Anyone have any recommendations for building a silent PC?

Mr Incredible

I see there are a number of websites touting their "silent" builds, but was wondering what experience people have had in here.  Not looking at a gaming PC, but something for the likes of Premiere Pro, Illustrator etc.  Recommendations would be welcome on a self-build which is towards the "top end" but not necessarily the mutts nuts and OTT!

EndlessWaves

Can you give some example of what sort of components you'd be happy with. 'Reasonably top end' is hard to guage without much context and could be anything from an i5 and integrated graphics to a couple of 120W Xeons and a 200W GPU.

The other major factor (aside from power use and budget) is how small you want the system to be.

Generally the easiest and cheapest way to make a silent system is just to buy components that don't burn a lot of power. Maybe you need to change them after five years instead of after seven but it's a lot less headache than messing around with big soundproofed cases and weighty and expensive cooling systems.

Member 830298

When trying to build a 'silent' PC, one thing we recommend using SSDs instead of Hard Drives. The reason for this is because Hard Drives have spinning disks, which can make quite a lot of noise, especially when under load. SSDs have no moving parts whatsoever, which results in it making no noise

next010

Silent or quiet ? if going for 100% silent I would buy a pre-built system.

If going for quiet then there will be some low noise, get a decent quality noise reduction case like the ones BeQuiet makes.

An SSD drive of course, a fanless GPU or use built in integrated graphics.

For CPU there are low noise air CPU coolers but I like the Corsair self contained water cooling systems, they do a very good job with hot running CPU's with its fan speed on low even when the CPU is maxed out.

Mr Incredible

Thanks.
Was hoping for a fanless type CPU cooler design, so that may limit the THD to 65W on the CPU.  That said, something like the Nofan IcePipe CR-95C is supposed to handle 95W without a fan.   If it was a very quiet CPU cooler, then something like an i7-9700K.  Or a Ryzen alternative?  Equally hoping for a passive GPU (GTX 1050 Ti 4GB KALMX ?) which can support a minimum of 3 monitors, and assuming I can use the M/B monitor for the 4th monitor out.

Fanless Power unit would be ideal (?Seasonic Prime SSR-600TL or similar?), but understand you can get sort of hybrid versions that are silent for most use, but then will kick in under prolonged load.

Case size, not important.  Don't need a small form factor.

Depending on how the HDD's get used, it is possible to get the OS to power down the HDD if not in use.  But I understand your point.  But given it will be a new build, probably an NVme would be a faster option than a SATA SSD.

Ideally silent, but could live with some noise if it kicked in under load.  Most of the time the PC won't be that taxed.

I'm curious as to peoples experience and recommendations.

EndlessWaves

An inaudible fan makes a huge difference in cooling. Passively cooled components dealing with more than ~30W of heat can be tricky to work with. You need very good case airflow. I wouldn't recommend them if you just want a practical choice, only if you want a challenge or something unusual.

If you do fancy doing that then a 9700k is too much, overclocking substantially reduces efficiency. Stick to the 9700.

HomeStuff

Have you checked this site please? It’s a great site, where you will get to view all types of builds.

Pick parts. Build your PC. Compare and share. - PCPartPicker.

You can build and order parts easily.