[stevenkelby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why not go with solid-state memory then? I'm considering picking up a few 16 gig compact flash cards, and a few compact flash to sata adapters, and then sticking them into a software RAID0 array, because my hard drives (WD Raptors...what a mistake. I will admit, I got suckered in by the marketing.) are so freaking noisy when they're in use.

Good idea, I thought long and hard about it but SS is just too slow, even in RAID0. I hate slow computers almost as much as I hate noisy computers! It's more expensive too, and still only deals with the hard drives. Hard drives are the single most difficult thing to silence though. It's pretty much impossible with a raptor anywhere in the room. Even my well damped HD501J in a mummified-with-dynamat and suspended sycthe quiet drive is (slightly, most people would call it silent) audible when in use and the rest of the room is silent, hence the 2.5" drive.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevenkelby /img/forum/go_quote.gif Barely hear is still hear which was just unacceptable to me. Almost, nearly, very close to silent is still not silent. It's those last few db that cost the most!

Sure. But then I would have to replace the 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200.2 HDD with flash memory, cause thats the only item putting out any noise.
I guess you don't have any moving parts (fans, hdd's, etc.) in your computer?!

At least I don't consider a spinning 2.5" hdd to be noisy, as its only putting out 25-30db.

 

[stevenkelby]

Yeah I know what you're saying. My only moving part for when not under a big load is a WD1200BEVS but it's under about 5 layers of sound deadening, is suspended and turns very slowly.

The more power you have the harder it is too.

 

[terrymx]

sorry i havent read the threads above. well thats tough if you want to hear nothing.

get a fanless psu. water cooling for cpu and video card. solid state harddrive, 3.5" are harder to find i think.

you will need atleast 1 or two fan to push air in the car, make it two 120mm fan that is below 10db and flowing both direction. i have used scythe fans that dont make noises.

buy an external dac. use an amp with high impedence input, or have a preamp, or use an low sensitive headphone.

that should do the trick. easy.

some people use extension and have the computer in another room. a cheaper way would be to go to metal concerts frequently.

 

[Punnisher]

Thats strange, I have dual raptors, used to be in a raid array. I have to hold them to my ear to hear them, even when reading/writing. And I have the p180 case which is silent save for a few 120mm fans inside.

I also have a very nice cpu HS that I'll be installing very soon. That should enable me to slow all my fans enough to make my case quieter.

Also, many people over estimate how many fans to have. I've got 3 120mm fans in my system (the case design warrants it) and any more would be overkill. After some optimization, I might be able to have these running on the lowest setting which means near-silent operation.

 

[vulc4n]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Punnisher /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thats strange, I have dual raptors, used to be in a raid array. I have to hold them to my ear to hear them, even when reading/writing.

Your room must have a ton of background noise then. No matter how you look at it, and even in a P180, Raptors are loud drives.

 

[OverlordXenu]

Flash memory has an insane read speed. XP installed on a gigabyte i-ram boots up in 10 seconds.

Flash memory is insanely expensive, though.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Quiet fans, case damping (P180 series comes with this as standard).. and so on. Right now my 6-fan case (Lian Li PC A70b) is below the desk and is making almost no noise. I have to bend down to the level of the case to hear the fans whirring.

 

[jona.p]

Quote:

You do know that the human eye can barely sense anything over 60FPS, right? Placebo isn't limited to audio, you know.

Heh, the difference between 60fps and 100fps on a monitor capable of rendering 100 refreshes per second is hardly placebo.

On topic. My computer is pretty silent, fan control is all I need;p. The only annoying noticable noise I get is when my harddisk is rattling.

 

[evilking]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif You do know that the human eye can barely sense anything over 60FPS, right? Placebo isn't limited to audio, you know.

He probably means an average of 100fps, which will most likely put the minimum fps (the most important value) at somewhere above 60.



EK

 

[cerbie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif You do know that the human eye can barely sense anything over 60FPS, right?

Complete misinformation. The number is actually closer to 20, but depends on how they measured it.

This is a common misconception, and any FPS gamer can tell you it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Not because you see more distinct images, but because distinct images are not what matter. Without blur from motion, there is no motion (this is one reason why newer sports coverage and action movies seem a bit jerky, because they aren't getting long exposures per frame--but they look great paused). 100FPS means more frames become part of the image you're getting, and thus you more easily and more accurately perceive motion. This is also one way that many LCD monitors will suck for FPS gaming (like mine), in that most will not OC the DVI connection (some will do actual 85Hz refresh at decent resolutions, FI).

3Dfx, and at least one other company, experimented with including blur, parts of previous frames, and prediction of future frames...but in the end, more powerful hardware rendering more actual frames won out.

On a different note, check out SPCR's most recent hard drive review. WD is doing some cool stuff.

 

[b17m4p]

I just wanted to chime in on the mac discussion. I have a macbook and my experience is that sometimes they get into some crazy fan twirling mode and they sound like they're trying to take off into orbit. But most of the time mine really does not make any noise at all, certainly less then the noise from the street/neighbors/etc. I can live with that, I would be much more disappointed if it made some noise always than a lot of noise rarely. Also I can see why speaker people care a ton about noise-floors but, honestly does a tiny bit of noise matter at all for most cans? I can see why it would be important for something like the K1000 that has no isolation at all, but even a headphone with very moderate sound isolation will I think pretty much almost completely cover up any noise your hard drive is making. I don't know maybe some of you have some truly thunderous hard drives.

 

[Maniac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Basil101 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The best "silentpc" is one of the Via Epia's with solid state storage, no moving parts at all.

I know this from personal experience with industrial PCs (or IPC as they like to call them), VIA's so called high efficiency/low power CPU is, well not...

I have personally tested two similarly clocked VIA low power CPU and Intel Celeron CPU of about 600MHz (PIII based), with VIA clocked about 800MHz. (cannot remember the exact detail, but at the time, they were classified to be in the same class of performance)

VIA tested to have a memory bandwidth of 132MB/s, with cache bandwidth about 600~800MB/s

Intel Celerons have memory bandwidth of well over 1GB/s, and cache bandwidth way way way beyond what VIA can do.

With memory bandwidth done, now it was time to install Windows on customer return machines to make sure they work or not.

With both machine starting at the same time, the "slower" celeron finished installation in less than 1/2 the time that VIA takes. It's a common knowledge in our FAE department that installing Windows on VIA compatible units just takes FOREVER.


Now then, with the performance comparison done, now it is time to compare the energy consumption. For the test, we used a calibrated current probe adapter (Tek IIRC) plus a LeCory scope. It showed that Celeron + motherboard uses about 2/3 the power that Via + motherboard uses. Both are measured at BIOS, with the same RAM installed.



IMHO VIA being low power is more or less a myth, similar or a underclocked higher end processor from Intel (not sure about AMD, but their Gecko is quite darn slow if anyone was thinking about that) clocked down will easily blow it away while using less juice.

The figure I cited above is taken about more or less 1 year ago while I was working in a major IPC supplier in Taiwan. IMHO it would be natural for anyone to promote products from their own country, but VIA is one of the few things I would not advise anyone unless they really have no other choice.

 

[Maniac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif Flash memory has an insane read speed. XP installed on a gigabyte i-ram boots up in 10 seconds. Flash memory is insanely expensive, though.

I-RAM is SDRAM/DDR SDRAM tho... Flash is actually kinda slow when compared to high performance HDD, especially when considering the write speed. If not properly optimized, it may be REALLY slow on writes.


IMHO if I-RAM can have support for stuff like 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, people might start grabbing the RAMs like crazy... 16 to 32GB of RAM drive would be really useful.

 

[DSlayerZX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OverlordXenu /img/forum/go_quote.gif You do know that the human eye can barely sense anything over 60FPS, right? Placebo isn't limited to audio, you know.

go to any electronic store, find the TV section, put two TV that has 60HZ and 120HZ refresh rate (in my case, two Sony 40" monitor)
right next to each other and tell me that you can't tell me the difference when watching high def movie.

There were about 5 of us in front of those two TV for around 20 minutes trying to figure out the difference.between them (besides the slight color difference)
the TV was displaying frames of still pictures, the difference was clear once we ask the people work there and he put in a blue ray pirates into the player.
the difference became very clear when the action started.


and also, to some pose above
around 20 (from my memory of watching on of the discovery show, its 18fps)
is the frequency that pictures need to be shown to make our eyes see continues moving between frames

but even at 20, the motion isn't exactly smooth