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This review is focused on monitoring cooling performance and noise levels as we lower fan speeds with the goal of trying to remove them completely from the main system build. Ideally we would have liked to remove the Silverstone power supply and use a silent passively cooled Zalman unit, but samples are limited and the Silverstone power supply has been specifically designed for this chassis with custom cabling lengths. As it is downward firing, and filtered – we also have never noticed any noise emitting from it in the past and will put it to the test today.
Our ultimate goal is to get a reading of under 20dBa via our noise meter in our specially created sound room. More on this later.
Media Center – Minimal Noise build
Chassis: Silverstone Sugo SG07
CPU: Intel Core i5 655k Engineering Sample @ 3.2ghz
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD5670 Ultimate Edition (Single and Crossfire X reviews) – passively cooled.
Motherboard: Zotac H55 Mini ITX
Thermal Paste: Noctua NH H1 Thermal Compound
Memory: Kingston Hyperx 8GB DD3 1600mhz
Cooler: Noctua NH D9B SE2
Hard Drive: Crucial 256GB RealSSD
Monitor: Panasonic 42 inch NeoPDP 600hz Plasma
SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa)
Thermal Diodes
Cinebench R10
Furmark
Recently we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. For most reviews we have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is passively cooled and we use a Sapphire HD5670 Ultimate Edition graphics card which is also passively cooled. Ambient noise in the room is kept as low as possible. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
To test today we are using the Silverstone SG07 chassis with the supplied 600W PSU, we will be using the Noctua NH D9B SE2 in various configurations as explained on each page. We normally use air conditioning in our testing environment which generates noise levels around 21dBa. With air conditioning disabled our meter reads 16.2dBa ambient.
The room environment held fairly stable between 24c and 26c throughout all our testing.
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
Most Noctua coolers are supplied with two noise adapters – a black coloured ‘Low Noise' cable and a blue ‘Ultra Low Noise' cable. We will be using both today and lastly removing the fan completely to see if our system can be kept in check. We won't be underclocking either as we want the full performance from the 655k processor. The chassis will be closed and placed on a table, just as it would be used.
