It's done! Well, at least as done as I want it right now, there's a few more tweaks that could be done, but in the end, this is pretty representative of the final configuration. Onto component choices! First up is the EVGA SuperNOVA 650W P2. It's platinum rated, fully modular, with a fanless eco mode. It's also based off the Superflower Leadex platform, which is known for it's rock solid stability and high performance. This model is great! In testing by reviewers, the fan wasn't even spinning up until it hits ~500w load, something I don't think this system could achieve currently. The 90% efficiency is great, and topping that off, with the current power consumption for Nvidia GPUs, should give me plenty of headroom for SLI if I feel it's necessary.
The video card I chose was of course the GTX 970 STRIX as outlined in the previous post. It matches the motherboard, and has some really impressive build quality and cooling capabilities. The huge heatpipe and low power consumption of Nvidia GPUs lets the thing run without fans until it hits about 67 degrees load, in which it starts ramping up.
It's not longer than the GTX 670, but it is wider to accommodate Asus' design changes with the heatsink and their custom power delivery system. Overall, in doing some playtesting on Battlefield 4, Planetside 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, I can say I'm very happy with the performance jump. 2560x1080 seems like it still might be a bit much for the card to drive at full ultra settings for some games, but I can assume that'll be solved with a bit of overclocking.
Of course, here's the Mushkin Reactor 1TB mounted to the rear of the motherboard tray, with the 850 Evo. It's taken the place of my games drive. I've decided I'll be doing VMs exclusively on the virtual server, and large format media/game recordings will go to the file server. Cloning my 640GB Western Digital Black was simple, as I still had a copy of Acronis True Image HD kicking around from Karyn's SSD upgrade. The whole process took a few reboots and about half an hour, from installing the new drive to removing the old one. I'm very pleased with the speed differences between old and new too! Games take 0 time to load now, especially long loading titles like Battlefield 4 and Planetside 2. To top it off, no more hard drive noise! I feel I could have done better with the cable management in the back, but there's still lots of room.
And the finished build shot. It's extremely clean with the hard drive cages removed, and only having 4 of the included cables plugged into the power supply makes cable management a breeze. I'm also very pleased with the even further improvement in acoustics. I actually have to have my ear on the case to hear anything at idle, and even then it's just a mild vibration. Under full gaming load (~1 hour or so of BF4) temperatures on the GPU hit a maximum of 67 degrees, which cased the video card fans to ramp up to 35% or so, and the CPU hit a maximum of 59 degrees on the package. (~59-61 on the cores). All the while the case and processor heatsink fans continued spinning at ~500RPM. Of course, the problem now is the loudest things in the room are my servers, but I'll be outlining plans on what I want to do with those in another post.
So, in the end, I've achieved my silent build. Ultimately this is hitting the performance targets I want currently while being practically inaudible. But, what's next for upgrades? Being a hardware enthusiast, there's always an upgrade path. My immediate thoughts go to moving from 16GB to 32GB of RAM, which can easily be done for under 200 dollars. Of course with offloading all of my virtualization and RAM heavy tasks to a virtual host, I don't think it's necessary. The other thoughts would be getting an NH-D15 with 2 NF-A15s to replace the NH-U12P. This I think would only be necessary if I'm going to be pushing the processor pretty hard in the future. I guess if I was to do anything right away, it'd be to install the Intel gigabit NIC I have sitting on my shelf for a direct link to the file server to allow for better latency when doing Shadowplay.
For now, my concentration is going to be on a new desk, and new monitors. I'm pretty much decided that 2560x1440 is a bit much for the GTX970, so I'll be sticking to 1920x1080 for the immediate future. I've also decided i want to see what all the hype about 144hz monitors is, so I think I'll be grabbing at least one LG 24GM77 to begin with, and possibly another to replace my 21.5. The unit seems to be the best of the bunch for accuracy when it comes to TN panels, and has the best motion blur reduction implementation. Top that off with an egronomic stand (Height adjustable, pivot, tilt, etc), a whole host of inputs, and even a USB3 hub. I'll likely only need one 144hz display, but if push comes to shove, I may end up with three. The option is there! I'll be outlining more in another post when I talk about desk ideas.