CorTed wrote: "I must say the Corsair 500R case is a great case to use for this build as it is made to hold the H100 liquid cooler."

I am glad you accepted my recommendation and went for a 500R. Not only does it hold you H100 cooler nicely but you can fit in tons of fans, thus keeping your computer nice and cool.

Should you ever consider your new machine noisy, I would suggest that you replace the two Corsair fans on your H100 with four Noctua NF-P12 in a push-pull configuration. They are a bit expensive and butt ugly. However, their silence is heavenly to the ears. That's what I use with H80 and I couldn't happier.

The push-pull configuration is recommended when you replace the Corsair fans but your CPU will also thank you for it. The other drives keep the CPU cooler... not by much, but it is still cooler.

> "Should you ever consider your new machine noisy, I would suggest that you replace the two Corsair fans on your H100 with four Noctua NF-P12 in a push-pull configuration."

Speaking of noise... how noisy is this Corsair 500R case? I watched the video on NewEgg and they said it was pretty quiet. Does the H100 fans add a lot of noise? Could I get away with using two Noctua NF-P12's in place of the Corsair fans? I'm not looking for more cooling, just minimal noise.

I have an Antec Sonata II case now that is very quiet and I'm considering this build (ASUS P9X79-Pro + Intel i7-3930K) and wonder if I should upgrade to the Corsair 500R case but it needs to be quiet because I do all of my training tutorials (like the ones you see on Boris TV) live and I don't want the microphone to pick up screaming fans in the background.

I was gong to buy the Intel liquid cooler but after watching the video on NewEgg, it looks like the Corsair 500R + H100 is the way to go. I want to be sure it's not too noisy. Thanks,

~jr

Cosair have a new case, the 550D which by all accounts is very, very quiet.
I would have bought one myself but they're not available down here as yet..

Review here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Corsair/Obsidian_550D/3.html

Bob.

xberk wrote: Just curious Ted. Is your new system staying stable?
DO you know your cost on this new system, out the door?

I finilized my overclock last week at 4.6G.
I have had ran Prime95 running for hours (with 12 workers).
My system appears to be extremely stable. Used Vegas for 12 hours yesterday, without a single hiccup. (AVCHD + 16 tracks)

I bought all my parts at NewEgg. I used some from my old system (i7-920) like PS, GPU, Blu ray etc. I think the total for me was under $1K

Ted

"Did you change the 1080-60i render settings from default to BEST?"

TheRihno, to be honest, I cannot remember, but like NicholDS says, the i7-3930K has no problem churning through edits. I think it is one of the fastest processors for video editing at the moment. Eventhough I also have 32G of RAM, I see no evidence Vegas is using this extra memory much (always hovering around 12% usage)

JR, NicholSD,

One thing I DO NOT like is the noise. I have the H100 cooler. THis cooler can be set up (with the push of a button on the cooler) to 3 stages of cooling. Since I have overclocked my uP, I have it set to the MAX.
The sound is WAY too much. JR you would not be able to do any voice overs with this box near you while it is ramping up the fans.
I am thinking of taking NicholSD reccomendation and spend some money on new fans.
The other item I do not like on the 500R case is the fact it does not have a bezel for a 3.5" front panel cover. I have a media card reader (3.5") that now sits inside the front without a bezel cover plate....

JohnnyRoy wrote: "I was gong to buy the Intel liquid cooler but after watching the video on NewEgg, it looks like the Corsair 500R + H100 is the way to go. I want to be sure it's not too noisy."

The fans that come with the 500R are quiet. But the case does not come with any at the top and you will end up with as much noise as those fans generate. The video card fans and the cooler pump (if you use something like the H80 or H100) will also add to the noise level.

But one thing to remember is that the 500R is not built to cut out the sound. There are cases built for that purpose.

Having added some fancy fans, I am left with the pump fan. It is not noisy at all but noticeable... only if you set the pump to its highest setting. At medium setting, I do not hear any noise whatsoever coming from the case.

I checked the CPU temperature at both medium and high settings and there is no difference at all when you are just cruising doing normal everyday work. When I render, the difference is only a couple of degrees Celsius. So guess which setting I prefer?

But if you get an insulated case and quiet fans, you should not have any problem with noise.

Nicol

> "I am thinking of taking NicholSD reccomendation and spend some money on new fans."

Thanks Ted. I'm also now investigating the Corsair Obsidian 550D that Bob suggested.

> "The other item I do not like on the 500R case is the fact it does not have a bezel for a 3.5" front panel cover. I have a media card reader (3.5") that now sits inside the front without a bezel cover plate...."

Here is the fix for that (for only $5.00 USD) ;-)

BYTECC Bracket-525 3.5" Drive/Device Transfer Bracket For 5.25" Drive Bay (Black)

~jr

> "Having added some fancy fans, I am left with the pump fan. It is not noisy at all but noticeable... only if you set the pump to its highest setting. At medium setting, I do not hear any noise whatsoever coming from the case."

Thanks Nicol. Just to be sure I have this correct. You say it's not that loud because you are using the Noctua NF-P12 fans with the H100 and Ted says the cooler fans get loud because he is using the stock Corsair fans. Am I correct? If so, I can use the 500R + H100+ Noctua NF-P12 to get a relatively quiet case. I'm still planning on checking out the 550D too because I see that it does include sound dampening material. Thanks,

~jr

"Here is the fix for that (for only $5.00 USD) ;-) "

Thanks JR for the tip. Will have to get that bracket.
At the same time I'll order some Noctua NF-P12 fans, case I need them.

Again, for rendering and editing, I spend another full day of editing, and the i7-3930K has not let me down. 20 minuts of AVCHD,with a fair amount of effects renders in under 15 minutes. (Vegas did crash 2 times during the edit??)

JR, I thought you were leaning more towards the MAC PC's. Are you thinking of building another Windows PC?

JR

Re case:

Have had a look at the FRACTAL DESIGN FD-XLB

The XL is pre-fitted with a dense noise absorbing bitumen material, covered with a soft foam texture. This material effectively absorbs noise generated by the components and fans inside. Paired with other noise preventing features such as a covered top panel with a 180mm fan mounted at an angle to expel warm air out the rear of the case and silicone grommets for hard drive mounting, the XL truly excels in delivering a low noise solution.
An important feature of the XL is the division into three thermal chamber designs. This allows you to freely choose the best thermal configuration suited to your needs. First is the upper main chamber, containing most of the components, such as motherboard, ODD and one HDD cage. The main chamber is cooled by one 140mm fan in the front (included), one 120mm fan in the front (optional), one 140mm fan in the rear (included), one 120 or 140mm fan in the side panel (optional) and one 180mm fan in the top (included). The top 180mm fan is mounted with an angle, blowing out hot air through the rear side of the case. As mentioned earlier in the text, having the top covered has a clear acoustic advantage, in not letting noise emit from the top of the case. The main chamber is connected to the second thermal chamber, the PSU chamber, with a removable lid. The lid can be removed if you want to turn the PSU upside down, pulling out air from the main chamber. Standard and recommended configuration, though, is with the lid closed, having the PSU take in air from the bottom of the case, through the supplied filter.
The third chamber is the lower HDD chamber, with room for six hard drives. This chamber is cooled by an optional 140mm fan in the front. The standard configuration is to let the air that has gone through the HDD’s and therefore is hot, go out behind the right side panel (seen from the front) and out the rear of the case. However, you can decide to remove the dividing metal panel between the lower HDD chamber and the PSU chamber, to let the air flow over the PSU and out of the rear ventilation holes.
Another unique feature of the XL is the ModuVent™ feature, inherited from the Define R2/R3 case. This is a cover fitted with noise absorbing material, mounted in the side panel fan hole, allowing you to choose between an optimal low noise level, having the cover mounted or optimal airflow by removing the cover and mounting a fan for intake.
Apart from all these features, XL also offers excellent cable routing possibilities, with large holes and plenty of space for cables behind the M/B plate. The cable routing holes are covered with silicone covers, effectively hiding the cable clutter.
A fan controller, which can be mounted in an expansion slot in the rear, is included. It can control up to three fans with one knob.

L

> "JR, I thought you were leaning more towards the MAC PC's. Are you thinking of building another Windows PC?"

Yea, I have no choice. :(

I never upgraded to the Core i7's like most of you did so I still have a 5 year old Core 2 Quad which is really showing it's age. I was going to buy a Mac Pro late last year but I heard that Apple might be updating the line early this year so I waited. Well... the WWDC 2012 came and went last week and Apple basically only dropped the price on the Mac Pro but it still has two generation old Westmere processors and a graphics card from 2009. Now people are speculating that it may get updated next year along with the iMacs. So Apple hasn't come through and I can't wait any longer. I'm thinking I'm gonna build one more Windows PC and get a Mac Pro sometime in the future (if they still exist). I was going to run Windows 7 in bootcamp for Vegas Pro on it anyway so it's not like I was getting away from Windows or anything. I just wanted hardware that could also run OS X.

~jr

> "JR Re case: Have had a look at the FRACTAL DESIGN FD-XLB"

Thanks, I'll check it out.

~jr

JohnnyRoy wrote: "Thanks Nicol. Just to be sure I have this correct. You say it's not that loud because you are using the Noctua NF-P12 fans with the H100 and Ted says the cooler fans get loud because he is using the stock Corsair fans. Am I correct? If so, I can use the 500R + H100+ Noctua NF-P12 to get a relatively quiet case. I'm still planning on checking out the 550D too because I see that it does include sound dampening material. Thanks,"

Yes, the stock Corsair fans are quite noisy. But I did some more reading and Noctua recommends the NF-F12 for radiators. So I would suggest you consider that.

I noticed that someone suggested the Fractal Design XL case. I took a look at it and it seems to be smaller than the 500R and is not quite as good for air cooling in general. However, it does have 8 trays for 3.5 and 2.5 inch drives. That is one very positive feature.

I have been looking at cases again because the 500R is getting cramped for me because I added a RAID card a month ago. I configured 4 large HDD in a RAID 10 configuration for safe backup. The reason I chose that configuration is because I get the speed of RAID 0 and the data protection of RAID 1. On the bad side, I also get the main disadvantage of a RAID 1: half my drives are redundant. But it means my data is very safe.

I can lose up to half my drives and still keep my data. But it can also mean that I lose everything too because if I lose the same unit on both sides, I am roally screwed. But I bought excellent drives. The chances of that happening are extremely low.

I have four Intel SSDs configured as two RAID 0 drives. I use one to store the footage for my videos, and the other one to render to. This is for optimum performance. I get great speeds but data also flows in different directions on each drive. The source drive send its data to the computer for processing and the computer sends the rendered video in the other direction on the other drive.

This means I have zero bottleneck anywhere.

Before anybody comes in saying that it doesn't make that much of a difference, here are my results. Rendering Sony's latest benchmark program for Vegas 11, I save 3 seconds. It doesn't sound like much but when you consider that I go from 40 seconds to 37 seconds, that can represent quite a difference when rendering a large video.

Not that I do large videos myself but building computer systems is my thing. I get a lot of enjoyment trying to find the best setup for optimal performance.

I'd like to make one last comment - but about motherboards this time. The ASUS P9X79 PRO is excellent for video editors. The Videoguys recommend it. But having to deal with RAID cards, I have to say that the WS is superior to the PRO. Out of my 3 RAID drives, one of them was not working properly in the PRO motherboard. Just switching to the WS made all the difference in the world.

If anybody is interested in numbers, I am getting 2 TB read and 1.1 TB writes from my Intel SSD in RAID 0.

Our (3) Asus P6T6 WS motherboards have been running glitch-free for almost 3 years so I can vouch for the quality of Asus' WS class boards. Our main editing rig also has Noctua fans throughout and they are still running very quiet almost 3 years later.

Every 2-3 years we like to double the speed of our fastest workstation and remove our slowest one from the line. The problem this time-around is that our 2 year-old (overclocked) 6-core 980X is nearly as fast as the 3930K - at least within 30%. For instance our HD videos render-out in slightly less than real time and we have been enjoying this speed for over 2 years...

Because Intel has not released a non-Xeon 8-core Sandy Bridge, the only way we will see double the performance is to move to an expensive dual Xeon option. Typically when we upgrade we remove our slowest workstation from the line which is currently a 4-core Mac Pro. We had considered buying a 16-core Mac Pro but it looks like they have been delayed from this fall until sometime next year... However, now that clients are moving away from FCP we have less requests for projects that require FCP collaboration, so now a Mac Pro is possibly not necessary...

I'm actually very disappointed to see the state of current hardware & software. First FCP X, then Vegas 11 instability/GPU issues, and then no affordable means to double our cpu performance from our last upgrade over 2 years ago.

I just replaced my fans on the H100 cooler with what Nicol suggested, the Noctua NF-P12. All Ican say is WOW,
What a difference in noise that makes. After I turned on the box I waited a ltlle and then I had to go see iof the blades on the fans were turning as I could not hear a thing, and they were.
Unbelievable quietness !!!!!

John, I would say this made it to where I could do voice overs with this unit sitting there.
Nicol, thanks for the heads up on these fans.

Ted

> "John, I would say this made it to where I could do voice overs with this unit sitting there."

That's good news because I've been agonizing over these two cases (the Carbide Series 500R and Obsidian Series 550D) and I know the 550D will be quieter but it doesn't have a front firewire connection and I all of my cameras are firewire and I wasn't sure that the H100 would fit in the top of the 550D with the P9X79 Pro motherboard because it has some rather large heat sinks at the top of the board. The 500D actually places the radiator in an outside top compartment which should leave more room inside for the fans. I think I'm just going to go with the Carbide 500D now with the Noctua NF-P12 fans on the H100.

Thanks! (this community is gr8!)

~jr

CorTed wrote: "Nicol, thanks for the heads up on these fans."

I always thought we were here to help one another. Hardware is what I know best.

The last time I bought a bunch of Noctua fans I found packs of (3) on Amazon for less than elsewhere. They are expensive, but they are quiet and so far my oldest ones have lasted (3) years without a significant increase in noise.

For what it's worth my new 3930 rig in an Antec DF 85 case is remarkably quiet.
Not quiet enough to put it in a recording studio but so quiet I cannot hear the fans over the ambient noise in my typical editing space.
If you're recording audio with a headset mic and I don't know why you wouldn't, the sound of the keys on the keyboard and the mouse clicks will be louder anyway.

I'd say the reason the case is so quiet is lots and lots of fans all turning very slowly.
I haven't OC'ed this system as yet so maybe then it'll change but for the moment even if the noise got to you when web casting it'll be a doodle to gate it out.

One thing oddly enough I do like about this case is the SSD slot on the top of it. Handy if one was to buy the new BMD camera.

Bob.

Bob, you mean "my new 3930 rig" ??

"Bob, you mean "my new 3930 rig" ?? "

Ah, yeah, thanks, fixed it.

Runs CS5.5 real nice too :)
Kind of nice have AE playback in realtime, weeeeeeeee.
Might need to add an Intensity card as Adobe, bless their cotton sox, don't support external monitoring via a second display. Vegas is way easier to live with in that regard.

And, and...V9.0e works veeery well too.
Haven't been game enough to install V11 as yet, need to get the system drive cloned.

This is the first time I've thrown caution to the wind and bought a bleeding edge system. Previously I've always bought the latest -1 so I've been struggling along on a far from fast core 2 Duo :(

Need to also fit a firewire card to the new PC, hard to find a mobo with firewire these days. No problem really as I have a nice card that I bought sometime ago with 1394a and 1394b on it. I like 1394b (Firewire 800) but Apple have pretty much killed it off.

Bob.