Also, by having a TDP of 95W I'd need something special to cool it silently. That's one reason I'm looking at a lower TDP Intel part.

[koocha]

About the "not doing it all at once" - I didn't know if it would be worth getting the SSD to speed things up, or maybe the graphics card to make it quieter first.

[herulach]

I've looked at the Kaveri CPUs and like them, but as the system is used for everything I'm wanting something with a bit more CPU grunt. Also, by having a TDP of 95W I'd need something special to cool it silently. That's one reason I'm looking at a lower TDP Intel part.

95W silently isn't really that hard, particularly not at idle. Hyper 212, AC Freezer 13 etc will all manage it perfectly reasonably in anything other than the most restrictive cases.

I'm just trying to present you with some options, as far as cpu grunt goes, a kaveri part won't struggle with encoding significantly faster than real time, and you have the option of opencl, which when used wipes the floor with an i5.

If you have the cash then crack on, but from a value perspective intel isn't where its at at the moment.

[mikeo01]

I do agree with Herulach on this, from a "value" perspective Intel doesn't really tick that box. The advantage they have is their incredible efficiency.

Kaveri seems quite efficient, especially if you opt for the lower end models. But then in terms of CPU grunt you are completely relying on HSA adoption from developers. OpenGL is on the rise so there's no worry in that. But without the support the CPU performance from even an i3 seems more appealing than Kaveri at this time unfortunately.

[herulach]

I do agree with Herulach on this, from a "value" perspective Intel doesn't really tick that box. The advantage they have is their incredible efficiency.

Kaveri seems quite efficient, especially if you opt for the lower end models. But then in terms of CPU grunt you are completely relying on HSA adoption from developers. OpenGL is on the rise so there's no worry in that. But without the support the CPU performance from even an i3 seems more appealing than Kaveri at this time unfortunately.

WE're in danger of veering way OT here, but, whilst I agree, for OPs use, you aren't going to notice a difference though, up until 2 years ago I was happily using an athlon 64 as a htpc.

[koocha]

WE're in danger of veering way OT here, but, whilst I agree, for OPs use, you aren't going to notice a difference though, up until 2 years ago I was happily using an athlon 64 as a htpc.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Here's what I want it to do:

Play games either at 1080p with medium settings or 720p with high settings

Do everything faster than it does now

I'm not bothered about latest and greatest, hence me not being that bothered about Haswell

Run as close to silent as it can

Not use a lot of power

So, Kaveri would work, but I prefer the idea of having my bits separate in case I need to upgrade the graphics card later on. I don't know if an SSD and a new graphics card would do it. I don't know how a Q6600 stacks up against today's processors

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you are trying to save on electricity bills,remember it will take years for you to get that money back if you buy a new system.

However,COD:Ghosts seem to need a reasonable CPU,and more important seems to need a decent graphics card with enough VRAM:

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performa...ance-analysis/

CPU Scaling





GPU Scaling






I would ditch the GTX750TI and get a faster card - an R9 270 would do the job IMHO.

[koocha]

If you are trying to save on electricity bills,remember it will take years for you to get that money back if you buy a new system.

However,COD:Ghosts seem to need a reasonable CPU,and more important seems to need a decent graphics card with enough VRAM:

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performa...ance-analysis/

CPU Scaling





GPU Scaling






I would ditch the GTX750TI and get a faster card - an R9 270 would do the job IMHO.

It would, apart from its TDP is 150w (iirc) so I'll run much hotter, so the fans will need to spin faster and create more noise.

It's on 24/7 behind my telly, so when it's idle it'll need to be practically silent. Currently I can hear my 4890 a lot (190w tdp).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It would, apart from its TDP is 150w (iirc) so I'll run much hotter, so the fans will need to spin faster and create more noise.

It's on 24/7 behind my telly, so when it's idle it'll need to be practically silent. Currently I can hear my 4890 a lot (190w tdp).

The HD4890 is ancient. The chip was small for its TDP so ran hot. The newer cards don't consume anywhere as much power. TDP has nothing to do with power consumption. Both the R9 270 and HD7850 have a PCI-E power connector which means the board can take upto 150W. However,any reviews which measure power consumption of the cards show they don't consume anywhere near 150W.

A massively overclocked GTX750TI running at 1.2GHZ just about matches an HD7850/R7 265,and only consumes around 20W less and costs more. The HD7850/R7 265 have a larger die,so with a decent cooler will be fine.

Moreover,an R9 270 obliterates a GTX750TI in many games like BF4. Get one with a decent cooler and you are sorted.

On top of this AMD has something call ZeroCore. If you are not using the display on your system,it switches the card off.

I run an aluminium mini-ITX system with a Xeon E3 and a GTX660. Its right next to me on the desk and aluminium SFF cases are not very good at surpressing noise at all. However,I cut out the biggest source of noise which was the CPU cooler,and the added acoustic foam to muffle any other noise,which made the system reasonably quiet.

However,steel SFF cases tend to be better at blocking out noise,so you really probably need to look at what can be done about your case too.

My mate has an Elite 120 based mini-ITX SteamBox with an X4 760K and a pre-overclocked HD7700 he runs under his TV. The main sources of noise were the CPU fan and PSU. He replaced both and I cannot hear the system and it is under his TV.

The point I am trying to make,is that if you are worried about noise,you need to look at getting a decent case,quiet PSU and getting a quiet cooler for both the CPU and GPU.

Edit!!

The MSI R9 270 and R9 270X cards don't produce that much noise:

http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/conte...ard_review.png
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/R9_270...noise_idle.gif
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/R9_270...noise_load.gif

COD:Ghosts looks like it pushes graphics cards,so you really need to be aiming for the fastest card you can get.

Second Edit!!

Regarding cases,I suggest looking at the Fractal R4 or Nanoxia Deep Silence cases.

These are soundproofed cases.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

These are the parts I suggest you might want to consider:

Case

Nanoxia Deep Silence 4 ~ £63

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nanox...FesJwwodxAoACQ

This is a soundproofed mATX case.

PSU

Seasonic S12G 450W PSU ~£56

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-...-year-warranty

This is known to have decent sound characteristics.

CPU

Intel Xeon E3 1230 V2 ~£169

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-69w-retail

This is basically a Core i7 3770 without the IGP and a lower 69W TDP. The Haswell equivalent is around £16 more.

Motherboard

Asus P8H77-M PRO ~ £60

http://www.amazon.co.uk/P8H77-M-Moth...4&keywords=h77

RAM

8GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £60

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Patriot-1600...ds=8gb+1600mhz

Graphics card

MSI R9 270 2GB ~ £131

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-m...ms-dp-dvi-hdmi

The total comes to around £551 for the CPU,motherboard,RAM,graphics card,PSU and case.

[koocha]

Thanks for that, was helpful. Not considered a Xeon for my home machine - that's what's in all the servers at work!

For the case I'm going to get the Gelid DarkForce from QuietPC. Want one with all ports and buttons at the top and a SATA dock. Only £45.

I'll look into the Xeon more. Wanting a mobo with at least 4 USB3 on the back and 8 SATA ports inside. Being S1155 I take it the Gigabyte mobo I had would be fine?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The problem is the case is not soundproofed,so if you really want a quiet system you need to mod it with acoustic foam. Plus the Nanoxia case comes with quieter fans. My mate has the Fractal R3 with a Phenom II X6 1045T with the AMD 125W TDP CPU stock cooler. He runs bioinformatics stuff on his CPU which pegs the cores at 100% for days at a time. The AMD stock cooler is not quiet under load,but with the sound proofing it really blocks most of the sound out.

The case and fans used are very important for a quiet system.

Even with my mini-ITX system I used acoustic foam on the side panel.



The Nanoxia case has all the ports at the top. Plus it is an mATX case meaning it is smaller too.

Edit!!

It seems you want 8 SATA ports too. That severely limits the number of motherboards you can get. Most come with six connected onto physical ports on the motherboard plus E-SATA on the backplate.

The Z77,H77,Z87 and H87 chipsets only support 6 SATA ports natively.

Any more ports come through the use of third party controllers which can cause their own set of problems.

It also bumps up the price of the motherboard and also means mATX is probably out too.