Want the quietest PC? Just get the right chip . . . | Hacker News Reader

Want the quietest PC? Just get the right chip . . .

filterjoe.com

13 pointshollerith30 comments

Mobile CPUs limit you to motherboards that support them, which severely limits the other parts you can buy and will drastically increase the overall cost. Instead, buy a low power desktop/server processor. Intel usually suffixes their model number with an "L" for these and they have wonderful power-to-performance characteristics.

I currently have a server CPU, the Xeon E3-1260L. It has 4-cores, is hyper-threaded, EXTREMELY fast, and can be run 24/7 at 100% with extremely minimal cooling.

Power-to-performance is actually not a well tracked metric. You can find some information on spec.org, such as: http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/power_ssj2008.html

Like my CPU, the Xeon E3-1260L: http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/res2011q2/power_ss...

Low-power Intel desktop parts are marked with a "T" instead of "L". Eg Intel® Core™ i5-2390T is 35W part, and there is couple of 45W Ivy Bridges available if you need more performance. Sadly AMD doesn't really provide much competition in this segment, almost all their desktop parts are 65W or (much) more, and trinity/llano parts are usually 100W.

The Core i5-2390T has 2000 HD integrated graphics though whereas the mobile Core i5 part in the 2011 Mac mini (and I suspect the Core i5s in most new laptops) has 3000 HD graphics. Since the goal is for the system to be easy to cool, not having a dedicated graphics chip is essential, and maybe the OP has reason to believe that the 2000 HD graphics engine might not have quite enough oomph. His article says, "Intel chose not to include very good integrated graphics with most desktop versions of their Sandy Bridge chips".

Agreed (I'm the OP). I consider HD3000 to be minimum acceptable graphics. Ivy Bridge has HD2500 in the desktop CPUs which is also (probably) acceptable and I could have stated that exception - but I was trying to keep the post simple for the mainstream audience for whom it was intended.

I have to disagree on the notion that discrete GPU would cause significant increase in noise. A passively cooled, 50W GPU (eg GT430 or HD6670) could provide easily 3-4 times more processing power compared to HD3000, which in gaming can often mean the difference between slideshow and playable:

http://www.techspot.com/review/392-budget-gpu-comparison/pag...

Modern (discrete) GPUs have also very low idle power consumption (couple of watts max afaik), so in desktop ("2D") usage the added thermal load is negliable.

OK, OK. Too late for me to edit my comment, though. And someone on the internet reported that their Core-i5 Mac mini with discrete graphics gets hot whereas my Core-i5 Mac mini without it never gets more than slightly warm. (The Core i5 in the mini with discrete graphics is .2 GHz faster than the one in the mini without discrete graphics, but that is unlikely to make much of a difference.)

Your correction does not invalidate FilterJoe's article since he is addressing people who want to spend less than $700 for a quiet computer, and surely you will agree that adding a GT430 or HD6670 will invalidate his basic strategy to achieve that goal and the quietness goal, namely, to buy a laptop. We know that integrated graphics engines tend to be unusable for playing modern games.

This is an extremely badly researched and edited article.

As someone that has been building very quiet PC systems to have in close proximity to sensitive microphones, it is full of non-truths.

For a start Dell is one of the better manufacturers in quietness out of those he listed and comparing a dell from 2004 to something built in 2012 is madness. Machines get noisier over time, chips and chipsets more efficient.

Go and read silentpcreview and it's forum if you want real advice.

Personally my quiet machine has a water cooled radiator, taking the heat out of the chassis, ssd, fanless gpu with water block, fanless PSU mounted out of the chassis. My mistake in that system was using an AMD processor. Intel will be swapped in soon.

I presume all that cost less than 700 USD, right? :)

Sure, why not? That watercooling setup is probably like $150-200, PSU $100, $400-450 is plenty for the remainder of a modern machine.

I wrote this article and was very surprised someone posted it on Hacker News, where the audience is highly technical. Your criticism makes it sound like the post was intended to be the ultimate guide to custom building silent PCs for the technically inclined. It was not. It was meant to answer the question: For about $600-$700 can an ordinary person with no technical know how buy an off-the-shelf system that is very quiet (and clean, while you're at it)? Among the thousands of possible off-the-shelf systems, what simple rules of thumb can you apply that insure the system will be quiet and clean?

Excluding my friends in computer/technology only a small number of people I know feel comfortable reinstalling Windows and hunting down all the drivers (I know how to do it and I personally find it to be an annoying waste of time). None of my nontechnical friends and acquaintances would buy a custom-built PC. I considered doing that when I purchased the systems and decided not to invest time in learning how to do it right (I agree with you that silentPCreview is a great resource for going down that path).

I considered the Mac Mini - which was quiet enough. But to run Windows Media Center I'd have to buy a copy of Windows and to run movies an external DVD which brings the cost up to about $1000. I considered boutique builders like Pugot but they all charge $1000 or more for their better Mac Mini like systems.

I actually started to write a much more detailed article half a year ago that you would no doubt have preferred but abandoned it because I thought only a sliver of systems building enthusiasts would care. My blog usually tries to make technical topics understandable by the masses.

I sometimes share my posts here but didn't consider sharing this post for a second - not the right audience.

>I wrote this article and was very surprised someone posted it on Hacker News, where the audience is highly technical.

That someone would be me. I expected that HNers who are busy with software projects or with a startup would be interested to know that quiet systems are now available for about $700 without having to do a lot of detailed research (and I defy anyone to make use of Silent PC Review Dot Com without personally doing a great deal of detailed research) or assembly, but in retrospect, I see your point about its opening you up to criticism if posted here. I will be more careful in the future.

I'm kind of glad you did because I realize the intro could be improved to make the scope and audience of the post clear (and acknowledge what else exists but is outside the scope of the post).

I'll improve the intro tomorrow.

EDIT: Added last sentence.

This would be a good place for me to say that I really appreciate your blog. You are very skilled at conveying the information the typical consumer needs to make a good buying decision without overloading the reader with details.

I appreciate your compliment, which describes exactly my aims with writing style. It's actually much harder to write that way then stringing together a technical guide for the technical, which is what the first draft looks like for many of my posts. By far the hardest thing I ever wrote on my site was the extensive series on password management, which is a more technically challenging subject.

I'm really appreciating your posting it here as it caught the attention of Adam Pash at Lifehacker, who will be publishing it today or early next week. I made it clear with him that the audience is mainstream, not custom builders, so hopefully he includes an appropriate preface.

It's funny how some answers to tech questions are really very simple. My entire article can be boiled down to one sentence: If you want a quiet PC for mainstream purposes (no heavy gaming) for less than $700, simply get a Mac Mini or a laptop that has a mobile chip inside from the following chip familes . . .

I improved the post intro, it did get posted to lifehacker, and it was even introduced very well with "Joe Golton set out with $600-$700 to see if an ordinary person with no technical know-how can buy an off-the-shelf system that's also very quiet. Here's what he learned."

And yet dozens of people still felt compelled to point out how it is possible to do better with custom builds. I'm astonished at how out of touch the typical geek is with:

1) what a mainstream person is willing to do to purchase a PC.

2)There's a cost to all this geekery. You can buy a Lenovo e420s or a Mac Mini in a couple of minutes. Or you can spend a number of hours (5? 10? 20?) educating yourself on everything you need to know to build the absolute perfect custom PC for you.

You can get a fanless PSU and a fanless cpu cooler, I got http://www.zerotherm.net/eng/product/BTF95.asp and added a big fan with very low rpm on the case, coupled with a ssd you will never hear noise from your computer.

You can also buy any desktop system and relocate the tower into another room. Use long wires for video/USB/audio. Gives you the choice to run any hardware and you don’t have to loose out on speed due to optimizing for noise. As far as a clean system, reinstall your OS once you get it.

Easier when you have a room to spare ;)

And also switch to SSD, although <$700 might not then be possible.

...not possible on that budget, but otherwise (SSD & quiet factors) all roads lead to the MacBook Air.

Or, if the Air isn't your style, a MacBook Pro with an SSD. I don't know if you can get those standard from Apple, but it's a great combination, and usually literally silent.

Sure that works just fine for noise and performance but that 700$ budget will be blown to smithereens.

Aye. And for a desktop machine, get a passive-dissipation watercooling solution.

Though there's no way you'll build the box for $700, you'll eat half the budget with a good case and a passive watercooling.

This is a massive pain for me. Desktop PCs are awfully noisy. However laptops are not always that quiet. Anything with a fan can start creating noise.

I know you can replace fans but this is nuisance if you don't know much about the inner workings of a computer. PCs are easier to open but laptops and other portable devices aren't always possible to open (breach of warranty and design etc).

Not related to the aspect of the article discussed in the headline (noise), but the article says:

"""... Dell model that was bogged down with useless preloaded software..."""

I don't know anyone only half-competent in IT things that would not install a new system from scratch exactly for that reason, so this complaint is really without merit.

Actually I've found it's about getting the right fans. Apple Macs are extremely quiet too.

If you want a quiet PC, just install a decent watercooling system. Watercooling does not necessarily mean overclocking. I just like a quiet PC :)

5 years ago I might have agreed, but today tower coolers seem so large and efficient that watercooling doesn't really seem worthwhile, at least for low-power systems. In watercooling you have an additional noise-generating part (the pump) and you still need fans. Tower coolers can mount the same 120mm fans as watercooling kits usually do, and iirc 140mm is option for both too.

Surely for the price, stripping all the fans and dumping the pre-built computer in a bath of oil would give you less noise for less money, plus loads more power.

This trope has been around since 2004 or so. In terms of absolute price you might be correct, however any option other than oil will be vastly easier to work with. If you were going to buy a computer once and then never ever touch the insides of it again you may as well get a Mac.

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