I’m looking to build a pc that can run AAA games at medium settings 60.
I need it to be whisper quiet though.
Any recommendations?
Budget? Form factor? Are you ok with voiding warranties?
Budget is £800
Any form factor
I don’t want to void any warranty
Do you care about visuals?
You can have a case with no window and heavy foam everywhere or window and ability to look at your silent system…
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OK, a Ryzen 5 2600 is hard to beat at that level, so that is pretty much set.
If you want whisper quiet you will have to pay a bit for it because you want overkill cooling parts. So the 2600 stock cooler is not gonna cut it, obviously. Personally I always like Noctua and the NH-U14S is about the right amount of overkill I would say.
Now for the GPU, there are quite a few RX570s that are built with the same cooling as their 580 counterparts which means you get away with lower airflow. I have a Sapphire nitro RX570 4GB and it is pretty quiet. Look for one of those or something similar but try to get an 8GB model.
Seasonic makes some fanless PSUs, that would eliminate one source for potential noise completely.
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Visuals are not important to me. A little black box sitting in the corner would be ideal
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For the case I would look at the Meshify line from Fractal or something similar. The more ventilation you have, the slower you can make those fans run.
If you are willing to run the system open, basically like a testbench, you could also look at the passive coolers made by Nofan. I have one of the smaller ones on a Ryzen 3 1200 for my HTPC.
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https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/L6nsr6
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£143.98 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.00 @ PC World Business)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard (£91.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot - Viper Elite 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£98.78 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: ADATA - Ultimate SU650 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£31.62 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Toshiba - 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£63.26 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX - Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card (£199.99 @ AWD-IT)
Case: Fractal Design - Define S ATX Mid Tower Case (£68.73 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£90.11 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £811.46
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-16 13:45 GMT+0000
I can start cutting, but I rather not…
I would also strongly recommend getting a couple more fans and stick them to the front, soy you have constant air intake even at low fan speed…
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This looks ideal. I have some noctua fans from an old build I could throw in the case if needed. Is the CPU cooler necessary if I don’t plan on overclocking?
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I’ve used fractal cases in the past so that’s a good shout.
Again, look at the seasonic fanless PSUs. They are not much more money and a full fan less to worry about.
Is this ram not better value?
I will be buying everything via amazon)
Settle for a motherboard first, then use it’s QVL to find good memory for it.
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Focus plus have a fanless mode for low power usage. At low speed the fan is practically inaudible, so it ain’t all that big of a deal…
Technically you are correct, but I really don’t think anyone will notice a difference.
The ram I offered is less than 100 pounds. The Corsair is 134…
Here’s a thing, that is massively overblown - 2666 and 3000 have 1-2% performance difference at most. So 3000 for 40 pounds is not even all that good of a deal… To help you out here -3200MHz ram adds another 1% performance overall. So that is pointless as well.
101% agreed. Make sure whatever ram you choose is in your motherboard QVL. You don’t want to buy everything and the PC to just not work. At that price point you can’t even troubleshoot properly cause there are no features for it. So make sure the ram is in the QVL…
Thanks for clearing that up for me. 
OK, I don’t know the new ones. My Platinum units were audible in my systems until I replaced the fan and set a fixed speed through the motherboard.
I also do have the Silverstone Nightjar 520 (which is an older rebranded fanless Seasonic) in another system. It is completely fine powering my Ryzen 7 1700 at 3.8GHz on all cores and a Fury Nitro. At 0db, all the time. 
[EDIT] Look at it like this: On no other component in a system you can get away switching from a potentially audible to a completely dead silent part with virtually no regression in performance for that small amount of money.
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This is a great choice. I literally throw the legendary 212 EVO in everything, including PCs I’ve built for friends and every single desktop that’s been bought at work since I got hired. It works for the office PC, it works for the gamer and it works for the heavier CAD users. It works at home and it works in an office environment.
It’s really just an excellent cooler at a great price.
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Well, it is better than the stock one and I’m not even sure if that CPU comes with a cooler.
Also gaming wise 2600 is not really gonna get that hot, so the fan will kill the silence…
With 3 intakes and one exhaust this should do the trick of keeping the CPU cool. And the OP said he have Noctua fans - he can replace the CM with Noctua and kill all the noise…
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True!
Not implying the 212 EVO is the best cooler, but for the price, it certainly seems to be the clear winner. If price is not a concern I’d go with Noctua any day and that’s what I use myself.
But for those sub-1000$ gamer builds it makes a lot of sense.
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I have a D14 by Noctua, and I also have a 240 AIO…
The Noctua is massively cooler than the AIO. It’s not even funny. We are talking 7-8 degrees.
But yes, it’s quite pricy, the Noctua…
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