Built around Intel’s 10th Gen CPU and Streacom’s gorgeous DA2 chassis, the DA2 i10 Breeze takes advantage of the excellent ventilation the DA2 chassis has to offer, resulting in an extremely and elegant quiet PC!

Extreme quietness in a small package

Apart from the tiny UltraNUC, the DA2 based PCs we have available are one of the smallest PCs we offer. Unlike the UltraNUC, the DA2 Fanless uses a conventional fully-featured motherboard, albeit a Mini-ITX sized one. The machine can accommodate a multiple M.2 SSDs and up to two 2.5” hard drives. And because we offer the latest power-frugal processors, it can be cooled with very little airflow, making it one of the quietest air cooled PCs. The power supply is either a full sized ATX, or to reduce space we have a SFX PSUs available. Unlike the power supplies in many other small PCs, these are fully integrated so there are no clumsy black “bricks” which you need to have lying around behind the PC. With this being an air cooled version of the Silent model it can be built with a high-end graphics card and CPUs with greater performance.

Intel’s 10th Generation Processors

The DA2 i10 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).

While looking through the CPU options on the configurator you may notice that the TDP (Thermal Design Power) of the processors varies more than previous generations. The low power options (T-suffix) and the none-suffix processors remain at 35 and 65 watts respectively. Where there is a big change is that the K-suffix is now 125W (up 30W from previous gen). This increase in TDP will obviously require more cooling/air flow than the other lower wattage processors. We therefore recommend that you choose your CPU wisely. The CPU cooler we use in the DA2 i10 is more than capable of cooling a 125W processor, but please bear in mind that choosing the K-suffix process will result in a higher CPU fan speed, which in-turn will generate slightly more noise when compared to cooling a 35 or 65W processor.

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-Irear motherboard 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 chose an SSD or M2 drive as a boot drive that contains the operating system and important programs and a conventional HDD to store other data, but remember that if you intend to have a totally silent PC you might want to forgo the HDDs all together 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 Windows Security - 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 at least 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.

PLEASE NOTE: At present, not all Intel 10th Gen CPUs are currently available to us. We will add more as and when we receive stock.