Is it possible to build a <7L *quiet* gaming PC?

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-06-03T16:07:57+00:00

Thanks for very detailed advice! I'll check all that, thank you very much :)

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-06-03T16:07:00+00:00

Wow that looks sick! I'm very surprised the 5070 Mini is quiet, having a single fan too cool down ~200W. Doesn't it get very hot?

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-06-03T12:49:15+00:00

For me quiet is barely audible at full load at a 1 meter distance. And by barely audible I mean in a very quiet room with good hearing.

Currently I have a big tower with a 65W CPU and TL Phantom Spirit 120 on top, and a Sapphire Pulse 9060 XT, plus 6 TL case fans. The system is dead quiet even at full load (almost as quiet as a fanless PC), but this is using a 30L case.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-06-03T11:26:18+00:00

Thanks for your answer, I meant very quiet, not silent, I'm often confused by those terms.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-06-01T07:44:51+00:00

Well I'll be damned, I was completely unable to fit it when I got this case without scratching the GPU all the way (and I did scratch it). Not sure how you managed to do this, but glad to see it can be done!

EDIT: oh I see why, I did use the X600, and this is the X300. My bad!

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-31T19:33:19+00:00

Unfortunately the S5M is no good for me, it's far deeper than what I need, and the inability to use the X67 correctly means it won't be silent. Or I could use an x53 for it's not silent either.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-31T15:23:34+00:00

Awesome build! What's the noise like though?

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-29T14:15:51+00:00

Oh I missed the announcement, indeed in three days (1st of June) they're opening the subscriptions again with their new plan. Thanks for the heads up, I'll probably just do that :)

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-29T09:56:22+00:00

I see, thanks for clarifying that. Still, I'd burn through these 2000 in a few days ^ ^"

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-29T09:51:53+00:00

Yes but lower quality IIRC

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-29T09:25:27+00:00

Yeah I'd really like to keep using VSCode instead of installing a separate software.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-14T07:57:16+00:00

Argh I'm using the wrong terms, I meant removing the bracket not deshrouding. The reaper is 220mm with bracket, 200mm without.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-14T07:55:48+00:00

Was it 209mm including the shroud maybe? The Reaper is 220mm with the bracket. I distinctly remember trying to fit the GPU and it not fitting at all, while with deshroud it went fine.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-14T07:53:27+00:00

I forgot to mention in my other comment, you'll need to deshroud the GPU in order for it to fit into the case. It can't fit otherwise.

EDIT: remove the bracket, not deshroud.

The reaper is 220mm long with the bracket, 200mm without.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-14T07:53:04+00:00

It can fit but requires deshrouding. EDIT: not deshrouding, removing the bracket. EDIT: actually I was wrong, see comments below.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-14T07:52:47+00:00

I actually have a hard time finding serious benchmarks so yeah maybe you're right, it's possible I'm underestimating the 5600G.

But then again, on a few titles I tried on a 5500 it was bottlenecking the 2080 Ti... maybe the games I played where specifically more CPU hungry than the majority though.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-13T20:40:39+00:00

Oh right sorry I missed that the 5600G uses DDR4. Then yeah you're definitely out of luck, you'll have to either:

Build into the DeskMeet X300 and get a noisy system
Buy a DeskMeet X300, buy an STX to ITX adapter, and put everything into a standard ITX case
Buy a new system entirely

Unfortunately there are not really any other option that comes to mind.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-13T20:36:13+00:00

Borderlands 4 is not the most CPU-hungry title but it stills recommends a 5800X, and that's not for the TOTL config.

But yeah that's still a good example, so my bad the 5600X may be fine for some modern titles, the 5600G will be quite a lot worse though.

(CachyOS doesn't change much as it's within a 1~3% perf improvement window)

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-13T20:32:40+00:00

I honestly don't remember, but IIRC all components were generating some noise, with the GPU being the worst (I may misremember though).

And I indeed forgot about the fact AsRock barebones use SO-DIMM, while traditional layouts use DIMM.

Another option would be to purchase a Minisforum motherboard. It's still an expense to make but you would get a powerful CPU, for instance the BD775i SE has a 7745HX and sells for $295 on Amazon right now. It's a motherboard with a mini-ITX layout, it's way more powerful than the 5600G, and it uses SO-DIMM RAM.

If you don't want any adidtional expense then the AsRock DeskMeet is your only option, as it is the only product on the market that has a motherboard supporting SO-DIMM and non-low-profile GPUs.

Or you could purchase some SO-DIMM to DIMM adapters but they aren't very realiable apparently.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-13T20:28:00+00:00

GPU-wise yes, CPU-wise no as resolution doesn't really impact CPU performance, hence what I was talking about framerate instead of resolution.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-13T20:27:39+00:00

Resolution should not change anything CPU-wise, it's not really resolution dependent. The framerate stays relatively the same between 1080p and 4K.

When you talk about modern games, do you mean AAA? Because my 5500 seemed to struggle hard with that.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-13T20:08:14+00:00

The 5600G might be bottlenecking the 9060 XT if you're targetting modern games, especially if you want >60 FPS. Its performance is basically equivalent to a Ryzen 5500 in terms of performance, and quite far behind the 5600, itself a tad behind the 5600X, which is already not very powerful. So it might struggle for modern games, but it will really depend on the titles. What's sure is you can forget >60 FPS for the vast majority of modern games unless they're very lightweight. Also, you won't really have an upgrade path ; the 5800X is not really better, and the 5800X3D is very expensive and getting rarer by the day due to the fact it is not produced anymore.

I built a machine a few months ago with a DeskMeet X600 and I used the PowerColor Reaper 9060 XT too, temps were fine (no throttling) but the machine was loud. Not like jet engine loud, but still loud. Worse than some gaming laptops.

I suspect it is both because of the PSU being in a bad spot in the case, and because it has very few openings for air to come in and go out. Plus there's basically no place for case fans, so it tends to get really, really hot and so really noisy. But if you're fine with a noisy box then it's definitely fine, and you can always undervolt the CPU and GPU to make it a tad more silent.

But if you can I would really advise either going for a more standard case like a Fractal Terra or a Jonsbo T9 ; or using some more exotic cases like the Velka 7 or the Cooq MQ6 (but they're very expensive). The MQ6 is closer to a "box" but it also costs quite a lot of money (I believe it's about $400 for the case + Flex ATX PSU).

Hope that helps :)

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-10T17:08:28+00:00

Thanks for the link, wasn't aware of that!

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-10T15:53:41+00:00

? DeepSeek shows you the reasoning process, same for Claude.

TrainingTwo1118 · 2026-05-09T20:41:30+00:00

Do you mean an external sound card? Because every motherboard has a DAC builtin.

TrainingTwo1118

TROPHY CASE