Quiet Powerful desktop for video editing

[DaveBurren]

Hi,
I am hoping that the following spec will be quiet (no fans due to SSD's ?), and be powerful for video editing using CS5.5 Premiere Pro.

Sabertooth chosen as i want the Firewire PI card.

Is the Fractal Define R4 the quietest case to use for this?

Any advice appreciated.

Best Wishes,
Dave

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE R4 BLACK PEARL QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-4930K (3.4GHz) 12MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH X79: SOCKET 2011, R.O.G
Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST QUAD-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (4 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 530 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 490MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
960GB CRUCIAL M500 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 400MB/sW)
3rd Hard Disk
960GB CRUCIAL M500 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 400MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Firewire
3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card
Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
ASUS 27" Professional SERIES PB278Q
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
2 - 3 DAY DELIVERY TO REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days

 

[Cadwah]

Hi Dave, first of all, that's quite a rig your going for!!!

On quietness, you will have no HDD noise however you need to be aware that a high percentage of all noise generated by computers is the fan noise from keeping the components cool. With the high end components you chose and the heavy use they will get you want your fans to keep the machine cool as this will greatly extend the life of the machine. Quiet cases sacrifice cooling and airflow to keep noise down, this can result in internal temperatures being higher and as a result the noise from fans actually increases to try and combat this. You may be better off getting a better case which isn't defined as "quiet" but because of the improved airflow your internals will be cooler resulting in less fan noise. Also you may wish to increase the size of your PSU, it will allow for future upgrades such as adding another 770 in the future. If you plan to overclock the processor in the future you should also go for a better cooler (h80i or h100i).

 

[mantadog]

its a bit of a contradiction to have a high end, yet silent rig.

As already said, its fans that make the noise not really the HDD. I would swap out those 1TB SSD's for a standard HDD as the noise level is really very minimal even on my caviar black, which is a performance HDD.

If your planning to overclock (the RAM and CPU says yes but the cooler says no) you will need a better cooler, the h100i is noisy as hell, so that ruins your quiet PC. Drop the RAM to the 1600Mhz stuff, the faster stuff have 0 benefit unless you overclock the CPU, and I doubt you plan to overclock if your worried about noise.

 

[DaveBurren]

Thanks for the quick replies!

The reason i am going for all SSDs is that i recently used a laptop with 2 SSD's and zero noise... silent.

Chassis & Display Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4900MQ (2.80GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM) 16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 240GB INTEL® 530 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 490MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 240GB INTEL® 530 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 490MB/sW)

I figured if i followed the same principle with the desktop, then due to low temperatures and no spinning disks..... i could also achieve near silent performance...at least when doing simple tasks.

Cadwah, i am assuming if the internals are cooler.... it should need less fans..... and the more silent casing would also help.

Much of the time i will be using the PC for less intensive work, so at least at those times, kit would be great if it was near silent.

Mantadog, you are right that i won't be overclocking. I was hoping with the 6 core at 3.4 i would not need to. And again not produce too much heat.

As i don't plan to overclock... you say i should drop the RAM to 1600Mhz ? Would the 2400Mhz not help is some way?

Have either of you or anyone else 'heard' or driven a desktop with all SSD's ?

I was amazed at the silent PC..... and hoping to get close to it with the desktop... at least when it is idling doing simple tasks.

 

[mantadog]

My PC is running 'silet' right now, but only if I ignore the fans.... I would class posting on a forum as a simple task, and my HDD is making no discernible noise what so ever. Honestly, the fans are your biggest enemy when it comes to noise. What you want is a good chassis that has a few fans, that enables the fans to spin at lower speeds thus enabling a quieter experience. getting a silent chassis means your system is going to be hotter at idle and is going to spin up the fans to compensate, the airflow just isn't as good, so paradoxically you can end up with a quieter system if your chassis is a 'non' quiet variety.

yes I have heard of systems that don't have normal HDD's, they are becoming more common but still quite rare. More often than not the reason is not based on noise levels but just pure speed. The RAM will not make a single per cent improvement, PCS don't even stock the 1333Mhz stuff but even 1333Mhz would be more than quick enough. Honestly 1600Mhz is faster than you need anyway.

if you want a quiet PC and your willing to pay for it, stick with the SSD, get a non quiet chassis and you will have your quiet system.
if you want a cheaper quiet PC, grab a non quiet chassis, a ssd for the boot drive and a couple of 1TB HDD's. Under low load you will never know. Only when your writing to the HDD intensively will the it make any more noise than the system with the SSDs.

 

[Cadwah]

Hi Dave,

A few points to your queries.

The benefits to using all SSD's in your build are response times and data transfer will be much quicker, this comes at the premium that SSD storage is extremely expensive. Although as Mantadog said before the high quality HDD's like the Caviar black don't make too much noise anyway.

Your main source of noise will be your fans. The fans are used to keep your CPU and GPU cool.
Your CPU will heat up when used, it will heat up lots when you put it under heavy load.
The Triple copper heatpipe you selected is a good quiet air cooler for this purpose however this just draws the heat away from your CPU and into your case raising the ambient temperature.
It is then the job of your case fans to remove this heat and the heat generated by your GPU from the case. This is hampered by choosing a "quiet" case as generally they have fewer fans and worse airflow than "non-quiet" cases.
Because of the worse airflow in the quiet case the case fans may actually need to work harder to bring the temperature down resulting in more noise than if you had gone for a normal case with better airflow and more fans.

For example: The R4 has 2 case fans one to draw cool air in at the front and one to expel the hot air at the back. While your components are under load these fans will have to work harder(louder) to keep the temperatures down than a case with more fans (more fans can move the same amount of air through the case at lower RPM).

Obviously this only applies to when the machine is at load, at other times where the machine is working well within its capabilities it will generate hardly any heat and any of the high end cases will be very quiet.

Edit: What Mantadog said ^^, he's quicker than I am

 

[DaveBurren]

Thanks again for clarifying.

The laptop i mentioned above is silent 95% of the time, until the fan only occasionally kicks in. I am talking about when doing easy tasks such as browsing... or writing documents etc.

Can that not be achieved with a desktop? Or do the fans have to keep running all the time? Surely some chassis must have 'controllers for the fans', so they could turn off the fans completely if the temperature is lower than some cut off?

I have seen elsewhere in this Forum where moderators recommended the quiet chassis when someone was looking for quietness. Seems to really defeat the purpose, if what you say is true... that these quiet chassis actually produce more heat... result in higher fan speeds and in more noise.

It's one big drawback of buying a PC over the internet. You can't actually 'listen' to a few of them... to hear for yourself which one runs quietest.

Having said that... they guys 'who build the PCs for PC Specialist' must hear them.... and they must 'know' which ones are quietest.

Do those builder guys write in these forums?

I will reduce the RAM to 1600Mhz. Thanks for the tip!

By the way, i see that the recommended RAM is DDR3-1333/1600/1866

Would the 2400Mhz RAM not be able to handle speeds of 1866 without over-clocking.... thus being faster than 1600Mhz RAM ?

So i think we all seem to be in agreement, that most of the time it's the FANs that cause most noise. So i wonder whether the question should be "which Desktop configuration includes controllers to stop the fans when not needed?"

Best Wishes,
Dave

 

[Cadwah]

I'll be honest, I assumed you would be mainly using the computer for very heavy duty work as you chose the 4930K. This is a highly specialised and expensive piece of kit. Generally you would never put one of these in a quiet build. This processor is workstation capable and as such it should have sufficient cooling. If your use isn't that intensive you may be better off sticking with the i7 4770(non-k version) this might be a more suitable processor for a "quiet" build.

 

[Boozad]

If you want a quiet case go for the Cooler Master Silencio 650.

 

[mantadog]

You are right about the RAM, faster is not needed unless overclocking.

Now the main issue seems to be fan noise. The quiet chassis tend to be for rigs that don't have uber high end hardware, your rig has a beefy CPU and GPU, those create hot air that needs venting from the system. 'quiet' cases are perfect for a CPU and maybe a low end GPU for little more than displaying to the monitor. The quiet cases have low noise fans that don't move as much air as the higher performance cases so are perfect fro dissipating smaller amounts of heated air created by just a CPU

Under 'normal' low intensity work most PC's are capable of running very quietly right out of the box. The options you have are to replace all the fans on your chosen chassis with low noise fans, its easy but maybe not what you want to be doing if your not clued up on PC's. The 2nd is to use something like Fan Xpert on an asus motherboard that supports it, I don't see anything on the ASUS website for the SABERTOOTH X79 so maybe this wont work for you. But fan Xpert allow you to set temps that you want the fans to ramp up at. here is a demo of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcUz0SjBKGY

Apart from that a quiet CPU cooler is the most important part, and you have probably the best option available from PSC.

But I think we have established now that it is the fans that make the noise, if you can get good airflow in the case, the fans wont need to spin up so much and your golden.

 

[Boozad]

Now the main issue seems to be fan noise. The quiet chassis tend to be for rigs that don't have uber high end hardware, your rig has a beefy CPU and GPU, those create hot air that needs venting from the system. 'quiet' cases are perfect for a CPU and maybe a low end GPU for little more than displaying to the monitor. The quiet cases have low noise fans that don't move as much air as the higher performance cases so are perfect fro dissipating smaller amounts of heated air created by just a CPU

The CM Silencio 650 keeps my rig at very decent temperatures. It does help having a reference 780 that expels air from the back, but it's pretty much a myth that the higher end quiet cases make gaming much hotter, they don't. At least the 650 doesn't anyway, the fact it's a very large case probably helps as well.

 

[vanthus]

Not so sure faster RAM wouldn't make a difference for video editing,according to the "Videoguys" website,
"If you are planning on an i7 Hex core machine we recommend 24GB or even 32GB for optimal results!We also recommend getting the fastest memory possible"

 

[mantadog]

The CM Silencio 650 keeps my rig at very decent temperatures. It does help having a reference 780 that expels air from the back, but it's pretty much a myth that the higher end quiet cases make gaming much hotter, they don't. At least the 650 doesn't anyway, the fact it's a very large case probably helps as well.

I hadn't though of PCS using reference cards that expel air out the back in all fairness... That will make a huge difference under load to temps inside the chassis, bit minimal at idle. Anyway I think most computers are fairly 'silent' on low loads so long as you have a quieter cooler and fans that you can actually control.

As far as faster RAM, I think PCS ship it running lower than 2400 anyway so unless the OP was going to change it himself I believe he would get RAM running slower than the rated speed anyway. As far as I'm aware anyway from pervious posts on the forums. The price difference is negligible these days so no harm in getting it. But overall I think the RAM is probably not going to be the bottleneck. But I shall go and read up on faster RAM because perhaps with the later gen processors etc it is starting to become more important.