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I'm planning an HTPC for my living room. I'm really sensitive about noise, so it must be silent.
That means a nice and quiet PSU which I have found.... it also means a quiet graphics card.
I've been looking at something along the nVidia 430 GT or Radeon 6570 lines... and I'm worried about noise and heat.
I believe the case I've selected allows for full height cards, and there are silent options for both of them - big passive heatsinks. However I don't like passive cooling, it causes components to be very hot indeed, and means when troubleshooting you have to consider cooling the component down with a fan to eliminate it from any problems. Additionally good airflow is needed so that the ambient inside the case is not too different from the room temperature, otherwise the passive heatsink will get too hot.
If I go with one with a decent fan instead, then I don't need to worry so much about the ambient temperature in the case as the heatsink will be closer to it.
The problem is that I don't know how noisy the cards are. I know that the very small fans are terrible and I wouldn't let one near my house. I also know that there's fan setups that are only designed to look good on paper - PowerColor PCS fans are terrible, their lowest speed is far too high.
Does anyone have a 430 or 6570 with fan(s) that's very quiet?
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If you have a passive card and a large 120mm fan in the case, you can have low temps and low noise levels.
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I think you might be working a bit too hard here. My setup is so quiet i have to really check to see that it is still running when the TV is off. I did nothing special to keep the sound down. The case came with silent fans.
Check my signature for my setup.
The MSI card works great and I do not ever hear the GPU fan spin up etc. MSI cards use screws on their heatsinks and fans. Thus you can easily change them out, clean them etc. No plastic rivets to break etc. MSI usually puts some thought in to their fan designs as well rather than slapping on a noisemaker and calling it a day.
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Thanks, Outatouch0.. I probably am... although measure twice, cut once...
I'm getting a similar case to the one from your build... it looks like it may not need low profile expansion cards... am I right there?
Also, with the pentium and the 520.. how fast do you find XBMC to be?
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Hmm, I was looking at an XFX passive rather than the HIS - broadly the same thing though.
I've picked a Huntkey 300W, as I feel it's the best choice for a PSU. The Seasonic X is what I use in my main rig at the moment, the 650W, however the 400W fanless isn't a good buy really. For all X types the fan doesn't spin up unless it's needed, so on an HTPC you don't need the fanless (although it's a little better inside).
The thread was really to find an alternative to a passive though, rather than a passive for the reasons I mentioned above I prefer active cooling - I just need it to be good!
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eskro
Posting Freak
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i think you should start by linking us to your desired HTPC parts,,,
after that, we'll have abetter idea overall and we,ll recommend you stuff accordingly,,
peace
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The 650W is the main PC, not the HTPC. The main PC is what I run XBMC on now (as well as everything else). The HTPC will just be to run XBMC, my main PC will remain, and my server will also remain.
So far I've selected a Silverstone Grandia case. A micro ATX H61 motherboard - I haven't decided which yet. i3-2400. PSU will be a 300W Huntkey Jumper.
As I said in the original post I'm not looking for a recommendation on a PSU, I don't think there's any need to consider alternatives there.
I also don't see why I'm having to justify myself here. All I asked for was a recommendation on a graphics card with a fan on it. Instead I'm getting bad and wrong recommendations from people who have not read what I've written, who just seem to want to dictate to me what I should be doing, and speaking down to me as if I'm some kind of idiot.
I've asked a great deal of questions here, and few if any have been answered. Most of the time I get half an answer to a question I've not asked. The people that have been the most helpful, for the most part, have been the other people who are new to XBMC.
The only helpful response so far in this thread has been from Outatouch0.
I do feel a little guilty about the tone I'm taking with you though Eskro, I've read your guides several times and found your posts to be very helpful.
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Thank you very much indeed for another reply! That really helps.
Since it's a full sized case it means I can go for the XFX card I linked, and mount an 80mm fan directly on to it. You can get very quiet fans these days (they just spin slow) and I'll put 7v into the fan. That'd end up being a triple width card, so all I need to ensure is that the case would take that... I think it would... and that I pick a motherboard that would take it while still leaving some slots open.
From what you've said I could go for an ATX not just a micro ATX board, right? If that's the case then I should be able to leave a PCI and PCIe slot open should I later want to add something.
I'm going to take your advice and get a lower processor than I had intended... I always tend to err on the overkill, but I'll do down that route. I've seen very little reviews of the G620 but it doesn't really matter, it'll idle at the same or better than the i3-2100. I'll see how much money is in the kitty when it comes to it, and if there's a surplus I'll go for the 2100t (which is an extravagence I know), otherwise it'll be the little Pentium that could.
