Verdict: All the latest components, but silently cooled

While most manufacturers strive to build the most highly overclocked, fastest PC they possibly can, Quiet PC has taken a very different approach with the design of its Dream PC. Rather than taking an off-the-shelf case and trying to make it look different, Quiet PC has taken the opposite approach; for its Fanless TNN Jaguar AF, the case is the foundation of the PC.

This is because the Jaguar is housed inside the awesome Zalman TNN 500AF chassis. Rather than simply being a container for the components, the TNN 500AF acts as a giant heatsink that dissipates the heat generated by every component in the system. This means the Jaguar contains no cooling fans and, to use Zalman's terminology, there's Totally No Noise. Okay, so if you stick your ear next to the case when you're defragging the hard disk you might hear some clicks, but if you're that anally retentive then we suggest you spend your money on colonic irrigation instead.

The cooling system conducts heat from the components to the corrugated aluminium walls and roof of the case using a series of heatpipes and specially designed heatsinks. The heat is then dissipated outside the PC.

It's hard to express in words the difference between a completely silent PC and a low-noise PC, so I'm going to settle for calling the Jaguar a marvel of engineering, particularly since the components inside are so high-end.

Traditionally, passively cooled PCs have been forced to use low- or mid-range components, as these produce less heat than high-end components, but the Jaguar flouts this rule, using a Core 2 Extreme CPU and a top-end graphics card.

It wasn't easy for Quiet PC to build the Jaguar, as several mods were required to keep everything cool and stable. For example, three of the six heatpipes that connect the overclocked 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU to the case are obstructed by the standard VRM heatsinks on the Intel 975X motherboard. To get around this problem, Quiet PC desoldered the standard VRM heatsinks and replaced them with shorter Zalman models.

During testing, Quiet PC also discovered that, due to the lack of airflow through the case, the passively cooled Northbridge heatsink overheated, causing the system to crash. To fix this, Quiet PC removed the stock heatsink and, via an elaborate system of tension wires and thermally conductive glue, attached a Scythe Katana heatsink (with fan removed) to the Northbridge instead. As the Katana is designed to cool CPUs, it was more than capable of cooling the Northbridge, and it looks cool too. With the Katana fitted, the Northbridge temperature was reduced by nearly 10ûC, making the Jaguar perfectly stable, even when overclocked.

As the motherboard's VRMs are passively cooled, Quiet PC didn't want to overvolt any components, and settled on a comparatively small overclock for the CPU. By raising its multiplier from 11 to 12, the CPU runs at 3.19GHz.

Due to its 400W passively cooled PSU, the system doesn't have enough juice to power a pair of Radeon X1900-series cards in CrossFire, so Quiet PC elected for a single MSI GeForce 7900 GTX card. However, again, to keep heat under control, Quiet PC hasn't overclocked the GPU or the memory.

The graphics card is hooked up to a gorgeous 24in Dell 2407WFP widescreen TFT, the same monitor that Scan supplied with its Dream PC, which has an eye-popping native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200.

In keeping with the silent theme, Quiet PC opted to fit a quiet Samsung SpinPoint T HD400LJ hard disk inside the Jaguar, which is also cooled by a system of heatpipes. It may not be as fast as a Raptor X, but it's a hell of a lot quieter. And, as there's only room inside the TNN 500AF for one hard disk drive, its generous 400GB capacity is very welcome. The optical drive is the same S-ATA Samsung SH-W163 drive that won our recent DVD burner Labs test.

For hardcore gamers, nothing less than a Sound Blaster X-Fi will do, and the Jaguar is fitted with the Xtreme Music model. The high-quality output of the X-Fi is routed to the massive Logitech Z-5550 Digital speaker system, which is still the best 5.1 PC speaker set that money can buy.

Rather than sticking with Logitech for the keyboard and mouse, the Jaguar is bundled with the Raptor Gaming K1 keyboard and M2 mouse. The K1 is reminiscent of the original IBM PC keyboards, as each key has an incredibly solid feel, making it ideal for precision gaming, although it's a little noisy.

The M2 mouse was more of an opinion divider though; some of us didn't like the finger rest on the right-hand side, but we were all impressed by its extremely high sensitivity.

An iMON system monitor, which allows you to adjust the audio volume or access the iMEDIAN software, is built into the front of the case. This monitor provides many of the same functions as supplied by Windows XP Media Center Edition, and is facilitated by the inclusion of a remote control. A Terratec dual DVB-T TV tuner allows you to record and watch two different digital TV channels simultaneously.

PERFORMANCE

The Core 2 Extreme CPU in the Jaguar isn't as heavily overclocked as the CPUs in the other Dream PCs, but it's no slouch. For example, the Jaguar's overall score of 1.91 in our Media Benchmarks means that it's nearly twice as fast as our 2.8GHz Pentium D 820 reference PC, and significantly faster than a heavily overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60. The 2GB of Corsair PRO series DDR2 RAM is only PC2-5400, so its 667MHz effective frequency is lower than the 800MHz that the Intel motherboard is able to handle, but the Jaguar was still capable of running lots of applications at the same time.

For gaming, the Jaguar isn't as fast as the other Dream PCs, as it only has a single graphics card. That said, the GeForce 7900 GTX is a powerful card, and the Jaguar delivered a smooth average frame rate of 49fps in our Prey benchmark at 1,920 x 1,200 with 2x AA and 8x AF. However, it struggled with the much more graphically intensive Oblivion benchmark at the same resolution, averaging just 27fps with a sluggish minimum frame rate of 20fps. It seems that silence comes at a price, at least in the land of Tamriel.

CONCLUSION

All of this year's Dream PCs are impressive examples of cutting-edge PC hardware and sophisticated engineering, and Quiet PC should be commended for taking a different approach to that of the other manufacturers. The Jaguar isn't the most heavily overclocked PC, and therefore it isn't the fastest in applications and games, but it has a characteristic that none of the others can claim, which is silence.

Building any system inside the TNN 500AF chassis is a very long-winded and delicate process. Quiet PC has done a brilliant job of squeezing in the latest high-end components, including an overclocked Core 2 Extreme X6800, while still keeping them cool.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards
• Scan 3XS X58 Core i7 - Desktop PCs