Silent and powerfull - possible?

[Frans]

Hello people,

If there's anyone who can answer my wonderings it's you

I need to build a fast and quite computer. It need to be fast because I do heavy work and gets annoyed when it is slow. It need to be quite because I can't think when having noise in my ears and I do recording next to it. Quite means silent(0db), in other words.

The specs I have considered is something like this:

* Atleast 1 GB of ram
* Builtin sound, nothing special
* Builtin LAN 1GBit is preferred, but can be compromised
* Builtin USB 2.0
* FireWire would be nice, but not necessary.
* Builtin Graphics, should be able to handle 1600x1200. 3D is irrelevant
* No Floppy
* No Legacy - serial nor parallel
* Preferrably AMD/SocketA, it is fast and cheap AFAICT. Heat production is the determining factor, though
* DVD-ROM and CD burner. Thus, one IDE channel/slot is necessary
* No HDD - the computer boots via LAN
* 1 PCI for a dual graphics card. Thus, 3 monitors can be driven. 2 PCI slots wouldn't hurt

This means a mATX, ITX or mITX motherboard probably could be used, thus lowering heat production. The PCI slot requirement could perhaps be solved with a riser card.

Current consumtion is pretty low I think. It has no HDD but OTOH it has an extra (heavy) graphics card and the DVD and burner is used under such long periods the PSU should be able to go to that level - it's not considered a peak load from the PSU's perspective.

Is it possible to go for a small switching power supply? Those tend to have passive cooling, AFAIK.

The motherboard and graphics card should be able to run with passive cooling.

Is it possible to run the fastest CPU out there with passive cooling? (stability can not be compromised) If not, what is the closest solution?

Size and form factor is no problem at all. Water cooling is not of interest. Prize is unfortunately a (somewhat) limiting factor.
I wouldn't mind going for a dual CPU motherboard. Would a passive PSU be able to handle that?

I have another question:
The nForce chipsets have two memory busses, allowing the memory transfer speed to be doubled(right?). If I have two memory modules of 1GB each but have only consumed 500mb in total - is the memory controller smart enough to use the two modules constantly or must I "fill" up the first one before the second is used and thus the speed increase?


Any suggestions, pointers to documents or comments in general are highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Frans

 

[LtBlue14]

1) high end cpus cannot run passively. your best alternative is a large heatsink (like the SLK-900) with a "silent" 92mm fan (try a vantec stealth, and run it at 5V or 7V. that'll be the quietest solution).

2) a review was recently done on the front page of www.overclockers.com about a power supply that is very quiet. i don't know about passively cooled PSUs, not sure it can be done.

3) running off a lan is gonna make the computer seem really slow, moreso than using a 5400rpm hdd.

4) nforce2 boards have dual channel memory, as do current intel boards like the 865/875 boards. is that what you're thinking of? and yeah, you'll always be running in dual channel, no matter how much memory you're using

5) what are you going to be using this computer for? if you're going to be doing a lot of encoding you may want to go intel because they're generally faster in this area. that said, if you're only encoding 4MB songs, you won't see a difference between a top of the line AMD or Intel chip - they'll both do it in an instant.

6) if you need an aftermarket passive northbridge heatsink for your board (and often onboard video solutions use active heatsinks, which you won't want), check out a zalman.

7) if you don't want an actively cooled motherboard, and you don't want to bother with the zalman, get a motherboard without onboard video, and get a cheap old graphics card with a passive heatsink. a TNT2 64MB or something like that. it'll run 1600x1200 2D stuff just fine

 

[sup3rcarrx8]

I never even knew you could boot a computer via LAN.