Nice PC case

[richidoo]

I saw this review on AnandTech this morning.

MiniITX, 5 drive bays, and quiet even with three fans. And it looks good too...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5867/bitfenix-prodigy-review-the-affordable-performable-miniitx



Might make a nice audio server.

[Carlman]

It's been my experience that you need truly silent PC's in the listening room.  While this is 'quiet', you will hear it.  Computer fans (no matter how small) make the kind of noise you probably wouldn't notice until they're off.  Then it's like 'ahhh'.  Actual silence! 

I've found even with a 20db fan (at the PC), you will hear it at the listening position... and it does impact MY listening experience because my brain is dealing with it... YMMV of course.

This case and many others will do well in a variety of locations.  No one will hear this in a living room with other noises.. or in a closet.. etc. 

It is interesting to see MiniITX boards going into big cases.  Not sure I see any advantage over a mini- or micro-atx if the case has drive bays and such.  In fact, seems like you'd have more options going that way.

[mdconnelly]

We had a challenge to install totally silent hardware in our executive conference room.  This involved a PC and a switch.  Both had amazingly quiet fans when first installed (now maybe 2 years ago).  Both are now so loud that they have become noticeably annoying (and it's not a good idea to annoy the execs

In my experience, a fan, even a real quiet one, will get noisy at some point when run 24x7.

[sleepyguy24]

I know this is an old thread but I figured I'd give it a bump. As of late EndPCNoise has been sending me e-mails and I saw that they have silent fanless cases that look like amplifiers.

Here is an example.

HFX Monster PC

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fanless-monster-pc.html?id=qKnGWsDn



I'd love to take a vintage amplifier and turn it into a music server. Imagine an old Threshold amp or a Nakamichi Stasis PA7 with the internals of a computer. That would be very cool looking to me.