PC cooling

[Neilt]

I'm a new user to pcreview and I'm planning on building an ultra quiet pc to take with me to university. I was wondering if anyone rates some of the fanless psu's that you can now buy such as the THERMALTAKE 350W PUREPOWER fanless psu and the ANTEC PHANTOM 350W fanless psu.

I've read some reviews saying that you will need extra case fans if you buy these products. Doesnt this just defeat the point of them. Do you think there is any way you could get away with a good fan on the CPU without any other fans at all in your pc?

The specification I'm looking at is a AMD Athlon 64 dual core 3800+ but I dont play games so i wont be buying a power hungry, heat producing graphics card.

 

[Me__2001]

water cool the entire setup and get a water cooled PSU, then have one quiet 120mm fan at the front as an intake to cool the things that aren't watercooled

 

[Kenny]

Fanless PSUs are dangerous...especially as the CPU you are planning to use is power-hungry. Tagan PSUs are very quiet, and very powerful, Zalman also make very quiet PSUs, but not quite as high-end. Cant think of many very quiet CPU coolers... the stock one aint too bad, but I know better can be had at similar noise levels. A passively-cooled GPU and a decent Spinpoint HDD will see you almost silent- IMHO, thats the best way to do it.

Kenny