Gadgetory

well hello there I finally got a sound level meter so that we can test to see if sound dampening material on PC cases actually works there's going to be non-scientific but before we get into that I want to establish a sound reference as to how loud certain things are around the household in our everyday life so guys I'm super excited to hear the difference between sound dampening material inside a PC case versus no sound dampening at all and this is going to be non-scientific we're just going to have fun with it I'm excited hope you guys are too let's begin right after this it's time to try something new with the key 900m mechanical keyboard by Zalman with kale brown switches on board macro recordings and absolutely gorgeous RGB illumination with the white frame even your dog will go nuts check it out in the description below alright so the test subject so this one is the Silverstone klo 7 from the coup Black Series I'm using it because it's one of the only cases that I have that has a completely closed off interior and also it is silence focused so we have this really thick noise dampening material plied on all of the side panels so on the rear side panel on the front and top and the main side here and for the fans I am basically populating every single fan slot inside of it so I'm keeping the two star fans that came with the case I'm are also populating two more 140 member fans at the top 140 more fans for exhaust and also there's the one fan for the CPU core plus the GPU and so there are six fans in total I'm using the bit quiet silent wings three 140 Miller fans because I love you spend they are quiet so it's not like I'm cheating and stuff but I will be stressing the mount thing is having two fans for the top is totally overkill but the whole idea is to introduce as much air flow and noise as possible and basically see what happened and to just quickly prove so we have sound dampening on the top on the front and both side panels so this is how the case comes stock interesting thing about this material is it's the thickest I've ever come across on the PC enclosure as you can see it's like almost as thick as my finger usually sound dampening material is like very thin piece that is dense and just kind of applied on the side panels but here Silverstone has gone a different approach where we can actually see those dimples and I guess they would help to capture the sound wave so they vibrate in between them and will not allow the sound to escape but this material is interesting it's almost memory foam like and it's very porous looking it's almost like if you were to pour water on here it will just absorb everything so the rear side panel is closed and the main build is complete all right so I got my four stations for audio setup so one in front here measuring from how much noise escaping from this side panel we got one behind the monitor over here so facing the rear to see if there is any difference on how much noise is escaping the case based on the air flow from the one exhaust fan we have one in the front over here and one over here measuring to see if there is any audible difference from the rear side panel so everything is on equal distance from each other so now the computer is off my phone is on silent everything else in this room is completely off aside from my light but I don't think that's making any noise anyway I'm going to do three tests first of all is to do an ambient sound so turn off the system and measure the audible DBA or all these four locations without the system on I'm going to then turn on the system and measure what the DBA is without all the side panels and then put on all the side panels measure that and then take out all the sound dampening materials like literally rip it off the side panels and see if there's any progression and have that DBA changes wish me luck and one more thing I want to mention is the sound meter level is on a little tripod I will not be touching it during its recording time all right so the first sound stage is complete but I realized I made a mistake even until all the frames inside the system are running at 100% fan speed then you be quiet fans you're way too quiet for this test the GPU is idling and therefore I want to increase the fan speed on the GTX 970 to 100% to get the system is much lower this possible to potentially give me a greater difference between one side to another on and off and the sound dampening material we've moved as well all right no turning back let's get rid of all the sounding foam but good thing that kind of just glued on there and it's all one thick piece so I feel like I can just peel it off no that's a good thing all right first panel complete next panel hoping that this would be easier one with a panel oh yes clean BAM so the only thing not to do is put those panels back on and redo the audio too so just looking at the graph the ambient variation and VBA is probably due to different heights of the microphone on where it was placed so that's understandable but there is there unique thing that I've discovered here and that is when the panels are off and we're recording from the rear the audio is actually quieter when the side panels are not on the case and I'm thinking that is because when the side panels are on any audio that escapes goes through the back vs. if the side panels are open the audio kind of disperses throughout the case and can exit wherever it wants and therefore the case is the loudest at the rear when the side panels are completely closed because there's no other area for the audio to escape cool so the moment of truth has come here in the graph and you can see that without any sound dampening foam the general system noise levels is higher the DBA has increased not by much by a little bit more so on the rear and on the left side versus right in the front but it has risen and just to make sure that I was accurate I tested the ambient room sound as well and my results were identical to what I tested a few hours prior so that any differentiation that you will see without any foam removes is associated with the foam removed and not other factors inside the room but more interestingly when I turn a GPU fan to 100% this is really cool because on all sides we see about a point nine DB a increase very consistently as you can see from rear right front and the left and this is pretty because as the system gets louder it seems like the sound dampening material helps to absorb and dampen more of that sound versus when the system is a little bit quieter so in our example we shaved about 0.9 DBA with the GPU at 100% with the foam installed versus about 2.5 2.6 DBA with just the same at 100% with the GPU at dial but with all that said the DBA difference between foam and no foam is only 0.9 DBA so that is well within margin of error even though I try to reduce the variables that could impact those tests and so I still think that you know the foam quantifiably has proven to reduce and dampen some the sound but we cannot ignore the fact that mathematics tells us that if we are you know in that margin of error that something else could be the factor in tinkering with our results so what does that mean for your future Kings buying decisions if you are going the silent route I always said that you're choosing the right hardware component is more important if you are you're building a completely silent system so choosing quality expands at the lower rpm maybe avoiding a anos so you avoid any pump noises and stuff like that going with a custom GPU that has a larger heatsink so it maybe doesn't even spin it sound like idle and low load situations but that's not to say this case is not important and as I proved today that slight reduction in the DBA levels with the south dating material installed inside the case is something and will help to overall reduce the noise level of your system so guys I hope you enjoyed this video coming along with me to experience this project together make sure that my ambient acoustic levels were the same is when I started to eliminate any potentially other noise that was introduced into the room so I'm happy that the ambient acoustic levels for exactly the same is when I started and so that leads me to believe that the foam the sound F in foam actually works even though it's only a slight you know difference of 0.9 DBA at full system load with GPU and a hole although spent at 100% the most interesting finding for me was the DBA readout from the rear without any side panel sources when the side panels are on as that shows you that there's more audio or the rear is louder when the side panels are on because I guess there's nowhere for the sound to escape aside from anything from the back and that was cool so you know maybe potentially will help you to place your case accordingly based on this data so guys I'm Dimitri with how architects thanks so much for watching this one's a little bit of a long one but I hope you enjoyed and we'll see you in the next video