Hello.
I think I've had a great idea, and I'll execute it once you guys suggest some ideas and/or cut it to pieces!
Small context bit:
I currently have one main PC in my home, used for gaming mainly. This has:
Antec P182 case
Asus P8P67 Pro mobo
intel i5-2500k
16gb gskill ddr3 1600
Gtx 670
cooler master 850w psu
ssd and hdd.
I use this PC in my office room, but the case and components are actually located outside in the corridor, with all cables going through the wall. This gives me the best of both worlds - use of a fairly powerful gaming PC in a COMPLETELY silent room. And I mean silent; with the speakers off you can hear that high pitched sound of silence in your ears. I love it.
"The plan"
I want to build a home server, to run Amahi on, with lots of storage for media. Originally I thought I'd build a new small pc for this (m-itx maybe) and put this in the corridor as well. However, I think I have just had a much better idea. Instead of that, I can take the relevant bits out of my gaming pc (atx psu, ram, ssd, cpu and gpu), and make a new gaming PC with them. I would put these in a smaller case, and put that in the corridor. It would be nice if it was quiet, but the beauty is that it doesn't have to be silent as I won't hear it from the office room.
Then, with what's left in the large Antec P182 case (hdds, mobo, Optical drive) I could then add the most basic socket 1155 cpu I can find (i3 maybe?) and a low power psu, and have an Amahi server. I would then move that PC to the office room, and make sure it's silent (I'd need your help with that). I assume since it won't have discrete graphics, it wouldn't need a loud gpu fan and therefore I could just have a quiet cpu fan, a system fan and the psu fan. If I got a quiet psu, it could be a silent server I hope.
I need your advice
1. I'm effectively making 2 PC's out of one here, and supplementing what I need to add. Does this make sense?
2. Do you have any advice on the parts I would need to add? From what I gather so far, the smaller gaming PC would need a case and a motherboard only - smaller the better for both, without compromising performance if possible. Mobo would need to be socket 1155 to take my current i5-2500k cpu. The QUIET server PC would need a psu and a cpu+cooler only - again cpu needs to be socket 1155 to fit the current atx p8p67 mobo in there now, but a low power cpu should do fine.
3. Have I missed anything or do you have any great ideas to add? I'm based in the UK, so will be buying components from UK retailers if it matters.
Thanks for reading, all advice appreciated!
You don't need to read this bit unless you are bored
If you want to know more about my current set up (for whatever reason), I have the system discussed above in the corridor. I then have all the components mentioned inside the case, apart from the monitors obviously. In order to get the computer to display 3 monitors around 15 metres away, I use one long 15m dvi to hdmi cable, and two hdmi over cat 5 extenders, which work fine. I then have a 15m active usb repeater cable, to run a usb cable from the pc to a hub on the desk with the monitors. That hub then connects keyboard, mouse etc. Finally, I have a 15m 3.5" cable for outputting the speakers directly from the pc. This all works great, and gets me silent computing without a silent PC.
I also have a very small all in one pc in the living room, which is an old emachines er-1402, with a crappy AMD equivalent of an atom cpu. This functions fine for the time being, though I'd like a more powerful one in the future - a story for another time.