Silence is golden (Silent gaming pc)

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Dear Friends, 

    I am working on an new gaming PC! Yay! This one is going to be optimized for silence, to the point I am getting a "quiet" razer keyboard for it. I do have a few questions. First off, is a passive CPU cooler a good idea for a 24/7 gaming machine. Second is my motherboard choice. I have having trouble decided between a z97 ASUS Sabertooth MK. 1, an ASUS ROG Hero/Formula, or a Gigabyte Black edition motherboard. All of them are very solid choices and have great stability. A link of the system is down below. Any further comments will be greatly appreciated. 

Have a nice day,

Doubleagent214

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/muffindelux/saved/ZF6mP6

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http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JfJ4jX

  • Passive is a bad idea for gaming. The Phanteks I chose should be sufficient, but many people like coolers in the Phanteks PH-TC14PE, Noctua NH-D15, Thermalright SilverArrow, Cryorig R1, or Akasa Venom Medusa style.
  • The Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING 7 has pretty much the same features as the ASUS Maximus VII Hero, but it's $45 cheaper.
  • RAM was switched to something a little cheaper and faster.
  • SSD was switched because the price per GB is a tiny bit lower and it doesn't use a SandForce controller.
  • The R9 290 will blow the GTX 960 out of the water in 99.9999% of everything. Heck, the R9 280 will blow the 960 out of the water 99.9995% of the time as it is. Also, Sapphire.
  • Not sure why, but the RM650 is a hair cheaper than the RM550.
  • Switched to the ASUS monitor because it has a faster response time for a similar price.
  • Fractal Design fans are surprisingly good and they're cheap.
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I'd perhaps look at a GTX 970 due to its lower tdp.

Lower tdp = less cooling needed = lower rpm fans = quieter system.

The Tri-X cooler on the 290 is great, though.

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Nvidia is being a big ball of sketch recently, but it's up to the consumer to choose.

If the Tri-X is anything like the 6950 I own it won't be all that loud. My PNY GTX 770 is actually significantly louder than it but only has a slightly higher TDP.

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I went for the 960 for the strix cooler, which has a silent mode and the super low price. I am valuing silence for performance and the cooler is strongly recommended for gaming pcs as the only passive cooler that can handle high end cpus. I do not plan to over clock anything, and the motherboard is not a black edition. I want super reliability and stability. That is why the sabertooth is on there and is my top choice over the others. 

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I built a new PC for my brother recently and his PC is insanely quiet compared to mine. I cannot even tell his PC is turned on and his case is a no frills Coolermaster case with a stock CPU Cooler. His GPU is an ASUS GTX770 iirc and it makes virtually no noise even with the fan maxed out.

Goes to show you don't necessarily need to spend extra money to get a quiet PC.