anyone had experience building your own PC?

[JJretroTONEGOD]

http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=32

The Fractal Design R2 Define case is among the most silent and best cases. They have other fine products as well.
Alternatively, NZXT and Coolermaster make some good silent ones.

Get a separate PSU, that way you can get a good one.
Cooler Master, Be Quiet and the NZXT Hale are some good ones. Depending on your system you might need less than 430 Watts. A modular one would be nice, but as long as it has an 80+ efficiency it should be fine.

Lastly, there are many sources of noise. Find the most obnoxious one and work from there. The CPU cooler and the graphics card can be big noisemakers.

do you know why you need a higher watt power supply, for instance why would a 1000watt be better than 450, is it better? this is a bit of a grey area

[Nadz1lla]

Depends on how many power-hungry PCI cards you are putting in. If you are running a basic motherboard with onboard graphics and sound, maybe one PCI card, then you'll be fine with a lower wattage PSU.

If you are running a pro gaming rig with two high-power GPU's in SLi mode, several large HDD, a power-hungry Soundcard and several other PCI cards, then you'd need a higher output PSU. Just try to add up the total wattage of what you'll be putting in and then allow a little more for possible future expansion (and so that the curren set-up runs with a bit of a power buffer too, just in case).

[Alex]

If you tell us the stuff you intend to have in your PC I could give you a rough area.

Typically, if you don't have a six or eight core CPU and only one graphics cards and nothing too extravagant, I don't see you needing more than 500, at max 600 Watts.
Wattage higher than 600 Watt is needed mostly if you are running more than one graphics card at a time.
If you have a PSU much higher than what you need it will not run too efficiently and will consume more energy than needed.

[JJretroTONEGOD]

If you tell us the stuff you intend to have in your PC I could give you a rough area.

Typically, if you don't have a six or eight core CPU and only one graphics cards and nothing too extravagant, I don't see you needing more than 500, at max 600 Watts.
Wattage higher than 600 Watt is needed mostly if you are running more than one graphics card at a time.
If you have a PSU much higher than what you need it will not run too efficiently and will consume more energy than needed.

I was thinking of an octocore processor, 8gb ram ddr3, already got an M-Audio 192 card, going to get a higher end graphics card with 1gig memory ddr3 style also with HD for blueray and gaming, 3x hard disks, 1x blueray, 1xDVD player, basically it's going to be a monster lol. I'm open to suggestions though as I know certain parts are not compatible with each other....

[Roobubba]

Been building my own and family's/friends' machines for nearly 15 years now. Can't say I've used a PAQ case before but I wish I had on my most recent build. Decided to go for a Lian Li case, but it just turns out they're really expensive and not especially good for either temperature or noise. A machine I built for work a few years back used the Antec P180 (or P182, I forget now...), which turned out to be surprisingly quiet. You'll struggle to get a decent graphics card (ie good for modern 3D games) in a near-noiseless system, but a solid motherboard/CPU/PSU combination can be made near silent quite easily. That PAQ case you linked to looks reasonable to me for a mid-ranged system.

Roo

[JDC]

430w isn't going to be enough for that, I have a 650w corsair PSU (built by seasonic, single v12 rail, with temp controlled 120mm fan) to power a quad core CPU, 4gb DDR2 and high end (in it's day) gfx card

I didn't even know the octocores were out yet but I'd speculate you would need a more powerful PSU than mine, there is a way to work it out but I can't remember how :(

Getting overly technical but I'd be on the look out for good brand PSUs with a single V12 rail with lots of amps on the V12 rail, wattage is focused on too much

[JDC]

Roo gfx card fans tend to be temp controlled too now, at least mine is and only time I hear it is on boot

[JJretroTONEGOD]

Been building my own and family's/friends' machines for nearly 15 years now. Can't say I've used a PAQ case before but I wish I had on my most recent build. Decided to go for a Lian Li case, but it just turns out they're really expensive and not especially good for either temperature or noise. A machine I built for work a few years back used the Antec P180 (or P182, I forget now...), which turned out to be surprisingly quiet. You'll struggle to get a decent graphics card (ie good for modern 3D games) in a near-noiseless system, but a solid motherboard/CPU/PSU combination can be made near silent quite easily. That PAQ case you linked to looks reasonable to me for a mid-ranged system.

Roo

indeed, the paq case should dampen any internal noise, I get the impression it's that good that you could have a graphics card making noise and still hear nothing? there is a really positive review of the case in soundonsound magazine, where they say it's that quiet they couldn't even tell when it was switched on! I could live without having a high end graphics card though, not too fussed about playing the latest games

this is quite old now but a usefull article I found...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb07/articles/pcmusician_0207.htm

[Alex]

That will be about a 500-600Watt PSU.

Sound damping does not remove sound, it changes the frequency somewhat. Furthermore, internal temperature will increase in the case - there are less ways the hot air can get out - and that will cause the CPU and GPU coolers to run faster - and more significantly louder! 8-core sounds like a I7 - that CPU will generate a lot of heat and need a strong CPU cooler (I only have an AMD quadcore for comparison).

It's a bit of a difficult situation, really. You might be better off not getting an airtight, super-padded case, but a larger, more open tower enclosure with a fan controller, to adjust them to your needs.

For example my case is rather open so I can turn down the case fans and the internal fans run a lot more quiet because there simply is more air inside.

[JacksonRR]

It's a bit of a difficult situation, really. You might be better off not getting an airtight, super-padded case, but a larger, more open tower enclosure with a fan controller, to adjust them to your needs.

For example my case is rather open so I can turn down the case fans and the internal fans run a lot more quiet because there simply is more air inside.

Agreed. I tried to do the soundproofing material you can buy with a real closed off tower case I had. Gave up and threw the whole mess in a 4U rack chassis with two big fans in the front. Basically a wind tunnel with a computer inside. Turned out much better, though I have been eyeballing fanless PSUs for that extra bit. I have a small cheap manual fan controller taking up one of the front slots and I turned that just past the threshold of getting the fans to spin. That was $9. Combining good, quiet airflow with some of the other techniques mentioned here will certainly get you where you want to be. Of course, you can do like my old guitarist and just stick the case in your closet, running cords under the door and to the desk.

[Modular1]

I've built all mine. It's not too difficult really. Just take your time and wear that wrist strap!

[Alex]

A wrist wrap is a bit over the top if you ask me.... I've never used one.

[JJretroTONEGOD]

I now have more of a clearer idea of what components I'm putting in...

PSU:

•   Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800w

MOTHERBOARD:

•   MSI Big Bang X Power
•   Asus (ROG) rampage III gene
•   Gigabyte X58-USB3

PROCESSOR:

•   Intel core i7 2600K
•   Intel core i5 2600K
•   Intel core i7 960
•   Intel core i5 760
•   AMD phenom II x6 1055T

CPU FAN:

•   Noctura NH-D14
•   Gelid Tranquillo
•   Spire Thermax eclipse II

MEMORY (RAM):

•   OCZ platinum DDR3 1600MHz
•   Corsair XMS3 6GB DDR3

INTERNAL HDs:
   
•   3 x 1TB


GRAPHICS CARD:

•   MSI GTX460 Hawk 1GB

I still need to choose out of all this, but it's getting closer to a final plan

[JDC]

I had a quick look and if you want a good CPU cooler for half the price the Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 looks on par with the 120mm Nocturas, as I said only quick look so might be a benchmark tests of the Noctura NH-D14. I use the older Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 92mm fan one that runs a quad core Q9400 at 30C idle

What brand hard drives you getting? I always go for 5 year warranty western digitals but the seagates are probably quieter, I've avoided maxlor since they got bought out incase they went down hill (no idea if they actually have)

When I upgraded 2 year ago AMDs were on par with Intel for performance and price (I think) but the Intels ran cooler

That coolermaster will probably run anything!!! It's got a single V12 rail with 98 amps!!!(make that 65 amps cos retailers site has it wrong!) For perceptive my corsair 650w has 52 amps on the V12, I found the box and it has a graph for the fan speed which stays below 22dba until it has 375w of load

Just found this too for working out power needs (says I only needed 400watts, but then I maxed capacitor aging and it went up to 550W so I guess it'll survive my next upgrade :D) http://www.coolermaster.outervision.com/PSUEngine

[JDC]

don't forget to check that the mobos support the cpus too