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We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
Today to test the Antec chassis we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from the case. We have turned off the Coolink 120mm fan we installed in the front of the case as we want to measure noise from the chassis, just as people will buy it ‘out of the box’. The room rates as 21dBa before powering on the system (air conditioning unit in the far corner of the room causes this).
As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
We have removed the GTX460 and replaced it with a Sapphire HD5670 Ultimate edition. The only fans now running are the 140mm Noctua fan on the CPU cooler and the case fans supplied by Antec.
At maximum settings, the case is generating around 46 dBa of noise which is easily noticeable, switching to medium reduces the noise to around 37dBa. Finally the low setting rates at 34dBa which is barely noticeable.
With fans on high, I find the noise of this chassis very noticeable and rather annoying, I could not live with this case at those settings. Medium is not as painful, however I prefer the low setting. This only has the effect of raising most of the temperatures in our testing by 2-3 degrees however if you were using a high powered graphics card such as the GTX480 you could always just set the 200mm ‘Big Boy' side panel fan to medium settings, while leaving the remainder on low. The Dark Fleet DF85 moves as much air on low as the P193 does on medium settings.
The 200mm fan pushes 83 cfm at low, 108 cfm at medium and 134 cfm at high. Without it, there is no intake at all, so we would advise that people manually fit a 120mm front intake fan and keep the 200mm fan at low settings.
