Quiet Powerful PC for Video Editing

[DaveBurren]

Hi,
I am looking for any advice on how quiet this PC configuration would be, and any way to make it quieter?

The most important goal is to have the PC as quiet as possible as well as powerful for Video Editing.

The PC will mainly be used for video editing, photoshop and usual desktop use and browsing. No gaming. I am presently using Premiere Pro CS5.5


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 690 DUAL GPU - 3 x DVI-I, 1 x mDP
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 335 SERIES SSD,SATA 6Gb/s(upto 500MB/sR|450MB/sW) SPECIAL
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)
SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 313 SERIES - SLC CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD
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 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ MODULAR TXM-750 V2-80 PLUS®
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio
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
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
Quantity
1


This PC configuration is expensive ..... approx 4,000 euros including VAT. So I want to try to make it do me for the next 5 to 8 years if possible.

Questions:
• Does anyone know how quiet will this PC be? Both when idle, and when video editing.
• Would inclusion of a hard disk 4TB WD increase the noise, and would I be better using external hard drives to keep the PC quieter? If the latter, what would be the fastest access method to the external drives…. USB 3.0 or some other way?
• Does the motherboard SABERTOOTH X79 have extra PCIe3 slots available for future proofing?
• Is there another case that would be quieter than the Fractal R4 ? Possibly the Coolmaster Silencio?
• Any quieter Power supply unit than the Corsair 750 Enthusuast?
• Anything else I should consider for future proofing

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[keynes]

Can you use a dual gpu for video editing? The P9X79-Pro is a cheaper motherboard and has the same amount of PCI-E slots. You could benefit from overclocking your cpu but you need a better cpu cooler. I don't think the noise of a caviar black is noticeable and having an SSD cache drive wouldn't bring a significant benefit if your primary drive is an SSD.

 

[DaveBurren]

Hi Keynes,
Thanks for your reply and your inputs!

I tried to select the motherboard P9X79-Pro but received the message “You have chosen too many PCI devices for this motherboard. This motherboard can only support 0 PCI Devices.”

I have selected “3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card”

I was very surprised at this message…. Maybe someone from PC Specialist can comment…

Can the P9X79-Pro not handle the PCI card or is there an error in the configurator checker?

Regarding the additional noise (and possible heat and resulting fan) from adding a hard drive… I think this question can only be answered by someone who seen/heard a similar PC configuration with NO Hard Drives… and only SSDs.

My wife has a laptop with 2 SSDs and no hard drive…… it’s an Optimus i7-4900MQ and I can hardly believe that it is completely silent 90% or 95% of the time. Until the fan kicks in for a minute or less. It also has a NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M which also appears to be silent.

It is a joy to work with a completely silent machine.

I am wondering if this complete silence can also be achieved with a PC due to the lack of Hard Drive whirl… lack of additional heat from any hard drive…. and hopefully the fan will only kick in intermittently.

Thanks also for you input that you believe having the SSD for Cache would not give any significant improvement as the primary drive would be an SSD.

I was wondering if having a dedicated SSD just for cache could improve performance in some way.

Has anyone seen/heard of a similar PC configuration with only SSDs and no Hard drive?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[vanthus]

The P9X79-Pro doesn't have any PCI expansion slots,only PCI- e.
If you click on the help sign (question mark) on the right of (Motherboard) on the configurator,it shows the specifications.