Phantasm66
Posts: 4,909 +8
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/other/silent_pc/1.php
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/other/silent_pc/1.php
Several companies are opting not to go the "extreme performance, LOUD operation" route, and are going for more of a sophisticated "sufficient performance, silent operation" approach. Thermaltake has been doing this for quite some time now, with temperature-based fan speeds and whatnot. Thermaltake does not make entirely passive heatsinks however, and remember that we are going for a DEAD SILENT PC here.
There are few companies brave enough to market passive heatsinks for high end setups, but Zalman, and recently OCZ Technology both have Pentium 4 solutions. We went with the Zalman unit, because as of press time the OCZ product was not yet available (although it has been announced and should be shipping any day now).
Zalman also has some video card solutions, and today we'll look at one of them for a passive video card heatsink solution. That's right, a passive heatsink on a highly overclocked GF4.
Thermaltake does offer a silent PSU, and that's what we're putting to the test today to take care of that usually noisy component.
Very few hard drive manufacturers market themselves as having a high end silent solution, but you'll find that not all drives are created equal. You won't normally notice the noise of a hard drive, but when you quiet everything else down, you wouldn't believe the noise that comes from a drive spinning constantly at 7200 RPM.
Keeping the case cool is going to be the trickiest part of our mission here.. Let's see what we can do about that...
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/other/silent_pc/1.php