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Small form factor PCs have matured over the last few years, and now offer almost identical performance to their gargantuan desktop cousins, but there are still a few compromises that must be made. The problem with shrinking the size of your computer is that there's less room for larger but more beneficial components, such as fans. Few SFFs have room for 120mm fans, with Antec's Aria being a notable exception, although technically that's a micro-ATX case rather than a SFF chassis. Meanwhile, Shuttle made the sensible move to 92mm fans in some of its later designs, but the very latest P-series Shuttles instead adopt a complicated array of smaller temperature-controlled fans.

So although a fair number of SFF PCs are destined for use in the lounge, they aren't as quiet as they should be for this purpose, especially if they contain a relatively high-end graphics card with its fan whirring right next to the side panel. Plus, with less room for air to circulate, if you fill your SFF PC with powerful components then its little fans will twirl faster than a drum majorette on amphetamines.

So what can be done about it? Well, you could take extreme measures. We successfully water cooled a Shuttle SFF using the Cool River Deluxe kit, making it quieter and more overclockable in the process, but it required some serious modification.

Unfortunately, for the more timid enthusiast, your silencing means are somewhat limited. However, one frequently suggested method of keeping the noise down without making any drastic changes is to fit noise-absorbent matting to the interior walls of the chassis. This is also readily available for full-size desktop PCs but, for a SFF PC, it's one of your only options when you don't have space for alternative coolers.

We decided to put this method to the test to see if it really made a difference. We chose the Acousti AcoustiPack for our test, which is available in a specifically designed SFF format (£16.45 from www.quietpc.co.uk), but MuteMat (www.mutemat.co.uk) makes a similarly priced alternative. The Acousti matting includes a 1mm acoustic barrier layer topped by 3mm of acoustic foam. However, one of the drawbacks with matting is that you must not allow it to restrict airflow, so it can't be installed over vents intended for airflow to and from the case. Unfortunately, these are also the main paths through which noise from components such as the CPU cooler and graphics card escapes, so the potential benefits of acoustic matting are significantly reduced. As a result, there has been some controversy over whether acoustic matting is worth bothering with at all.

To find out, we lined an AOpen EZ65 XC Cube SFF PC with the AcoustiPack matting, in which we installed a 3.4GHz Socket 478 Pentium 4, a Western Digital Raptor hard disk and an MSI GeForce 6600GT graphics card. We recorded the sound produced with no matting, and then swapped the outer panels for panels with the AcoustiPack soundproofing fitted inside them. Measuring from the front, the system was 0.6dBA louder with the matting, although it was 0.8dBA quieter from the side.

Looking at our matted panels explained these results, as the padding covered the area right next to the graphics card. This might muffle the noise output, but it will also drastically reduce its airflow, thereby increasing the interior temperature of the case, and forcing any thermally controlled fans to spin faster.

Acoustic matting is clearly a double-edged sword. If it impedes airflow at all, then it may well have the opposite effect to the one intended. For a really quiet SFF PC, your best bet is to consider components specifically designed to provide processing grunt without producing too much heat. A great example would be a Pentium M-based box such as the AOpen XC Cube MZ855-II.

Small form factor PCs have matured over the last few years, and now offer almost identical performance to their gargantuan desktop cousins, but there are still a few compromises that must be made. The problem with shrinking the size of your computer is that there's less room for larger but more beneficial components, such as fans. Few SFFs have room for 120mm fans, with Antec's Aria being a notable exception, although technically that's a micro-ATX case rather than a SFF chassis. Meanwhile, Shuttle made the sensible move to 92mm fans in some of its later designs, but the very latest P-series Shuttles instead adopt a complicated array of smaller temperature-controlled fans.

So although a fair number of SFF PCs are destined for use in the lounge, they aren't as quiet as they should be for this purpose, especially if they contain a relatively high-end graphics card with its fan whirring right next to the side panel. Plus, with less room for air to circulate, if you fill your SFF PC with powerful components then its little fans will twirl faster than a drum majorette on amphetamines.

So what can be done about it? Well, you could take extreme measures. We successfully water cooled a Shuttle SFF using the Cool River Deluxe kit, making it quieter and more overclockable in the process, but it required some serious modification.

Unfortunately, for the more timid enthusiast, your silencing means are somewhat limited. However, one frequently suggested method of keeping the noise down without making any drastic changes is to fit noise-absorbent matting to the interior walls of the chassis. This is also readily available for full-size desktop PCs but, for a SFF PC, it's one of your only options when you don't have space for alternative coolers.

We decided to put this method to the test to see if it really made a difference. We chose the Acousti AcoustiPack for our test, which is available in a specifically designed SFF format (£16.45 from www.quietpc.co.uk), but MuteMat (www.mutemat.co.uk) makes a similarly priced alternative. The Acousti matting includes a 1mm acoustic barrier layer topped by 3mm of acoustic foam. However, one of the drawbacks with matting is that you must not allow it to restrict airflow, so it can't be installed over vents intended for airflow to and from the case. Unfortunately, these are also the main paths through which noise from components such as the CPU cooler and graphics card escapes, so the potential benefits of acoustic matting are significantly reduced. As a result, there has been some controversy over whether acoustic matting is worth bothering with at all.

To find out, we lined an AOpen EZ65 XC Cube SFF PC with the AcoustiPack matting, in which we installed a 3.4GHz Socket 478 Pentium 4, a Western Digital Raptor hard disk and an MSI GeForce 6600GT graphics card. We recorded the sound produced with no matting, and then swapped the outer panels for panels with the AcoustiPack soundproofing fitted inside them. Measuring from the front, the system was 0.6dBA louder with the matting, although it was 0.8dBA quieter from the side.

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