Silent PC's

zed

Legend
If I was to build a silent PC
Whats the best silent (as in fanless)

CPU
GPU

also the best bang for the buck
CPU & GPU

cheers zed
 
Are you intending to Game on the PC or only surf and play movies and music?
 
Intel nuc with a passive case for everything that is not gaming or very cpu intensive for longer periods of time.

I wouldn't bother with trying to passively cool anything more than a NUC. Extremely expensive and not worth the effort.

I've looked into it about a year ago for a htpc/server and found that even passively cooling a not-so-fast CPU gets difficult quick. Not to mention gpus.

Yes you could get one of those massive lumps of copper cases but your probably better off with a) water cooling if you can live with pretty silent or b) moving your computer to a different room.

Even a passively cooled system still makes some noise so if absolute silence is the goal I would just pull a HDMI and USB cables from one room to the other.
 
@BRiT - create music, so very CPU intensive

Even a passively cooled system still makes some noise
perhaps, but then again my ipad/phone is whilst of course not silent, pretty much for all intents and purposes is

looking at www.quietpc.com you can get a fanless Intel 7th Gen Core i7 7700K @ 4.2mhz, isn't that pretty decent?

The GPU I see being a non issue, I used to have a silent GPU years ago, and it performed great (then again I'm not a hardcore gamer) from a google I see I can get a fanless GPU that beats my current cooled GPU
 
If you do the case-as-heat-sink you need to remember there are no fans exchanging air with the outside so chipsets will run hot and a fanless GPU will too. Also, room temp will be critical as will getting good connection over the ribs on the outside of the case.
 
@BRiT - create music, so very CPU intensive

perhaps, but then again my ipad/phone is whilst of course not silent, pretty much for all intents and purposes is

looking at www.quietpc.com you can get a fanless Intel 7th Gen Core i7 7700K @ 4.2mhz, isn't that pretty decent?

The GPU I see being a non issue, I used to have a silent GPU years ago, and it performed great (then again I'm not a hardcore gamer) from a google I see I can get a fanless GPU that beats my current cooled GPU

Which one are you looking at? If it's just a cooler you have to keep in mind that heat will start building up inside your case, especially under prolonged intensive usage. As Mize said its not just the cpu, its also the other parts that start heating up so you probably need some case fans. As soon as you start adding case fans you might as well use a cpu fan.

You could go caseless, that might work. If possible I would still look into moving the pc outside of the room first.
 
Buy 1-2 noctuas for case fans, there's really no point on going purely fanless, you will never hear those on low rpm.

Thermalgright HR-02 Macho should be your cpu heat sink; it was designed for fanless operation as well. Best pair it with a 65 TDP CPU or lower.

And of course no Internal mechanical or optical disk drives are allowed !
 
That Zalman TNN 500AF does look the beast, and thats from 9 years ago, surely better things have come out in the meantime. And literally its a beast (it weighs 32 kg :unsure:)
Reading about it, one thing strikes me which I never thought about though is obvious, since theres no fans, you won't get that dust build up inside that all PC's suffer from, thanks
Rodéric for a link to that, I'll give it a read tonight
 
Yeah, that's one of the big benefits, it's maintenance-free once the case is closed.



Strange, I use it too but it doesn't report anything.
yes same here.

As for the PC.., the N3050-N3060 etc processors lineup from Intel can consume as low as 6W with a "decent" GPU for very basic gaming, and they are fanless on many laptops and tablets or hybrids. However they are very slow, 1.6GHz dual core and for intensive use like you want I don't see it.
 
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