SFF quiet midrange gaming machine

[k_ogren]

I have been trying to evaluate components for a new system. Looking for something that is reasonably powerful to get me through for a while. Relatively quiet, so I believe that means not requiring too much cooling. I am also somewhat intrigued by the Mini-ITX idea. I have compiled this list, please let me know what you think, what's outright wrong, what your preferences are etc..

SilverStone SG13B-Q Mini-ITX Computer Case $48.99

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Tempered Glass $79.99

Intel Core I Plus i5+ 8500 $239.99

AMD Ryzen 5 2600 $169.99 What is the right chipset x470 or B450?

SILVERSTONE SST-NT06-PRO-V2 Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler $55.40

ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac LGA 1151 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard $134.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti SC $429.99

SILVERSTONE SST-SX500-G 500W SFX 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply $92.93

Silverstone SST-PP08B PSU Accessory $10.96

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 $159.99

Crucial MX500 M.2 2280 500GB SATA III $99.99

ARCTIC F12 Case Fan, 120mm $7.95

Not sure about the case and the AMD vs Intel part. Most of this is from plans on the Tech Buyer's Guru site. Newegg prices.

 

[el01]

I have been trying to evaluate components for a new system. Looking for something that is reasonably powerful to get me through for a while. Relatively quiet, so I believe that means not requiring too much cooling. I am also somewhat intrigued by the Mini-ITX idea. I have compiled this list, please let me know what you think, what's outright wrong, what your preferences are etc..

SilverStone SG13B-Q Mini-ITX Computer Case $48.99

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Tempered Glass $79.99

Intel Core I Plus i5+ 8500 $239.99

AMD Ryzen 5 2600 $169.99 What is the right chipset x470 or B450?

SILVERSTONE SST-NT06-PRO-V2 Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler $55.40

ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac LGA 1151 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard $134.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti SC $429.99

SILVERSTONE SST-SX500-G 500W SFX 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply $92.93

Silverstone SST-PP08B PSU Accessory $10.96

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 $159.99

Crucial MX500 M.2 2280 500GB SATA III $99.99

ARCTIC F12 Case Fan, 120mm $7.95

Not sure about the case and the AMD vs Intel part. Most of this is from plans on the Tech Buyer's Guru site. Newegg prices.

Firstly, about sound... There are two ways to approach overall system sound (IMO). The first is having an airflow focused case and running fans at lower RPMs. Sure, the case may be louder overall with fans at stock settings/max speeds than a silenced case with the same fans, but with fans at lower RPMs, given the airflow of the case to begin with, the fans can run at a lower RPM to acheive the same amount of airflow.

The second silenced option is to have a really quiet case (like the Dark Base Pro 900) and add very loud and very "windy" fans. There, the sound dampening of the case sort of "counters" the loudness of the fans, and while airflow will be impeded in such a case, the fans you choose will make up for it.

I personally like the first option more, given that if you do want to overclock/increase clocks somehow in the future, you can just tune your fan settings and GPU boost (and XFR on AMD Zen processors) will take care of the rest. With a silenced case (such as the Evolv, which is not that silence-focused, instead being a "showpiece" case), you would have to remove panels to get similar results.

I would personally choose a case like the Define Nano S from Fractal Design, which is a case that is somewhat airflow focused and somewhat silence focused. It has sound dampening on the back panel and the front door, but it also has front vents that actually kinda work for airflow. It also has tons of build perks (such as easily removeable dust filters, really good cable management in the rear of the case, etc. etc.

Or, if you want to go even more compact, get a Noctua L9i or some small cooler and the Silverstone SG13. It has somewhat good airflow, it's tiny, and though it's kinda a pain to build in, it looks really impressive at the end. Not sure about GPU length though...

If you want more case ideas, contact anyone on here and maybe we can figure something out


Secondly, about AMD motherboards... For ITX, I really think B450 is the way to go. 99% of the features on X470 carry over to B450, and since you can't run SLI (or more SATA or more M.2) on X470, you really don't need a X470 board. Also, with 2000-series Ryzen chips, you don't really have to overclock, since XFR2 (eXtended Frequency Range 2) does dynamic clock adjustments based on how cool the chip is, and in many benchmarks (including games), XFR2 actually performs better than an overclock. You don't have to turn XFR2 on, either, it works out of the box.


Finally, about Intel vs. AMD... If you just game or do a degree of video editing, an Intel processor is for you. If you want to do 3D rendering, simulation, or other professional work along with your gaming, go AMD. Intel still has a bit of an IPC advantage over AMD (which makes Intel slightly better in games), but AMD is catching up reasonably fast.

On a slight tangent, if you can, I would suggest going for something like a ADATA 64GB M.2 SSD that actually does PCIe speeds, and then a spinning disk (something like a 1 TB 2.5" hard drive) for your games and such. I'm not sure about what B450 does for M.2 storage (in previous gen Ryzen, B350 had M.2 limited to SATA3 speeds as far as I remember...)

 

[rfarmer]

I used to have a Phanteks Evolv itx, it is absolutely massive for an itx case. If you do decide to go with it I would get a larger tower cooler.
If you decide on the i5 8500 I would get a B360 motherboard rather than a z370. You can still run ram up to 2666 MHz and you won't notice the difference between that and 3000 MHz. Unless you have a K series CPU there is no need for a z370.

 

[smitty2k1]

1070ti...? sounds pretty "high end" to me

 

[Thehack]

Just a note,

Sound dampening is just a marketing gimmick. If you want low noise, the proper way to do it is to go overboard with the cooling solution and have good airflow.

A lot of the noise comes from crappy gpu fans, so either replacing them with 120mm or replace the whole cooler itself gives you a good improvement in temps and noise.

Make sure you have an efficient psu with a good fan curve, so that it doesn't need to come on much.

Buy the biggest air cooler you can fit for your cpu.

Cases like the evolve itx or the shift have crap airflow and will in turn be noisy for what it is.

 

[Smanci]

^ Thruth spoken.

 

[TGAIO]

Getting a case with good Airflow is important, the Evolve shift therefore is a not so good choice IMO

 

[k_ogren]

Wow thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it. I like the idea of good airflow, rather than the sound dampening. I really appreciate the pointers on the chipsets as well, I don't want to waste money on options that I can't use. Thanks for the pointer on the M.2 drive, I am unfamiliar, and would have thought they would all be wonderful.

The SG13 or Define Nano S look like good ways to consider, although I am still having a tough time with the lack of 5-1/4 external bay. I'll get used to it i'd imagine use an external drive for those rare few times I want to burn pictures to dvd.

"Or, if you want to go even more compact, get a Noctua L9i or some small cooler and the Silverstone SG13. It has somewhat good airflow, it's tiny, and though it's kinda a pain to build in, it looks really impressive at the end. Not sure about GPU length though..."
My understanding is that 10.6" is the length of this card, and the maximum the SG13 will accept.

I stumbled upon a 35 watt intel chip (Core i5 8600T), does that make any sense to consider, or would underclocking a mainstream chip be equivalent?

I have done some video editing in the past, but it is mostly gaming (Call of Duty WWII right now), and the usual web stuff. I mostly just want a machine to move me into the future a few years, and the idea of the SFF looks fun and challenging especially if the machine inside is reasonably powerful. Thanks again for the thoughts.

 

[Thehack]

A regular 8600 is fine. Get an SFX psu and put a big Shuriken on it. Make sure your ram is low profile. You'll be fine without 5 inch bay. I haven't used disks in the last 5 years.

If noise is such a big issue you should get a define nano s with a big air cooler and sfx psu to allow room for a big gpu cooler.

But to be honest, unless you have a home studio, an SG13 with modest components will be quiet enough.

 

[el01]

Just a note,

Sound dampening is just a marketing gimmick. If you want low noise, the proper way to do it is to go overboard with the cooling solution and have good airflow.

A lot of the noise comes from crappy gpu fans, so either replacing them with 120mm or replace the whole cooler itself gives you a good improvement in temps and noise.

Make sure you have an efficient psu with a good fan curve, so that it doesn't need to come on much.

Buy the biggest air cooler you can fit for your cpu.

Cases like the evolve itx or the shift have crap airflow and will in turn be noisy for what it is.

Not quite...
You've still got to admit that the Be Quiet cases are still quieter than, say, a RL06 from Silverstone. The fans on the be quiet cases are already quieter, and they use very thick sound dampening materials on the panels such that high-frequency noises from the GPU fans and potentially loud hard drives are blocked from the user. Gamers Nexus testing shows this. I may be completely wrong about this, though, as I'm no expert in cases nor sound dampening.

 

[el01]

Wow thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it. I like the idea of good airflow, rather than the sound dampening. I really appreciate the pointers on the chipsets as well, I don't want to waste money on options that I can't use. Thanks for the pointer on the M.2 drive, I am unfamiliar, and would have thought they would all be wonderful.

The SG13 or Define Nano S look like good ways to consider, although I am still having a tough time with the lack of 5-1/4 external bay. I'll get used to it i'd imagine use an external drive for those rare few times I want to burn pictures to dvd.

"Or, if you want to go even more compact, get a Noctua L9i or some small cooler and the Silverstone SG13. It has somewhat good airflow, it's tiny, and though it's kinda a pain to build in, it looks really impressive at the end. Not sure about GPU length though..."
My understanding is that 10.6" is the length of this card, and the maximum the SG13 will accept.

I stumbled upon a 35 watt intel chip (Core i5 8600T), does that make any sense to consider, or would underclocking a mainstream chip be equivalent?

I have done some video editing in the past, but it is mostly gaming (Call of Duty WWII right now), and the usual web stuff. I mostly just want a machine to move me into the future a few years, and the idea of the SFF looks fun and challenging especially if the machine inside is reasonably powerful. Thanks again for the thoughts.

If you really want your SG13 to be ultra-quiet, I would wait for the Silverstone fanless SFX power supply (I think it might be out???), then use the largest cooler you possibly can, replace the fan with a higher-airflow (CFM) fan (there are these Scythe fans I forget the name of that have hella good airflow- the quiet somethings...), replace the front fan with a higher-airflow fan, and then call it a day

Someone should try jamming the stock fans from the Raven RVZ02 (the really windy ones) into an ITX ultra-compact case and then measuring component temperatures

 

[Thehack]

Not quite...
You've still got to admit that the Be Quiet cases are still quieter than, say, a RL06 from Silverstone. The fans on the be quiet cases are already quieter, and they use very thick sound dampening materials on the panels such that high-frequency noises from the GPU fans and potentially loud hard drives are blocked from the user. Gamers Nexus testing shows this. I may be completely wrong about this, though, as I'm no expert in cases nor sound dampening.

I covered that. My original post pointed out the first thing you do is replace the gpu fans, either aftermarket cooler or strapping 120mm fans on them.

I haven't used a mechanical hard drive in years and there is very little vibrations from fans nowadays.

Sound dampening is the last thing on a list of effective measures to make a quiet pc.

1. Good airflow.
2. Over spec the cooling solution.
3. All solid state parts.
4. Power optimization.
5. "sound dampening"

It is mostly a marketing gimmick because by the time you hit all the points, there is very little that sound dampening actually does.

 

[el01]

I covered that. My original post pointed out the first thing you do is replace the gpu fans, either aftermarket cooler or strapping 120mm fans on them.

I haven't used a mechanical hard drive in years and there is very little vibrations from fans nowadays.

Sound dampening is the last thing on a list of effective measures to make a quiet pc.

1. Good airflow.
2. Over spec the cooling solution.
3. All solid state parts.
4. Power optimization.
5. "sound dampening"

It is mostly a marketing gimmick because by the time you hit all the points, there is very little that sound dampening actually does.

I see where you're coming from here, but I find a little bit of an issue with the aftermarket GPU cooler idea... the Morpheus II is quite thick and (most likely) wouldn't fit in a SG13, and the Accelero... I'm not sure. EVGA does have relatively quiet GPU fans to begin with though, as with a lot of Strix cards. Also, there's the issue of "smart" cooler design on the Morpheus II. The EVGA iCX cooler has full coverage of the VRMs, memory, and has independently controlled fans to cool each of the areas and the GPU overall. The Morpheus just has a bunch of small heatsinks over the VRMs. Admittedly, the Morhpeus has hypothetically greater heatsink area, but the EVGA cooler is arguably a "smarter" design.

I personally still use mechanical drives because they're cheap and have a ton of storage. Now that I think of it, hard drives really aren't that noisy to me, especially if you use some rubber vibration dampening washers.

Finally, I'm still pretty sure sound dampening is more useful for a desktop user who slaps a bunch of full-size drives in their system and not a lot of SSDs, along with just leaving a lot of stock components be, e.g.:

• Get a bunch of cool and great components for my PC
• Make sure it looks good and does relatively well in my games
• Realize that the system that you built is really loud
• Stuff it into a sound-dampened case to make the thing quiet.

In an ITX case, you can't quite look at your components, and smallness takes priority over all other factors, so naturally components such as SSDs, solid-state (and often smaller) components, and better fans to help your system stuffed into a small space run well.

On a bit of a tangent, arguably, a LN2 overclocking system is a dead-silent system

 

[Thehack]

Yeah. It would be hard to optimize silence as you get smaller, as physics is against you.

For small builds, the closer the build is to be an open air bench the better it is noise wise. Sound dampening would be close to useless in a small case since it reduces the airflow you can have in such a small case.

Vrm don't dissipate that much heat. A small heatsink is plenty.

Arguably, I would put my computer in the closet and that would be the quietest way.

 

[el01]

Yeah. It would be hard to optimize silence as you get smaller, as physics is against you.

For small builds, the closer the build is to be an open air bench the better it is noise wise. Sound dampening would be close to useless in a small case since it reduces the airflow you can have in such a small case.

Vrm don't dissipate that much heat. A small heatsink is plenty.

Arguably, I would put my computer in the closet and that would be the quietest way.

Spoiler: XD

Lol just have your side panels have air holes so big they're literally fan holes, then have it in a closet in a different house with LN2 pumping into the system.

My comment about the VRMs was for overclocking (if you want to run a kinda high overclock every single day for a few years).
The SG13 does have very good airflow though, considering that it's literally a vent in the front.

 

[k_ogren]

I would personally choose a case like the Define Nano S from Fractal Design, which is a case that is somewhat airflow focused and somewhat silence focused. It has sound dampening on the back panel and the front door, but it also has front vents that actually kinda work for airflow. It also has tons of build perks (such as easily removeable dust filters, really good cable management in the rear of the case, etc. etc.


If you want more case ideas, contact anyone on here and maybe we can figure something out

I have been leaning toward the SG13 for the most part, the Define Nano S certainly looks like a good option, but I would be interested in other opinions about cases.

Secondly, about AMD motherboards... For ITX, I really think B450 is the way to go. 99% of the features on X470 carry over to B450, and since you can't run SLI (or more SATA or more M.2) on X470, you really don't need a X470 board. Also, with 2000-series Ryzen chips, you don't really have to overclock, since XFR2 (eXtended Frequency Range 2) does dynamic clock adjustments based on how cool the chip is, and in many benchmarks (including games), XFR2 actually performs better than an overclock. You don't have to turn XFR2 on, either, it works out of the box.


Finally, about Intel vs. AMD... If you just game or do a degree of video editing, an Intel processor is for you. If you want to do 3D rendering, simulation, or other professional work along with your gaming, go AMD. Intel still has a bit of an IPC advantage over AMD (which makes Intel slightly better in games), but AMD is catching up reasonably fast.

Your description of the merits of the Intel have me looking primarily that direction. is the Z370 the right choice, or is this a similar situation to the AMD boards, it looks like this chipset also offers 2 m.2's SLI, etc...

 

[rfarmer]

If you are planning on using the i5 8500 a z370 isn't needed, unless you think you might upgrade to a k series down the road. There are several H370/B360 that have 2 M.2. Asus makes a H370 and B360, Gigabyte H370 and MSI B360.

 

[k_ogren]

I was thinking the Core I5 8600, is the H370, or B360 still a good choice? I have a Core i5-4670K CPU 3.40GHz now in an AS-Rock Fatality Z87 now, the AS-Rocks seem to be reviewed well, and mine has served me well for years, so I will likely go that way again. I am running an MSI Gaming N760. Looks like I built this back about 4-1/4 years ago into my old Lian Li 7b case. Not sure if the second M.2 would be useful in these small cases like the SG13, definitely no need for SLI.

 

[rfarmer]

I'm using an Asrock H370 with an i3-8100 in my HTPC build and it is a good, solid motherboard.

 

[el01]

I have been leaning toward the SG13 for the most part, the Define Nano S certainly looks like a good option, but I would be interested in other opinions about cases.



Your description of the merits of the Intel have me looking primarily that direction. is the Z370 the right choice, or is this a similar situation to the AMD boards, it looks like this chipset also offers 2 m.2's SLI, etc...

The thing about Intel boards is that M.2 will be slightly throttled due to M.2 being through the chipset, instead of direct from the CPU (on AMD processors). It's basically the same on Intel: don't buy the highest end chipset, as the features are very similar between the enthusiast and slightly more budget systems. If you really need to overclock, I would go with AMD and B450.