Build your own screaming quiet PC for $2000, just like Pluralsight’s dev boxes

Once I bought my first quiet PC, I knew I’d never go back. There’s something to be said about the lack of a headache at the end of the day from computer fan noise. And it’s remarkably easy (and relatively cheap) to build a fast, quiet PC for development (and gaming!) Here’s the standard specs for the machines that my team uses for development here at Pluralsight as of Feb, 2012:

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage 3
CPU: Intel I7 960 3.2G with a Zalman CNPS10X CPU Cooler
RAM: 12GB
HD1: Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SSD
HD2: WD 300GB VelociRaptor 10K - bare drive
Video: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6750 1GB
DVD: plextor PX-L890SA DVD
Case: Corsair Obsidian 800D
Monitors: 2x LCD monitors 23"
Keyboard: Logitech Illuminated Ultrathin with Backlighting
Mouse: Logitech Wireless
OS: Windows 7 Pro

If you shop around, you can purchase everything you need online for around $2000, whereas if you were to buy this machine from a vendor, you’d probably spend upwards of $3500 or more.

We found some of the best prices on Amazon and Newegg. It’ll take several hours to build, depending on your experience building PCs, but you’ll find Tom’s Hardware has some great tutorials on how to do this.

What you’ll end up with is a screaming fast but incredibly quiet PC that will work well for both development and gaming, although you should plan to get an upgraded video card if you’re into games. We like the 6750 because it’s cheap, has no fan (quiet and not bulky), and has dual-DVI outputs. It’s perfect for developing web applications.

The case we use is really big – you could buy a cheaper, smaller case. I like big cases – they are easy to maneuver in, and have loads of room for expansion cards, disk drives, etc. The Corsair also comes with several large diameter fans, which are helpful for noise reduction. Given where the power supply mounts in this case, connecting the power supply to the motherboard takes a bit of patience as the cord is a little short, but it’s doable.

A word of caution: we use Acronis to backup nightly from the SSD drive onto our secondary internal drive, which is important because SSDs have higher failure rates than normal drives. Don’t skip this step! Also, you might want to spend a bit more and get a third drive to use for backup so you can use your fast secondary drive for extra storage. My machine at home has an internal Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 5400 RPM drive for backing up my system.

Want to give it a try? Below is the shopping list we use for comparison shopping. All of the links should take you to the parts we used so that you can quickly compare prices. Not all parts are available at all vendors, naturally.

Thanks to Jim Schneider for keeping our shopping list up to date, and to Erik Olson for driving the assembly!