Quiet PC Serenity Z68 Value

An excellent quality fully-built quiet PC, using best value high performance components. This high-specification machine doesn’t compromise on performance and comes with a two-year fully inclusive warranty.

The best quiet / value balance

Achieving absolute PC silence is not the cheapest way of buying a PC as Nofan’s incredible IcePipe cooler demonstrates. However, for customers who are prepared to accept a very small amount of running noise, we are delighted to offer the Serenity Z68 Quiet PC which is a fully-built PC system, ready to go. It is designed with performance and quietness in mind, using components which we feel offer the best balance of speed, quietness and value. The machine can be configured to your exact specification and offers, as you would expect, incredibly quiet operation which is barely audible.

Top Performance and Reliability

The PC itself doesn’t compromise on performance, and can be built pre-installed with up to 16 gigabytes of memory and an Intel Sandy Bridge CPU. Famous for its excellent performance/value balance, the Core i5 and i7 processors have a quad-core architecture and under heavy loading, will automatically “Turbo Boost” their clock speed by up to 12%. We also offer the Core i3 processor for cost-conscious customers. Regarding memory, although Microsoft Windows 7 will run on 2GB, unless you are on a serious budget, we recommend a minimum of 4GB to ensure that the machine has plenty to spare and will always offer excellent responsiveness even when running multiple applications simultaneously. We are now offering our systems with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed, and again we would recommend a minimum of 4GB for this operating system to perform at its best.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte “UD” (Ultra-Durable) series model which uses two ounces of copper for both the power and ground layers, as well as 50,000-hour lifespan Japanese solid capacitors and low-resistance MOSFET components. This approach is designed to improve stability and long-term reliability of the motherboard which is, after all, the heart of the machine.

Photo showing rear ports

Clean Build™ Promise

The price of many pre-built PCs these days is often supported by cash kickbacks from software companies who pay hardware manufacturers to pre-install limited or trial versions of their software and then hope that the customer pays to upgrade to the full version. The downside to this approach is that the new PC comes pre-loaded with a lot of “junkware” which bloats the operating system and can cause severe performance degradation.

Here at Quiet PC we believe that customers have every right to expect the best possible performance from a brand new PC, so every system we build comes with our Clean Build™ promise. We install the operating system (if you order one), motherboard drivers, OS updates and (for Windows 7 only) Microsoft Security Essentials - that’s it. You won’t be pestered by pop-ups and nag screens and you can get on with using your new PC immediately without having to uninstall lots of junkware first. Your new machine will boot in super-quick time and will stay running quickly for many months and years to come.

Storage considerations

When specifying your new PC’s storage options using our system configurator below, you will be offered a choice of drives which vary by price and capacity. There are two primary types of storage. A conventional hard disk drive (HDD) offers huge storage capacity for a low price, but it won’t be especially fast and it will generate a certain amount of running noise since it contains a constantly-rotating spindle. A solid state drive (SSD) on the other hand, offers tremendous speed and absolutely silent operation, but it will cost more than an HDD for any given capacity.

So if you need a lot of storage space (for videos or large quantities of digital photos for example), then we would recommend an HDD. On the other hand, if you prefer silence and speed (especially boot-up speed), then an SSD would be a better choice. Of course you can have more than one drive, so you could have the best of both worlds by choosing one of each! And finally, we do offer the option of enclosing HDD(s) in an acoustic enclosure called a Smart Drive - this will significantly reduce the running noise of a hard disk.

Free hardware support and fully inclusive warranty

We offer free hardware technical support for as long as you own the machine. This support covers any hardware query or problem, including advice on maintenance and upgrades. We regret we can’t offer software support or training so we would recommend contacting the software vendor in this instance. Support for Ubuntu can be obtained through online forums, or on a commercial basis from Canonical Ltd.

Our hardware warranty runs for two years and is “collect and return” meaning that you don’t need to worry about getting the machine back to us - we will instruct our courier to collect it from you on a day of your choosing, then after we have checked and repaired it we will send it back to you by express courier at our expense. In addition, unlike many other PC suppliers, we have an “open-case” policy which means you are free to open the machine and perform your own minor modifications or upgrades without worrying that your warranty might be affected.