In my experience, the following is most important for making a PC quiet:maxkibler wrote:Also does anyone have any tips for making a computer as quiet as possible? Case, fan rpm etc
1. Use a case with good soundproofing while also having enough interior volume and airflow to allow for decent cooling. Avoid cases with windows and extreme ventilation openings aimed at those with multiple video cards who overclock everything, and therefore sacrifice silence for airflow.
2. Get a decent CPU fan. The ones that come included with CPUs are all cheap, noisy crap. Don't go overboard, since the most advanced coolers are really only useful for those who overclock and not at all necessary if you want to keep your CPU cool at stock speed.
3. Buy a video card of the latest, most energy efficient generation with a good, quiet cooling solution. Avoid AMD, since they are more power hungry for the same performance. Also avoid older generations, as they draw more power when idle, and don't have the same power management and cooling features. And avoid cards with "reference" cooler design, since they are usually noisier than the more fancy cooler solutions.
So, applying these principles, having recently built three gaming PCs for my wife and kids, and also upgraded the video card in my music/office/gaming PC to the latest and greatest GTX 1080, I can give some specific component recommendations. Note that I am not a guru, and I don't have experience with everything on the market. I am just a guy who has been building PCs for my family for 20 years.
Case: http://www.fractal-design.com/home/prod ... e-r5-white
I am amazed at how quiet this is. My wife and kids have these, and I am jealous.
CPU cooler: I have been using Arctic cooling freezer i11 and freezer 13 in multiple builds and am very happy. The Noctua you mentioned is probably fine as well, but more expensive and also so big that some users have complained about it being difficult to fit with regular boards and cases. I have liquid cooling in my PC, and there is noise from the pump. Maybe the liquid cooling you mention does not have this problem.
Video card: The GTX 960 is an excellent choice. I have no experience with the MSI model you mention, but my wife has an Asus Strix GTX 960, and it is completely silent when idle. The fans only start under load when gaming, and the temperature gets above 50 or 60 degrees Celsius. All custom cooler designs from MSI and others should be similarly quiet. However, since the GTX 1060 is now available, I would check that one out. It is a little more expensive than the GTX 960, but should have performance equal to a GTX 980 with the power and noise of the GTX 960. The Pascal GPUs used by the 10XX generation are significantly more power efficient than the Maxwell GPUs used by the 9XX cards. Also, the GTX 960 you mention is limited by the amount of memory (I assume you also play games).