A8N-E and dual core Athlon X2

[milleron]

Hey, I'm in the same boat. Around here the noisiest things are birds
chirping and the sound of the wind. Most peoples definition of quiet are
noisy here.

I haven't finished my shopping list for the new system yet, but X2, Asus
A8N-E, replace the northbridge fan, XP120 heatsink with a very quiet fan,
Cool n Quiet, fanless graphics (if there is such a thing for PCI-e), fanless
high efficiency PSU, but I am stuck deciding on the case as I want 12cm fans
front and rear that can be throttled right back - something like a Lian-Li
6070 but a little bigger, quiet mountings for the HDD's. Well you get the
idea / know whats involved.

Any recommendations on a case?

Absolutely -- I just finished building my new system today. I used a
just-released Antec P180. It uses only 120mm fans, and the thing is
whisper quiet to my ear. It confines all the heat from the HDs and
the PSU in a lower compartment thermally isolated from the motherboard
compartment.
And there IS a fanless graphic card if you don't want SLI. I
installed a Giga-byte Radeon X800XL ($283 @ newegg) that comes with a
heat-pipe cooler and no fan. It works marvelously well. My system
has but one fan aside from the case fans, and that's the 120mm one on
the XP120. My exhaust temps are just 2°C warmer than the intake. On
Asus Probe and nVidia Monitor, the CPU runs 25-30°C
Ron

 

[milleron]

Here is my system:

Antec 3700-BQE w/Nexus 120 @12V, Seasonic S12-380, Asus A8N-E w/ ZM-NB47J
chip cooler, AMD64 3500+ .90 w/XP-120 & Nexus 120 @12V, 1GB (2 x 512)
Corsair 3200C2PT, 2 x WD 160 GB SATA, Plextor PX-716A, Leadtek 6600GT
w/Zalman VF700 AlCu @5V, Audigy2 ZS, AcoustiPack Std.

I sold the stock Antec 3700-BQE PSU on ebay for about $25 and bought the
much quieter Seasonic S12.

Here is my drive mounting system:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450

Many people on Slent PC Review forums are getting the brand new Antec P180
case.

That mounting system is pretty slick, but the thick silicon-rubber
grommets and special screws that come with the P180 will do the job
just as well with no effort.
I can't recommend the P180 highly enough. Antec seems to have thought
of everything but using all-aluminum construction. The front is
plastic, the front door and top are aluminum and the side panels are a
layer of plastic sandwiched between two layers of aluminum. The inner
construction of the case, though is 0,8mm steel, so it weighs about 5
Kg more than it needs to. However, that's the ONLY con among dozens
of pros.
Ron

 

[Mercury]

Mark, Ron.
Thanks for the comments.

Now another wait for the case to come in stock...

Lets hope there is a price drop in the mean time, but I doubt it.

Thanks again.

 

[milleron]

Mark, Ron.
Thanks for the comments.

Now another wait for the case to come in stock...

Look at shopBLT.com. Mine was $128 -- less expensive than the P160 at
Newegg. I had to wait about ten days for them to get P180s in stock,
but they received about 65 of them about ten days ago. They may have
some left, and the price is sure right.

Lets hope there is a price drop in the mean time, but I doubt it.

Thanks again.

Ron