Power Supply: Seasonic Super Tornado 400
Mainboard: ABIT AG-8 / Zalman ZM-NB47J Heatsink
Processor: Intel 630 / Arctic Cooling Freezer 7
Memory: 2gb DDR400 (4x 512)
Hard Drives: 2x Samsung 160gb SATA in RAID0
Video: ATI All-In-Wonder X600 / Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 1
Video Input: Pinnacle AV/DV Deluxe Video input card
Sound: Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
ODD: NEC DVD-RW 2510A
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Pro w/ SP2
I built it myself from parts I chose for quietness, sufficient power for video editing, stability and minimal power use. (as it runs 24/7). It performs extremely well for everything I've tried using it for.
This computer is quiet enough to sleep nearby, and is capable of good Render times for my video work.
The Case is an Antec Sonata, which comes with an excellent 380w power supply already installed.
This case looks great, is very quiet and is easy to work with. The drives are all easy to remove, and the side cover also removes and install easily. I replaced the 120mm Antec case fan with a much quieter 120mm Nexus fan.
Antec power supplies are reliable, but tend to lack efficiency at lower power levels (idle). I chose to replace it with a more efficient, quieter and better cooling Seasonic Super Tornado. The Seasonic uses Active Power Factor Correction for very high efficiency and a very broad input voltage range. (100-250v)
As the video editing software I use seems to prefer a hyperthreading system, I was forced at the time to choose an Intel based system. I chose the 630 model for both its ability to upgrade to 64 bit Windows and its SpeedStep technology which uses slightly less power and generates less heat at lower loads. Even so, the Prescott Pentium 4 generates a LOT of heat, so I installed an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU cooler. This runs very cool, and makes very little noise. (Aprox 57C @ 1920rpm using CPU Burn-In)
The mainboard I chose is the ABIT AG-8. This board is know for its speed and stability, and very helpful ABIT uGURU system, which monitors and controls various functions such as CPU temp, fan speeds, overclocking, etc without using any CPU resources to do so. The only downside is the Northbridge Chipset cooling fan which isn't actually all that noisy and is speed-controlled by temperature. However, it was noticable, so I replaced it with a Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge Heatsink. The performance and stability has been better than any other computer I've used ever.
The onboard Audio is only the Realtec ac97 which uses CPU resources, so I replaced it with my Audigy 2 ZS for better performance and audio quality.
After experimenting with nVidia video cards, I settled on an ATI All in Wonder X600, which is technically slower, but seems to work better for me. It also gives me an alternate Video Input source. The stock heatsink fan was noisy (but quieter than the nVidia ones) so I replaced it with an Arctic Cooling ATI silencer 1 which had to be modified quite a bit , but is extrememly quiet.
The Hard Drives are 2 Samsung 160gb SATAs, which are extrememly quiet and pretty fast.
The floppy is just an old FDD... but the ODD is an NEC 2510A 8xDVD burner, which works nicely with little noise.
The total cost? CHEAP. You couldn't buy a computer as quiet, powerful and efficient as this one for what I paid. Many comparable computers are cheaper, but are noisy power hogs that actually seem slower! A friend owns a Sony which uses a faster 540J CPU, but runs much slower than this one, and makes a LOT more noise. Lack of Active Power Factor Correction means higher energy cost as well.
My system = aprox $1450 including XP Pro OEM
My friends Sony= $1150 (similarly equipped, but 1/4 the memory and 2/3 the hard drive space)
Sony + extra memory, Audigy2 and hdd = aprox $1525 (would still be very loud and consume more power)
Sony + extra memory, Audigy2, hdd, Freezer 7 and a Seasonic P/S = aprox $1675. (this would be roughly equivalent to my system.)
He did upgrade the memory, the power supply and the Freezer 7. The Sony is now quiet and more efficient, but still seems a lot slower, even with the same chipset and faster processor. (3.2 vs my 3.0)
Oh well.
Hugz, Keri
