Even as a reviewer for an overclocking site, I have to admit that pumping out every last MHz is no longer my main priority. This time last year I was using a swiftech cooler with a Delta “focus flow” fan, 4 more delta case fans and an Enermax power supply set to maximum. My graphics card looked like Frankenstein’s monster with fan-mods, and I was close to the top of Futuremark ORB. Friends used to come over and comment about my monstrously noisy pc, with it earning nick names as complimentary as “Arnie's Lawnmower” and worse. I think our own games webmaster Andrew described it best in a single word: 'ridiculous'.
I have since been trying to find new and innovative ways of keeping the system as quiet as possible without compromising performance. My current spec of choice is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz “c” at 3.0GHz, an Asus P4C800 motherboard, 1GB of OCZ PC4000 Gold, a Radeon 9800 Pro and a RAID setup of two Western Digital hard drives. Naturally this is a powerful system but it also sounds like a train.
Flicking through the Micromart weekly pc magazine I noticed that Chillblast specialise in low noise kit, and knowing that we blag, er I mean “borrow” stuff from them all the time for reviews, I thought I would give them a call. A day later a box filled with bountiful goodies turned up on my doorstep!
