NETLANTIS NEWS/BLOG

Sunday, October 28, 2007

[Thoughts] Audiophile PC

I've decided to get myself a new home-built silent and "green" (as in energy-efficient) PC...

My needs were :
- pro optical audio output
- 3 video output (for my dual-screen + my HDTV)
- totally silent !
- less than 1000 euros

It works really nice, so here's my recipe :
Asus M2A-VM HDMI Micro-ATX Motherboard (0 dB)
Asus EAH2400PRO HTP 256M graphic adapter (0 dB)
CPU AMD X2 BE-2300 AM2 (45 Watts : the most energy-efficient Desktop CPU available)
DDR2 RAM Crucial 2 x 1G PC6400 800MHz
Seasonic S12II-380 Power Supply 380 Watts (Active PFC, very silent and 85%+ efficiency)
PC case ANTEC SOLO (expensive but good against noise)
Noctua NH-U12F CPU cooler (6 dB)
Noctua NF-S12-1200 case fan (6 dB)
DVD burner PIONEER DVR IDE (Pioneer SATA + AHCI = won't work well)
PRO audio adapter E-MU 0404 PCI
SATA HHDD (Hybrid HardDisk) Samsung 2.5" HM08HHI 80G (one platter = better against noise) 5400rpm 8M cache + 256M Flash (good if vista really uses it...)
Corsair Voyager GT 4 GB (entirely used by readyboost)

With AMD Cool&Quiet active, the CPU runs at 23° Celsius, the GPUs at 33°, the motherboard at 42° and the PC is really silent.

The total price is 750 euros all tax included (in France).

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