Working on a quiet photo and video solution.

Okay, I've been lurking on this forum for a bit. Trying to get a handle on a new system. Well now it's crunch time and I am really impressed with the community support here at DS so I thought I would throw this build out there. I am flipping between the GTX 770 or the 780. Researched the heck out of this. I did like a lot of the aspects of Arwen's build but I was unsure of the noise factor. Also unsure whether to go with 1 512GB SSD or 2 256GB SSDs as separate disks. 1 for OS and software the other for a scratch disk. Also I might add if a fan upgrade to PWM fans would help in the noise area?

Budget:
$3000-$3500

Expectations:
Looking for a quick editing system that I can game on as well.

Usage:
Use the Adobe CS6 suite. Pretty heavy photo editing. Moderate video editing and mostly RTS gaming when I game.

Special Needs:
Looking for a performance but quiet build.

Saved Ticket #:
872589
Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Corsair Obsidian 550D
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 4770K 3.50 GHz (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth Z87 (Intel Z87 Chipset) (Features Thermal Armor and Thermal Radar)
System Memory: 32GB DDR3 1600Mhz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 750W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold Rated (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Optical Drive: ASUS Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer (Play Blu-Ray and Burn DVDs) (Model: BC-12B1ST)
Storage Set 1: 1x (512GB Solid State (By: Samsung) (Model: 840 Pro Series)
Storage Set 2: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (Model: Black Edition)
Storage Set 3: - No Thanks
RAID Config: - No Thanks
RAID Card: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (Includes PhysX) <b></b>
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
HPC Processor: - No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Digital Storm Vortex 120mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler (High-Performance Edition) <b></b>
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Fans: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Airflow Control: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: Noise Suppression Package Stage 2 (Optimized Airflow & Fan Speeds with Noise Dampening Material)
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock CPU 4.0GHz to 4.4GHz
Boost Graphics Card(s): - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 8 (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Extra Large)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty (3 Year Labor & 1 Year Part Replacement)

90% of your noise is gonna come from gpu's fan when under load.

the gpu has the smallest fan and the smaller the fans the louder they are.

Ticket Number: 872605

its not about whether there are fans, its about are the fans quiet or not, the parts in my ticket are quiet because they have quiet fans.

I can show you a noisy Liquid cooled system or I can make the same system very quiet but keep the performance.

best hdd setup is this:

HDD1 = fast small drive: os/apps/games

HDD2 = regular large drive: media/personal/work file storage

to that you can always add more hdds or ssds if needed very easily, if you need help we can walk you thru, it would take 2 minutes flat.

As for gpu, I didn't catch what the pc is used for so I can't tell you if you will benefit from the 770 or 780.

sorry just saw that you want a photo video pc so in that case if the apps you use are gpu intensive get the 780, if not and your apps are cpu intensive then look at a 6 core cpu and a 770.

Edited by DST4ME - 19 Sep 2013 at 4:26pm

HydroLux is a LC system.

LOL does nobody else see my post

Edited by DST4ME - 19 Sep 2013 at 4:22pm

Originally posted by bigkeith Thanks for the reply DST4ME. I do like the build you gave and I had one pretty close to it but I was a little concerned with the noise level. 95% of the time I figured the noise of the HAF X would be marginal at best but I was concerned with the audio mixing/dubbing part of the video production. Edit: I realize that 6 cores are better than 4 but I liked the onboard memory controller and other features of the Haswell CPUs. So I figured the Haswell update would seem blazing fast compared to the P4 of my current system!

A 6 core Intel CPU would be only on the Extreme processors, which would be Ivy Bridge-E for the newest one. These are one generation behind the Haswell for architecture. The Extreme processors also have the memory controller on the CPU along with 2 additional memory channels. So, more memory bandwidth. These use a different CPU socket, so it would need a different motherboard.

One issue with these motherboards is that the PCH (platform control hub), only has two SATA 3.0 (6bgps) ports and no USB 3.0 onboard. OEMs have added more of those on some boards, but will have a bit higher latency.

Thanks for all the input. I am kind of leaning on this particular build. Since the case only has three fans I figured the MB can do the lifting there. I was also entertaining the idea of replacing the stock fans with the Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Case Fans. I realize I had to trade a bit more silence for an air cooled system but I didn't want to go with a liquid cooled CPU. Build #:872801

That explains the HydroLux control board! Thanks Alex. But the emails I had going back and forth with John (who is a great help) have me considering giving up on the liquid cooled thing! Almost back to square one! Need to hunt down some other builds in the review forums!   

Originally posted by bigkeith That explains the HydroLux control board! Thanks Alex. But the emails I had going back and forth with John (who is a great help) have me considering giving up on the liquid cooled thing! Almost back to square one! Need to hunt down some other builds in the review forums!

The Slade has features that cannot support full on liquid cooling properly. You will have to make changes to a config to suit the case to ensure it is quiet.

However, I was trying to say that, you could get ANY case, and get our HydroLux control board and software, and you can make it very quiet. We plug all chassis fans into it, up to 20 fans of support.

Not the pumps, just the fans.