Silent Gaming Build under $1100

[Giltintur]

Dear Forumers,

I'm about to order my pc, with the following build:

CPU	Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor	$219,99
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$30,99
Motherboard	ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard	$133,99
Memory	Crucial Ballistix Tactical 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$81,99
SSD	OCZ Vertex 3.20 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	Owned
HDD	Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	Owned
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card	$344,99
Case	Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Mid Tower Case	$109,99
Power Supply	Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$183,99
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)	Owned
Monitor	BenQ GW2765HT 60Hz 27.0" Monitor	Owned
		$1 105,93

My goals are:

1. Stay under/around $1100.
2. The PC should be silent on idle.
3. The PC should be as silent as possible under load.
4. The PC should be a strong gaming rig.
5. I don't care for the looks within the case.

I might go for two-way SLI in a year or two.
The build is available @ PCpartpicker, but as a new member, I can't link it. Maybe I can link part of it: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Giltintur/saved/vnPv6h.
Yess!

With that in mind, do you think there is anything I should change?

[scaryjim]

Your friendly house mods are always happy to create legitimate links for you And you only need a few constructive posts to be able to post your own urls.

Looks nice enough - not sure if the twin frozr does a 0% fan speed at idle, but I know a few other GPUs do (ASUS Strix, perhaps), so if absolute silence is necessary that might be something to look at? You say the SSD and HDD are already owned - how long have you had them? If they're a few years old it might be worth looking for something newer.

[Giltintur]

Thank you for the link

I'm planning on adding a second SSD and HDD in a half year or so. The SSD is around a year or two old, and it has windows on it and nothing else (I even save the temporary files to the HDD). But at the moment I don't have more to spend on it.

As far as I know, Twin Fozr stops one of the fans, but not both. According to the Techreport review, it seems that under load, Strix is noisier... As my girlfriend does sleep some 4 metres from the PC, and I do play during the night... I'll have to consider.

[Giltintur]

Got my facts straight: According to MSI:

Zero Frozr : Fans stop spinning when temperatures are low
Independent Fan Control: fans can be operated independently

[MrJim]

Thank you for the link As far as I know, Twin Fozr stops one of the fans, but not both. According to the Techreport review, it seems that under load, Strix is noisier... As my girlfriend does sleep some 4 metres from the PC, and I do play during the night... I'll have to consider.

The MSI 970 GAMING 4G does stop both fans in idle, as long as you've got the most recent BIOS for the card. There were a few 980 cards which has a fan problem whereby only one fan would stop. It's a nice card though, I've been very happy with mine.

[Ulti]

Yep, the current crop of MSI Gaming Frozr coolers are really quiet!

If budget allows in the future, I would definitely invest in getting a 480/512GB SSD and doing away with HDDs altogether. They are one of the noisiest components IMO.

I believe the AX series of PSUs should also stop the fan during low temps/loads so that's a good choice you've got there.

My only main gripe is that you're getting 1x8GB and not 2x4GB? It won't make a massive difference but 2x4GB will give a bit more performance. Of course if you're planning to upgrade to 2x8GB in the future then that makes sense, ignore me.

[CustardInc]

What you've got is pretty good for a semi-silent / quite PC, but there are some more exotic options.

You could get a larger CPU cooler, like the Deepcool Lucifer, that might even be able to run the processor passively for a relatively small increase in price.

As for when you get another hard drive, WD Green drives are near silent, certainly quiet enough to not wake anyone up

With the power supply, you could save yourself some money and get the Silverstone NJ520 which is completely fanless, and is more than enough for your requirements, wouldn't be surprised if you could even add another GPU.

[Giltintur]

You could get a larger CPU cooler, like the Deepcool Lucifer, that might even be able to run the processor passively for a relatively small increase in price.

As for when you get another hard drive, WD Green drives are near silent, certainly quiet enough to not wake anyone up

With the power supply, you could save yourself some money and get the Silverstone NJ520 which is completely fanless, and is more than enough for your requirements, wouldn't be surprised if you could even add another GPU.

Thank you!
Regarding:

• the Cooler: I'll definitely look into this!
• the HDD: I am planning to get a WD Green
• the PSU: According to PCpartpickers calculation, I would be just able to add everything and bee at 520W. However, as I might want to overclock, the digital AXi PSU has a bit more headroom. And it has a fanstop technology below 20% load, and goes up to max at... 30% or 40%, I'm not sure.

My only main gripe is that you're getting 1x8GB and not 2x4GB? It won't make a massive difference but 2x4GB will give a bit more performance. Of course if you're planning to upgrade to 2x8GB in the future then that makes sense, ignore me.

I was considering getting a 2x4GB to start of, but as it turn outs, dual channel doesn't really matter: There's a benchmark @ gamer's nexus.
I will buy a second identical ram in 6 months, and as the maximal capacity of the CPU/MOBO is 32Gig, I don't want to get stuck under it for no good reason. I'm not sure I'll ever have 32 GBs... well, that's not true: I'm fairly sure I'll never have 32 GBs of RAM, but still, why not keep that door open, if it costs nothing and I lose virtually nothing.

I'll give a thought to not having a HDD in the future, it does sound reasonable. Or having a HDD which I only power up if needed.

[MrJim]

I was considering getting a 2x4GB to start of, but as it turn outs, dual channel doesn't really matter: There's a benchmark @ gamer's nexus .net, at guides/1349-ram-how-dual-channel-works-vs-single-channel?showall=1 [I'll edit this in a few posts ]
I will buy a second identical ram in 6 months, and as the maximal capacity of the CPU/MOBO is 32Gig, I don't want to get stuck under it for no good reason. I'm not sure I'll ever have 32 GBs... well, that's not true: I'm fairly sure I'll never have 32 GBs of RAM, but still, why not keep that door open, if it costs nothing and I lose virtually nothing.

I'll give a thought to not having a HDD in the future, it does sound reasonable. Or having a HDD which I only power up if needed.

Finding an identical RAM module might be problematic, depending on which brand you choose - the advantage of buying RAM in pairs is that they're matched & guaranteed to work together.

32Gb of RAM in a gaming PC is way over the top. Firstly, by the time 32Gb is the norm for gaming PCs (which I dare say, it will be one day), the rest of your PC will be hopelessly outdated. Secondly, there are very few 64 bit games out there that can make use of extra RAM - the only one I know of is Battlefield 4. So unless you're planning to run a huge number of programmes in the background while gaming, you shouldn't need more than 16Gb in a gaming machine, & whilst 8 should be plenty.

[pledgerwood]

Build looks v. good to me. I would maybe get a better hard drive. Other than that it looks like it's going to be a killer system!

I think that what you have at the moment is pretty good. Maybe the PSU is overkill, I'm not sure. Try a PSU calculator.

[plexabit]

This is almost identical to my planned build. I went for the Extreme6 and replaced the SSD with an M.2 motherboard SSD, but I might just switch to the way you have it. I also went for a beefier cooler and a different case, but that's partially because I wanted it to be show-off-able in the inside.

[Giltintur]

Thank you everyone for the insight, I just completed the build.

I sticked with the Hyper 212 Evo, as according to the charts, it hardly had any drawbacks compared to the Deepcool, and I run a bit out of budget at the last moment.
plexabit: earlier, I was thinking about the Extreme6, but I found no reason to rationalize to couple of extra bucks. There just was no reason to it.

I'll be getting 8 more GB's of Ram, a WD Green 2T and a Samsung 850 Evo 250GB or 500GB in a couple of months time.

[Giltintur]

And this is the final look. It has virtually no sound at all on idle.
And very little on load.