AVADirect Silent Gaming PC: An Exercise in Balance
by Dustin Sklavos on January 30, 2012 5:30 PM ESTConclusion: Mostly Solid, Mostly Sound
In their Silent Gaming PC, AVADirect has produced a reasonably balanced, powerful build that goes a large way towards proving a powerful system can still run quietly. While "silent" is a bit of a misnomer (even AVADirect uses "silent" and "low-noise" in the same sentence though these two terms do not mean the same thing), I have a hard time believing most users will be annoyed by the idle noise. Since gaming typically taxes the GPU far more than the CPU and the custom cooler on the GTX 580 runs incredibly quietly, gamers aren't going to have any complaints with AVADirect's build.
Where things go awry is with the processor. The i7-2700K is capable of being a quiet and efficient chip even under an overclock, but in this build the use of a manual voltage setting instead of an offset plays hell on idle power and heat, while the load noise of the heatsink/fan combo on the CPU is very noticeable and even irritating. I may be using a SilverStone FT02 as my personal enclosure, but if I can get a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ and a pair of Scythe fans to keep a 4GHz i7-990X both cool and quiet under maximum, sustained load, AVADirect should be able to get that i7-2700K under control.
When I brought that problem to AVADirect's attention, they suggested using the lowest overclock setting (4.5GHz) and then reducing the duty cycle on the CPU fans. Indeed, that wound up for the most part doing the trick, but then why wasn't this the default? You can hear the CPU fans spin up just a little, but the difference is negligible, and I'd be willing to sacrifice 100MHz on the processor to achieve silence.
I will say part of the acoustic issue lies with the NZXT H2. That's something the end user can fix, but the next problem is that the alternatives AVADirect does offer are either overpriced or bad. You can get Fractal Design's Define R3 (an awesome enclosure to be sure), but there's a $60 premium on it for an enclosure that's only $10 more in retail. For that there's a good reason: Fractal Design isn't directly sourcing to any OEMs yet, so while AVADirect can order H2s in bulk from NZXT, they have to buy Fractal Design retail just like the rest of us taxpaying ninjas. So why aren't they sourcing from Antec instead? Antec's P183 or P280 would both be preferable to the H2, and the P280 is only $30 more in retail than the H2. The P183 should be made available as an option, but it's not.
Of course, I may be making a mountain out of a molehill here. The main strikes against AVADirect's Silent Gaming PC are what they almost always are with boutiques: a questionable case and a poorly-tuned overclock. In terms of value for money, AVADirect presents a more convincing argument. $2,200 is a lot, but most of the components are top of the line. While I think Puget Systems could probably beat AVADirect in terms of acoustics in relation to performance, a comparable system from them will tack $400 on to your end price, they won't overclock the CPU for you, and the one year warranty still sticks out like a sore thumb in a market where every other vendor has standardized on three. So while the load noise on the CPU under heavy stress is a black mark on an otherwise quiet build, AVADirect's outing ends up being a good one. Just don't buy one expecting true silence, as it's really more of a quiet gaming PC (which obviously isn't as marketable).
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ATC9001 - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
I think they failed hard by choosing an nVidia card. The 7970 is nearly the same price (but its faster) and the 6970 is much cheaper and close to performance.The 7970 compared to 580....uses 20-35 watts less and runs 10 degrees cooler under load.
The 6970 compared to 580....uses 55 watts less and 7 degrees cooler under load.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7...
I'd expect a vendor targeting silence would know this and at least be smart enough to not ship the nVidia card for the review.
Dustin Sklavos - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
Except the 7970 is actually a bit loud (not to mention we couldn't get one in this build in time for the review.)And again, the 580 is an aftermarket card with a whisper quiet triple-slot cooler. The 580 is not the problem.
bronx623 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
That is why they would put a custom cooler on it with custom fans.burntham77 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
They could have even gone for a 6850. I have one and it runs very cool, very quite and handles pretty much every game I throw at it running at 1080p on highest quality settings. I say "pretty much" because occasionally SWTOR will pause for a couple seconds (although that may be server related), and it occasionally struggles on games like Batman AC and Crysis 2.Leyawiin - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
That ASUS GTX 580 is much quieter and cooler running than either of the options you mentioned (especially the HD 7970). "Failed hard"? Hardly. You have no idea what that AVADirect paid for the GTX 580 and its a solid choice performance-wise right now. A few months from now will be a different story.chrnochime - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
So with a title of "Silent PC" there no noise measurement? Your comments about it being not silent but merely quiet doesn't tell us how this system compares to other ones when it comes to noise suppression.JarredWalton - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
Page three: "Jarred was skeptical about a silent (or at least extremely low noise) build being possible with an overclocked i7 and a GTX 580, but I believed and still believe it could be done. Why do I say "still believe"? With all the case fans set on low, idle noise of AVADirect's build remains well below the 40dB "aggravation threshold," and even a GPU load doesn't noticeably affect noise levels. Unfortunately, the instant you stress test the CPU the Gelid fans start really kicking in and AVADirect's system goes to pot with a measured 42dB noise level from about a foot away. [Jarred: Isn't "very quiet" at least less than 30dB?]"Dustin's testing environment and equipment doesn't allow him to reliably report anything less than 40dB, unfortunately, but we can say for certain that the system emits around 42dB under load. At idle, it's probably in the vicinity of 30dB, which is good but by no means silent.
Zap - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
C'mon, no noise measurements?Regarding the overclock tuning, I agree with both Dustin Sklavos and Ricky Lee to some degree.
IMO Dustin is 100% right in saying the overclock should not have been done using static voltages, but rather with a voltage offset. Seriously, it doesn't take any more time to set an offset and test for stability as it does to set a static voltage and test for stability.
However, Ricky is also right in that consumers who buy pre-built machines probably don't care about having the perfect overclock down to the last MHz and mV. Those who have OCD^H^H^H ahem, those who care will probably build their own. Those who buy a pre-built just wants it to work.
earthrace57 - Monday, January 30, 2012 - link
I think that they should have more (or different at least) settings for the OC profile.Personally, I have 3 settings for my i5 2500K
My 4.0 GHz overclock, which is what I usually use for gaming
My 4.5 GHz overclock, which is for CPU-intensive tastks/games *cough* FSX *cough*
My 3.4 GHz underclock, using only 2 cores for standard work (because lets face it, I'm not going to need blazing fast speeds to run a few tabs on firefox, word, and itunes)
Ammaross - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Agreed. My i5-2500K, I set to OC to 4.4GHz for demanding tasks, but I left the C-states enabled. The machine usually camps at 1.6GHz most of the time (web surfing, etc etc) but as soon as I need it to do some work, it happily pops up to 4.4GHz for me. Works a treat.