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Cheers, I'm not looking for silent. Just quiet enough to leave on in the spare room.
Specs are:
Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz Socket 1155 6MB (not overclocked)
1 SSD and 1HDD. The HDD is mounted on rubber grommets to isolate from the case
CPU fan - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard
Case - Antec NSK3480 MATX Micro Tower
PSU - CIT 600W Power supply GOLD 12cm Fan 2x SATA (this was cheap, I expect to replace it)
GPU - EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Superclocked with ACX 2.0 Cooling 4GB Graphics Card (this is meant to stop blowing when it's not being taxed but I'm not 100% sure it is, need to check it with the case off)
aggi-
According to this: http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator you're looking at about 400W total, most of which would be 12V, so a good 600W supply should be happy. Over half of this is the GTX970, so if you can make do with the Intel HD4000 graphics your i5 already has, noise reduction will be easier.
This guide's pretty good: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Case_Basics_and_Recommendations
Your case
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Antec_NSK-3480 (reviewed October 2007)
which is an evolution of the NSK3300 http://www.silentpcreview.com/article641-page1.htmlTheir test system maxed at 216W and the NSK-3480 kept the temperature within limits with 26dBA@1m. They note the stock TriCool 120mm fan is the main source of turbulent noise. Tricool fans measured here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article695-page3.html
Of the cases I've used, my favourite was the Fractal Define R2. They're up to R5 now.
Here's a 290W gaming rig at 17dBA: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1422-page4.htmlIf you're open to changing the case, I'd suggest an Antec P18x (not the mini). You can get these for under £30 on eBay and they've been pretty hard to beat despite their age. That and some Scythe Slipstream fans are probably as quiet as you'll get without changing the CPU and mobo.
Emyr
What you need is an independent source of proper measurements:
http://silentpcreview.com/
Which case?(Edit, below)Water cooling generally isn't quieter unless it's a 1kW SLI gaming rig because you have to add a pump and fans on the radiators are generally in free air with nothing to absorb their noise before it reaches your ears.
edit:
Spec needed:
Case
CPU
GPU
Discs
PSU
With details of the above, should be able to work out the power consumption, and since this isn't a bicycle light, almost all the energy input as electricity will be output as heat. If your components aren't particularly recent, it may end up cheaper selling components and buying more modern replacements, or just flogging the whole box and replacing it.