[kraken2109]

VGA cooling in general is noisy, even suppposedly quiet coolers from asus etc. i did have a msi card which ran very quiet, but they have since changed to noiser fans in the new models. the only solution is something like mk23 from Prolimatech which can run inaudibly on my 680 (using pwm noctua nfs12a) and doesn't spin up, ever. As far as case fans, unless you need a child or pet friendly solution open case works best. If the vga and cpu cooling is inaudible, there is no noise and you save money and noise on case fans.

I never had much luck with larger fans, 12cm is a sweet spot for silent fans, save for some 200mm fans I haven't used.

My GTX670 with an ASUS DirectCUII cooler is incredibly quiet. It idles at 30 degrees at 10% fan speed. Even at load it's amazingly cool and quiet compared with my CPU cooler (Hyper212+) which is already quieter than stock.

 

[drez]

My GTX670 with an ASUS DirectCUII cooler is incredibly quiet. It idles at 30 degrees at 10% fan speed. Even at load it's amazingly cool and quiet compared with my CPU cooler (Hyper212+) which is already quieter than stock.

Might be the 670 direct cuii is quieter than the 680 version or that your fan speeds have a better profile. I was pretty dissapointed with the 680 dcuii, iirc a good 3db louder than the 675 dcuii, but all the factory coolers have been noisier than my cpu cooling solution of megahalems or hr02 with a single 12cm noctua nfs12a pwm. If you can achieve adequate temps, those fans are magic. If you can peace out 4 case fans and run open case it almost covers a mk23 XD.

 

[kraken2109]

Might be the 670 direct cuii is quieter than the 680 version or that your fan speeds have a better profile. I was pretty dissapointed with the 680 dcuii, iirc a good 3db louder than the 675 dcuii, but all the factory coolers have been noisier than my cpu cooling solution of megahalems or hr02 with a single 12cm noctua nfs12a pwm. If you can achieve adequate temps, those fans are magic. If you can peace out 4 case fans and run open case it almost covers a mk23 XD.

Perhaps it's covered up by my Antec900 which is hardly a quiet case.

 

[MooTaters]

   
Yes, the rest of the components are that quiet. The loudest thing in general is my R9 270X CUII, though i can control the fans and they are running at about 30% when idling. The thing is that I'm running a Core2Quad Q8200 and the sleep-states on that thing are rather horrible, i guess it is whats keeping my PSU from spinning down fully.
 
 
Found this video of someone putting the Q8200 against a 3770K, just for ****s and giggles.

Huh, I guess that still seems odd as I never even heard my AX760 when I had my old hardware with it, an C2D E8400 @3.6GHz, and a GTX 460.  That sucks though.  I've even purposefully switched my PSU from hybrid to normal and hear nothing...granted I don't know if powering down is required for that to take effect(I'd imagine it's not since beyond supplying power it's not hooked up to the PC in any other way).
 

VGA cooling in general is noisy, even suppposedly quiet coolers from asus etc. i did have a msi card which ran very quiet, but they have since changed to noiser fans in the new models. the only solution is something like mk23 from Prolimatech which can run inaudibly on my 680 (using pwm noctua nfs12a) and doesn't spin up, ever. As far as case fans, unless you need a child or pet friendly solution open case works best. If the vga and cpu cooling is inaudible, there is no noise and you save money and noise on case fans.

I never had much luck with larger fans, 12cm is a sweet spot for silent fans, save for some 200mm fans I haven't used.

It's true graphics cards are generally noisy, but man this ACX cooled superclocked GTX 770 is loads more quite than my old stock cooled GTX 460...even though it gets a lot warmer.  It did suck that my first one had some fan rattling, but EVGA customer service is pretty damn good.
 
I'm in love with my NF-D14 though, quiet and cool...though it helps that newer intel CPU's have much better stepping letting them idle a lot cooler.  It never runs at full speed though to my knowledge, I'd be surprised if the fans go past 1200rpm.  I did replace the NF-P12 with my NF-F12 and used the P12 to replace a case fan.
 
Don't think I'd have the desk space for a testbench though(for open air).  Maybe that In Win D-Frame would work, but can't buy those new anymore if I'm not mistaken.

 

[autoteleology]

This is a single Delta Electronics 80mm fan. I have TWO 120mm Deltas in my case.

 

[Fuzziekiwi]

  This is a single Delta Electronics 80mm fan. I have TWO 120mm Deltas in my case.

are you cutting a tree down

 

[65535]

Just doing some weed whacking.
 
Talk about a design that was never intended for the consumer market. Even servers don't need that kind of air flow anymore thanks to better thermal handling.

 

[autoteleology]

I have them both placed in front of my HD 7970GE in Crossfire.

 

[satish89]

Hi all, relatively new to head-fi, I was getting the impression that everyone here did nothing but zone out on high end headphones all day! Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this thread, with some fellow gamers pics of my setup below, my desk needs tidying I know...

Specs of the gaming PC (the cube):
Asrock Z68 extreme7 gen3
i7 2600k OC'd to 4.2ghz
Cooler Master V6GT CPU cooler
16gb RAM
Gainward GTX770 4gb Phantom
Asus Xonar D2X
2 X 120gb Intel 520 series SSD in RAID 0
2 X 3tb hdd
Dell 27" IPS screen

Speaker wise, Audioengine A5+ for front left/right, A2 for rears, yamaha sub and an old Apple hifi for center channel, all roughly balanced with the D2X mixer.

Before you ask, the taller one is a server, my old gaming rig converted to a Ubuntu server with plex media server to stream all my stuff around the house.

And no, there isn't a desktop amp in sight, I haven't quite made that jump yet. When I'm gaming at night I'll usually be using my Sony MDR-1RBT, or the Asus vulcan headset, both lying on the side of my desk there

 

[satish89]

  This is a single Delta Electronics 80mm fan. I have TWO 120mm Deltas in my case.

 
I used to run SLI 560 GTX ti's, and for a while I was obsessed with hunting down fans that pushed the most air into my case, as my graphics cards were burning up in every case I tried, before the corsair carbide 540 air I had an aerocool X-Predator with a massive 23cm fan on the side, which did the job reasonably well. In my travels I did read about this fan though, and considered it for a while... But I'd really rather be able to hear myself think!

 

[Jubei]

Hi all, relatively new to head-fi, I was getting the impression that everyone here did nothing but zone out on high end headphones all day! Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this thread, with some fellow gamers pics of my setup below, my desk needs tidying I know...

Specs of the gaming PC (the cube):
Asrock Z68 extreme7 gen3
i7 2600k OC'd to 4.2ghz
Cooler Master V6GT CPU cooler
16gb RAM
Gainward GTX770 4gb Phantom
Asus Xonar D2X
2 X 120gb Intel 520 series SSD in RAID 0
2 X 3tb hdd
Dell 27" IPS screen

Speaker wise, Audioengine A5+ for front left/right, A2 for rears, yamaha sub and an old Apple hifi for center channel, all roughly balanced with the D2X mixer.

Before you ask, the taller one is a server, my old gaming rig converted to a Ubuntu server with plex media server to stream all my stuff around the house.

And no, there isn't a desktop amp in sight, I haven't quite made that jump yet. When I'm gaming at night I'll usually be using my Sony MDR-1RBT, or the Asus vulcan headset, both lying on the side of my desk there

 
What are speakers standing on?

 

[satish89]

Just some old plastic drawers, probably not the best especially considering what I read about the A5s being very picky about the surface they're on.

 

[SunTanScanMan]

Hi all, relatively new to head-fi, I was getting the impression that everyone here did nothing but zone out on high end headphones all day! Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this thread, with some fellow gamers pics of my setup below, my desk needs tidying I know...

Specs of the gaming PC (the cube):
Asrock Z68 extreme7 gen3
i7 2600k OC'd to 4.2ghz
Cooler Master V6GT CPU cooler
16gb RAM
Gainward GTX770 4gb Phantom
Asus Xonar D2X
2 X 120gb Intel 520 series SSD in RAID 0
2 X 3tb hdd
Dell 27" IPS screen

Speaker wise, Audioengine A5+ for front left/right, A2 for rears, yamaha sub and an old Apple hifi for center channel, all roughly balanced with the D2X mixer.

Before you ask, the taller one is a server, my old gaming rig converted to a Ubuntu server with plex media server to stream all my stuff around the house.

And no, there isn't a desktop amp in sight, I haven't quite made that jump yet. When I'm gaming at night I'll usually be using my Sony MDR-1RBT, or the Asus vulcan headset, both lying on the side of my desk there

That's quite the geek corner you've got there. Very nice.

 
Which Asus notebook is that? 

 

[satish89]

Thanks 

  It's an Asus UX32VD. Neat little laptop, got it when there was the promo going where you buy a windows 7 laptop and get windows 8 upgrade for $15. It's mostly used for skype and facebook and whatnot when at home, and for photo editing and (very) light gaming when travelling.

 

[Baird GoW]

My station is finally complete! It's come a long way... When I move to my new place, I will be ordering Magnepan MMG speakers! Tell me what you think!

My system is:

PS Audio Power Plant P5 Power Regenerator (connected to the wall via Audio GD powercable) powers my computer (Monoprice Power Cable), Reference 10.32 (Pangea AC-9 powercable), Emotiva XPA-2 (Monoprice Power Cable), and my Subwoofer (Monoprice Power Cable).

Foobar FLAC ASIO > Belkin F5U219 rev.9 pci USB controller > Lacie USB cable > Audio-GD Reference 10.32 > HE-6 OR Yacco Solid Core Silver RCA cables > Emotiva XPA-2 > Energy RC-10 Speakers and BIC Subwoofer