Please advise this Spec, hoping for quiet/powerful

[PauljC]

Hi,

I'm brand new on here, but i've seen nothing but great feedback for the service and this forum seems like an excellent way to find new customers and help out old/current ones.

I'm looking at replacing a 5 year old custom PC that has served me well but I fear is on death's door. I didn't build it and I think I am far, far out of my depth in trying to spec a replacement, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

I don't game, so that isn't an issue but I do currently edit video using a Macbook and use Photoshop a lot (an older version) and would like to move at least some of that work over to the new PC. It's more hobby/semi-professional (as my budget would suggest) so I'm not gonna need crazy power, but the ability to multitask and run high end video would be needed without killing the CPU.

Otherwise it's a general use PC: internet surfing, lots of movies viewed, streaming sites etc... My main thing is that I want it super quiet. My current PC is reaching hairdryer levels when it tries anything hard and I really need something that can power away at something while keeping cool/quiet.

My problem with choosing specs is that I literally have no idea what should work well together with regards to CPU/RAM/Graphics Card or what cooling elements are required to be super quiet. Do I need to go full SDD for example? I wouldn't need more than 1TB storage really, and I am currently using a 1080p 60Hz TV (50 inch). I've included a VR Ready Graphics Card as I simply like the option of trying it at some point! The case would need to be nice and simple (nothing flashing) with an accessible memory card reader.

Sorry for the lecture, here's my Spec and thanks to anyone who has read through all this already!

Budget approx: £1200

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO S600 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME B450-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6Gb/s) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
256GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (500MB/R, 400MB/W)
2nd Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120 2.5" SSD, (up to 560MB/sR | 540MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W CV SERIES™ CV-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 V2 Series High Performance CPU Cooler (AMD)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days
Price: £1,236.00

 

[PauljC]

Sorry, I should have added a link to reconfigure. This one is slightly over my budget, but I can't seem to get the exact same built again.

Here it is...

Link

Again, any help would be much appreciated. My current PC is dying a noisy death and i'm VERY keen to hand someone money for a shiny new one.

Thanks

 

[PauljC]

Thanks for the help, Nursemorph.

I went for the second SSD purely to try and keep it as quiet as possible. It's an area where my expertise is lacking, so I was going on the safe side. If everything else is going to be powerful enough to keep the noise down, perhaps It'd be fine with a standard SATA for the 2nd storage drive?

My current Windows was upgraded from 8, so it's buggy as hell. I'd welcome a fresh version, quite frankly. Thanks again for the help though.

 

[SpyderTracks]

My current Windows was upgraded from 8, so it's buggy as hell. I'd welcome a fresh version, quite frankly. Thanks again for the help though.

It's not the windows copy you transfer, but the license, you'd still do a fresh installation, but you don't have to pay for another license as you've already got one which you can tie to your microsoft account and transfer to the new machine:

How to link your Windows 10 product key to a Microsoft account

If you're using a local account, use this guide to link your Windows 10 product key to your Microsoft account for easier re-activation.

www.windowscentral.com

Then you can download a fresh copy of windows 10 direct from microsoft (site currently down as prepping for new version):

Download Windows 10

 

[PauljC]

Oh cool, thank you, I'll have to look into that. The PC I'm using now certainly has a licenced Windows.

Cheers.

 

[SpyderTracks]

This would be better balanced:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO S600 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Eight Core CPU (3.9GHz-4.5GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4) More powerful processor
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME B450-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6Gb/s) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB) Much faster RAM important for Ryzen
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE Larger data drive as will be needed
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W) Decent sized primary M2 drive, much faster than previous SATA SSD
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET Bit better headroom so has to work less hard
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER Standard cooler is very good
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days
Price: £1,198.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/9vz!ksR7vU/

 

[PauljC]

Thanks, Spydertracks, That's just what I was looking for, much appreciated.

One quick question: Would the OS need to be installed on the SATA drive or the quicker M.1 SSD? Apologies if that's an idiotic question, but I'd assumed people were moving towards using SSD's as they are quicker/quieter?

Outside of that, I'm pretty much gonna order that next week.

Thanks again!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thanks, Spydertracks, That's just what I was looking for, much appreciated.

One quick question: Would the OS need to be installed on the SATA drive or the quicker M.1 SSD? Apologies if that's an idiotic question, but I'd assumed people were moving towards using SSD's as they are quicker/quieter?

Outside of that, I'm pretty much gonna order that next week.

Thanks again!

The M2 would have the OS, then the SATA is just for data storage. The M2 is an SSD, just 10 times the speeds of old SATA SSD’s.

 

[PauljC]

Oh great, thanks for the clarification. I assume you just choose which drive when installing from the Windows 10 USB ( I did say I'm a rookie at all this, despite my age 😆).

Thanks again. I'll order that very soon.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Oh great, thanks for the clarification. I assume you just choose which drive when installing from the Windows 10 USB ( I did say I'm a rookie at all this, despite my age 😆).

Thanks again. I'll order that very soon.

Yeah, the first bit of windows install, it will list all your drives and partitions. The M2 will normally be labelled as Disk 0, and then because PCS will have installed a test windows on there, it will have about 5 partitions on that disk. Then it should label the second disk as Disk 1.

All you do is delete all partitions on disk 0, then tick that you want to install windows to the blank drive and the installer will take you through the rest, it’s really easy.

If you have any problems at all, just post here and we’ll talk you through it. Full installation takes about 10 minutes, it’s really quick.

 

[PauljC]

Fantastic. I won't lie, I liked the idea of a completely ready PC arriving at my door, but I think I can manage this without ruining anything and the cash saving is well worth it.

You've been incredibly helpful, thank you. I'm going to try and get the USB ready so I can get the PC ordered.

 

[PauljC]

I've dug out the details of my current PC and it turns out I only have a non-transferable OEM licence for Windows, so I'll just buy it again.

No big deal, and thanks for the help anyhow.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I've dug out the details of my current PC and it turns out I only have a non-transferable OEM licence for Windows, so I'll just buy it again.

No big deal, and thanks for the help anyhow.

You can tie any version OS even if it’s OEM.

How to link your Windows 10 product key to a Microsoft account

If you're using a local account, use this guide to link your Windows 10 product key to your Microsoft account for easier re-activation.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[PauljC]

Oh really. I've obviously been misled somewhere. Thanks. Back to Plan A then.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Oh really. I've obviously been misled somewhere. Thanks. Back to Plan A then.

Pre windows 10, you couldn't, but Microsoft allowed it since windows 10.

 

[Scott]

I would ditch the Silencio S600, it's not good at all for temperatures. It sacrifices so much airflow for silence.

It may be a bit out of budget but the Define 7 is what I would recommend if you want quiet and functional without any compromises

 

[PauljC]

This is the license I have (from the invoice for my current PC) and it's since been upgraded to Windows 10 Home...

"OEM - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1 Pack Service"

Will that be fine to use, once linked to my Microsoft account?

 

[SpyderTracks]

This is the license I have (from the invoice for my current PC) and it's since been upgraded to Windows 10 Home...

"OEM - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1 Pack Service"

Will that be fine to use, once linked to my Microsoft account?

So long as it's been upgraded to windows 10, yes, any license will tie to ms account (except corporate licenses).

 

[PauljC]

Brilliant, that'll work fine then. Thanks for clearing that up, I'm downloading the USB files now.

 

[PauljC]

Ordered just now!

Went for a slightly larger 2nd hard drive (why not) but otherwise took Mr SpyderTracks advice.

Thanks again to all who helped out.

Can't wait!