Built around Streamcom’s gorgeous DA2 chassis, the DA2i i10 Fanless takes advantage of Nofan’s fanless CPU cooler to produce one of the best looking and most functional silent PCs available, anywhere!

An air cooled version of this system can be found here.

Total silence in a small package

Apart from the tiny UltraNUC, the DA2 Fanless is one of the smallest PC we offer. Unlike the UltraNUC, the DA2 Fanless uses a conventional fully-featured motherboard, albeit a Mini-ITX sized one. The machine can accommodate two M.2 SSDs and up to two 2.5” hard drives. And because we offer the latest power-frugal processors, it is cooled fanlessly, thanks to the Nofan CR-80EH fanless CPU cooler. The power supply is the small Silverstone Nightjar 450W, so unlike the power supplies in many other small PCs, this one is fully integrated so there are no clumsy black “bricks” which you need to have lying around behind the PC. The benefits of fanless operation include zero noise, does not attract dust, no moving parts, meaning the PC requires very little to no maintenance.

Intel’s 10th Generation Processors

As already mentioned, the PC takes advantage of an Intel 10th generation CPU, which has an increased core count and therefore performance boost over the previous generation. As a guide, here is a quick comparison between the 10th Gen Core i7 10700 and the previous 9th Gen Core i7 9700. As you can see the Core i7 10700 has an increased CPU score of around 30%! The extra threads and increased Intel Smart Cache on the 10th Gen CPU help bolster this performance gain, even with the Core i7 10700 having a lower clock speed (by 0.1GHz).

You’d think there would be a downside to all this extra performance but to be honest we cannot think of any. The CPUs have a maximum Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 65W and 35W for the low powered “T-suffix” processors. This means they can take advantage of the NoFan fanless CPU cooler and be cooled without the need for a fan! Now that is fantastic (pun intended).

We also have available Intel’s cost effective Pentium CPUs. These CPUs are perfect for cost conscious customers looking for great performance on a budget. They are ideal for a general purpose/office PC as they have two cores and four threads, allowing for reasonable multi-tasking performance.

Motherboard Features and Options

With the introduction of the 10th Gen CPUs comes with it the new Intel 400 series chipset. This particular computer utilises either a B460 or a Z490 chipset, so expect improved connectivity, like USB 3.2 Gen 2 for USB speeds up to 10Gbps. The chipsets also features RAID, two M.2 connectors, premium audio, HDMI (1.4b or 2.0) and DisplayPort (1.4) outputs and support for up to 64GB RAM. Below are images of each motherboard available in this system with a table that shows some of the specification each motherboard offers. One major benefit of the Z490 over the B460 motherboard is the fact it is supplied with a HDMI 2.0 port, so if you want to use a 4K display at 60Hz then this board would be ideal, without the need of a graphics card.

B460-I motherboard

Z490-I motherboard

B460-I motherboard rear ports

Z490-I rear motherboards ports

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 (SSD) or a M2 drive on the other hand, offer tremendous speed and absolutely silent operation, but they 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 or M2 drive 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! We recommend that customers choose an SSD or M2 drive as a boot drive that contains the operating system and important programs. A conventional HDD would store other data but remember that if you intend to have a totally silent PC, you might want to forgo the HDDs altogether as they will make some noise due to their moving parts.

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 Microsoft Security Essentials / Windows Defender - 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.

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.

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.