New quiet/cool mini tower PC

[dasbimmerowner]

Hi All,

I'm after some advice on what I should be going for in terms of a new PC, I'm well out of the loop on this front and haven't built a PC for at least 15 years now. I've currently got a 10 year old AMD Phenom 9750 with 8GB of ram and multiple SSDs that i fitted to speed things up, but the machine pumps out a fair bit of heat and the CPU usage is always fairly high and I want to add my third monitor to aid home working, but I'm reluctant to spend money on such an old machine. I don't use the PC for gaming at all, as I don't have time for that unfortunately (though I love the look of Flight Sim 2020). The PC will likely mainly be used for work, specifically using Visual Studio with a loads of tabs open etc.

My requirements are roughly as follows:

- Mid tower no taller than 36.5cm tall and 24.5cm wide; this one isn't something I can change easily.
- At least 16GB RAM, ideally 32GB, no idea what speed.
- Quite, less noise is good.
- Cool, I saw some 35w CPUs, I'm guessing they will run a good bit cooler than my current AMD which is 95w I think. Do any PSUs run cooler than others ? E.g. Does a 600w PSU generate more heat than a 400W PSU if they're driving the same load?
- Ability to drive 3 monitors (1080p is fine for me), I have the monitors already. My work PC could drive 3 monitors direct from the mobo via display port; I' be happy with similar but equally a graphics card would be fine too.
- Space to stick in my current SSDs for storage, a Samsung Evo 950 (500GB) and a Sandisk one (1TB) the're the mobile phone sized ones, not the little ones that plug into the mobo. I'm happy to convert these both to local storage duties and run the OS from a faster SSD, but I don't know which I should go for.
- Space for me to add my blu ray drive (5 1/4")
- A card reader slot thing on the front so I can easily plug USB devices into it.
- No software, as I can presumably transfer my copy of Windows 10 Pro over to it?

I don't especially want to build it myself so any recommendations of where I can get something like the above built would be good.

[Matt..]

Do you want to build it yourself?

If you do, I don't really think it's as hard now to build a quiet PC. I built one a couple of months ago and used BeQuiet Pure Power 11 500 CM PSU, and a few 140mm BeQuiet SilentWings 3 fans. It's very quiet. I use it for gaming, so it gets louder under load, but a lot of that noise will be the graphics card.

[dasbimmerowner]

Matt.. said:

Do you want to build it yourself?

If you do, I don't really think it's as hard now to build a quiet PC. I built one a couple of months ago and used BeQuiet Pure Power 11 500 CM PSU, and a few 140mm BeQuiet SilentWings 3 fans. It's very quiet. I use it for gaming, so it gets louder under load, but a lot of that noise will be the graphics card.

I'd rather not build it myself. I've not got the time at present.

[Prak]

Clue is in the URL

https://www.quietpc.com/

I bought a silent machine off them several years back, still going strong.

Doubt you can legally move your OS licence though unless you bought a retail version.

[Type R Tom]

Have you considered taking the cooler off and renewing the thermal paste? It does deteriorate over time. Recently did it to an old laptop along with cleaning out all the dust and now it's pretty silent.

[dasbimmerowner]

Type R Tom said:

Have you considered taking the cooler off and renewing the thermal paste? It does deteriorate over time. Recently did it to an old laptop along with cleaning out all the dust and now it's pretty silent.

I'd not Tom, no. I may give that a go first and then see.

[dasbimmerowner]

Prak said:

Clue is in the URL

https://www.quietpc.com/

I bought a silent machine off them several years back, still going strong.

Doubt you can legally move your OS licence though unless you bought a retail version.

Ok good to know on both counts. I did spot their site but I'd never heard of them TBH!