Under the hill and far away

Experts and foresighters keep telling me the PC is dead as a platform. My personal PC is certainly at the end of its lifespan: No reasonable upgrades seem to be able to make it last just that little longer anymore. I will have to get a new one.

So – although I somehow doubt it — I have been forced to construct what might be my last classical PC.

Of course, being both a tech enthusiast and a rational man from time to time, this will not be an impulse purchase, but a well-planned, well-constructed choice with careful balance maintained between different and often contradictory qualities. *Ahem*.

Unfortunately, the choices are further limited by living in a non-EU country with annoying trade barriers: I cannot realistically purchase any item from abroad worth more than €25 – the time and cost penalty is just not worth it. In a small country with a limited number of importers, that means resorting to second- or third option-items quite a few times.

So,  these are the qualities I look for:

• fast
• silent
• good looks and suitable size
• stable
• upgradable/modifiable/future-friendly
• Part available on the Norwegian market or cost below €25

Normally, I would just go straight to  a power & beauty-barebone like Shuttle, but none were available that filled the future-friendly part: They currently lack the new USB and/or SATA-standards, and that is a deal-killer. I don’t want to be stuck with slow external disks, and I want to be able to give the beast another speed boost with a real fast SSD in a year or two.

So in conclusion: In order to get a non-rubbish and fairly future-proof PC, I have to build it myself. Building is fun, but I would have preferred something less time-consuming right now.

3. The housing – a good-looking case

What do I look for in a casing?

• Metal. Because carbon-composites are too expensive, and plastic just doesn’t cut it — neither for solidity, esthetics or for containing  all those high-heated, high-powered and high-speed-spinning parts. Wood doesn’t really cut it, either.
• Form-factor and size: Shoebox or cube. There are many good-looking HTPC-chassis out there, but they do not really fit that well on my shelf or workplace. Also, it seems you have to go into gargantuan sizes in order to avoid very limited options for internal parts, and they are pretty costly. But I do like a lot of those HiFi-style cases.
• Build quality
• Cooling qualities and silence.
• Fits a decent amount of stuff: That means, not an ITX case, and it needs room for enough drives and extras.
• Good looks. Obviously,  this is also according to some personal sense of coolness, which does not currently involve glowing fans and carved sci-fi guns.

In the end, I went for a Lian Li PC v 351, but I will need to replace the fans with some more silent and maybe add some dampening. The case lacks external USB3/eSata6, but I don’t have the time to wait for the new model — and that’s easily fixed.

Lian Li PC V351

4. Intel or AMD – choosing a system basis

I was dead set on getting an Intel i7 CPU. The gods of chip design and motherboards willed it otherwise.  I did not realize how non-interoperable this market had become. In the end, I could not find a motherboard for any Intel processor which fit in any medium size or small case (micro-ATX) which also had integrated graphics, USB 3.0 and SATA6. Well then, AMD it is, despite my love of current generation Intel CPUs. The AMDs are pretty nice too, and the whole package is way better.

Why integrated graphics?  I am not a gamer, and a separate graphics board increases heat, noise, bulk and cost and frankly adds nothing much  unless you are a gamer. If I need one, I’ll get one later. Until now, I want to avoid them. And I want the basic connectors like USB and SATA to bo onboard, and not waste valuable space on extra cards for those basic features.

So

A neat motherboard

• Motherboard: MSI 890GXM-G65 (high-grade components)
• CPU: Black Edition Phenom II, Quad-core 3.4
• Memory: Corsair  1600 PL8

5. Power – PSU

Power that is cool, quiet & eco-friendly?

The power supply is a key component, although often forgotten.  I wanted good energy efficiency (minimum 80+), silent operation and high quality components – that is, high quality japanese capasitors.  Also, the case put some size restriction on the unit, it can’t be way oversized. I also wanted one with modular cables to keep the PC insides more airy (and thus cooler and neater). This combination was trickier to find than expected.  I decided to go for an Enermax ECO- or MODU-variant at first, but those had become hard to track down inside our local trade-barrier zone, so I ended up with Chill Innovation. I haven’t tried Chill before, but it looks like a solid Danish design.

Card/sata/USB reader with controllers

6. Storage and stuff

Not much to decide here, since I’ll be reusing things I already have right now. It’ll get a Samsung HD and a basic blu-ray reader/DVD-writer right now, to make a fast transition. I will add an Intel or Super Talent SSD and perhaps a blu-ray writer to it later on, after the rest of the system has been tweaked into silence.

7. Necessary goodies, fans and silencers

As I said, the case fans, although not terrible, still needs to be replaced. I’ll go for two 80mm ultra-silent Noctuas and one 120mm SilenX with thermal sensors.  I also will need a card reader for the drive bay, those are pretty generic. For now, I’ll use one I already have from Scythe Kama which also has eSata, USB and fan controllers. This one will have to be replaced with one having eSATA6gb and USB3 once the need arises and readers enter the market.

For the CPU fan, the choice is a bit limited because of the small casing.  The Thermaltake ISGC 400 I’ve chosen looks promising: Silent, low-profile and good airflow. We will have to see how it behaves in real life — it is kind of a crucial part in making a stable, silent PC.

Thermaltake low-profile CPU fan

In the end I might also need a hard drive dampener of some kind. The case from Lian Li has one built-in. If that works well, I’ll stick to that one, if not I’ll go for either a SilenX Luxurae if there is room, or a suspended rubber set-uip, or something like that. Even Sorbothane is an option.

Finally: I will add various types of dampeners. No magic here, those are gel mats and sound insulation mats which I will have to fit according to need.

And that’s that. Now I will just have to put the whole thing together and see how it actually performs.

SilenX Luxurae - if this doesn't make your HD quiet, nothing will