Having gone through a phase of using gaming laptops, I’ve become put off with increased pricing and poor cooling for a system that offers benefits I don’t really require - specifically portability. I’d say around 90% of my usage is at my desk at home therefore a new desktop build made sense where I can get more value for money and no compromises on performance or cooling.
The priority for this one was good cooling and low noise, I’ve really enjoyed the lack of noise offered by a laptop. I don’t mind a little noise when gaming, but when doing tasks such as writing this post, working or studying I’d like something as close to silent as possible - I was able to achieve this. In this post I’ll talk through the components I selected and why I selected them.
- Case: Asus TUF Gaming GT502
- Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B-650A GAMING WIFI ATX AM5
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core
- CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 36 A-RGB
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5-6000 (2 X 16GB)
- Video Card: MSI Ventus 2X OC GeForce RTX 4070 12GB
- Storage: WD Black SN770 2TB & WD Blue SN550 2TB
- Power Supply: Phanteks AMP GH 750W Gold
- Fans: Arctic P12 PWM PST A-RGB
I wanted the system to look current therefore opted for a fish tank style case, I liked the idea of a dual chamber case so the PSU and cabling could be neatly stored away - there are many like this but I opted for the GT502 as I liked the look and came across a YouTube video where someone else had used it for a silent build. The case, fans, cooler, video card and power supply are all white simply because dust drives me crazy and it’s much less visible on white builds and most white fans come with A-RGB. The case does have plenty of dust filters too which will help.
I selected the Asus ROG STRIX motherboard as I’d benefit from the built in wireless, it had a lot of fan headers (which I ended up not needing) and supports up to three 2280 nVME storage devices. I selected the SN770 for the primary (OS, Apps and Data) then dropped in a spare SN550 I had for Games.
It’s very well know the 7800X3D is the top choice processor for gaming in 2024 therefore that was an easy one. It’s the first thing I selected before anything else. In my last build I went with a Corsair AIO for cooling and while it worked, I don’t think it performed any better than an air cooler but carried a financial premium. I watched many air cooler reviews and went with the Freezer 36 based on a perfect balance of cooling performance, noise and price. The cooler was less than £30 with A-RGB fans and is an absolute bargain.
My monitor is a 38" LG 38WN95C with 3840x1600 and 144Hz refresh rate - I may do a write up of the monitor another time but to ensure I was hitting 144FPS on my games at 3840x1660 I went with the RTX 4070. I had the 3060Ti Ventus 2X OC in my previous build and was impressed so happy to have the same again. Like many modern cards, the fans don’t spin unless the card requires it when gaming.
I’d read a lot of positive reviews about the Phanteks power supplies on the Overclockers Forum and decided to go with one of these, the AMP GH 750W Gold has a 0RPM mode which means when doing non-intensive tasks the PSU fan doesn’t run at all. It’s a modular PSU with white sleeved cables which I thought would be easy to manage and would look good in the build also.
For the case fans I was initially looking at Noctua but decided to give the P12 PWM PST a go having read a lot of good feedback. The fan speed with PWM should be well regulated, power sharing technology (PST) should open some options with regards to cable management, they had A-RGB and have some silicone pads that mate with the case to reduce vibrations. These fans were a little over £30 for a three pack and have been great. The power sharing technology has been great. Each fan has a max draw of 0.1A and the motherboard fan headers have max of 1A each - I’ve only used one fan header on the motherboard and kept all the cabling neat at the back with five fans daisy chained together.
With the system assembled I was very happy with my choices - once past the initial POST the system fans drop down to a near silent level to the point you don’t really notice them. The most taxing game I have in my library is Microsoft Flight Simulator (MFS2020). I launched this, set the global settings to “Ultra” and installed my aftermarket aircraft and scenery packages - the simulation runs consistently above 150FPS at my ultrawide resolution and the fans remain at a very acceptable level.
I don’t go into benchmarks with calibrated equipment but I’m very satisfied with the noise level, performance and looks of the system. I don’t use the Asus Armory Crate or any other bloatware and instead manually download and update drivers from the Asus website. I don’t customize the RGB, but if you wanted to there are many third party apps (Free and paid) that are better than the Asus utility for this.
Open to thoughts and suggestions from others - would you have gone with anything different? Feel free to comment or drop me an email.
What about the other 10% when I’m not at my desk?
It depends. I have a no frills Dell Latitude 7320 (i5-1145G7, 16GB RAM, 256GB nVME, 1080p Display and Backlit Keyboard) that I take around with me in a backpack for mobile use. I also make use of an 11" iPad Pro M1 when I travel.