I'm a software engineer with about eight years of industry experience. I put myself into your shoes and gave myself the goal of speccing out a silent development machine.

First of all, here's the list of parts:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Here is my reasoning:

• CPU: This is the most powerful Ivy Bridge chip with support for vPro and VT-d. The i7-3770K sacrifices that support for slightly more power and the ability to overclock. Of the two, I believe the 3770 meets your needs best.

• Cooler: I do not have personal experience with this cooler, but its general reputation is of being dead-silent. Since you will be running at stock speeds, and since programming workflows rarely involve continuous 100% usage of the CPU, I suspect you could turn the already-quiet fans down to very low speeds and still maintain reasonable temperatures.

• Motherboard: A good board from a well-regarded brand. Packs all the Ivy Bridge bells and whistles. Not much else to say here.

• Memory: In current Intel setups, increasing memory speeds appreciably improves performance up to DDR3-1600. Beyond that, you will see sharply diminishing returns. 2x4GB gives you enough memory for most workflows, but also leaves you room to expand to 4x4GB or 2x4GB+2x8GB if you find yourself short on memory.

• SSD: Presently, no other manufacturer can offer the same combination of performance and reliability as Samsung. I chose the 256GB model because I've personally run into situations where having to split my files between an SSD and an HDD has become a hassle, and I imagine you'd want to avoid that as much as possible.

• HDD: Because we went with a large SSD, we can focus on capacity and noise levels, rather than speed, when selecting our hard drive. 2TB will give you plenty of space for backups (do them! do them all the time! backup all of the things!) and 5400rpm will keep your (occasional) hard drive accesses quiet.

• Video Card: The 7750 has enough power for light gaming, and this is Sapphire's passively cooled, fanless version. Disclaimer: I've never personally used a passively cooled video card. I imagine it would work okay, but I haven't confirmed it for myself.

• Case: The Define R3 is well-known for its excellent combination of elegance, silence, and ease of build. If your wife doesn't want to hear your computer, I suspect she doesn't want to see it, either; this is a no-frills, no-flash case that will fit quietly into your room.

• PSU: Seasonic is the best name in the business. 400W is more than enough to power your machine. And, again, we've chosen a fanless component to keep noise levels to an absolute minimum.

• Optical drive: They're all the same, these days, and I doubt you'll be using it often after installing your OS. I assumed you didn't want or need Blu-ray.

• Monitor: I didn't know if you had them, yet, so I included these. 1080p, IPS, LED-backlit ... they've got all the features, and are viable placeholders. Monitors are so dependent on individual preference, though, (size? resolution? use cases?) that I'll refrain from offering a serious recommendation here.

• OS: I chose Win 7 Professional because, as a developer, you may need XP legacy mode.

So, that's the no-compromises version. I can say with confidence that, given your goals, you would not be wasting your money on this machine. That said, if you wanted to trim the price tag, here are some worthy alternatives:

• CPU: The i5-3550 has a slightly slower clock, slightly smaller L3 cache, and no hyperthreading. It is, however, substantially less expensive than the 3770.

• Cooler: The Hyper 212 EVO is not quite in the same league as the NH-D14, but is still quite powerful and reasonably quiet.

• SSD: If 256GB really is overkill for you, Samsung also offers a 128GB version of their popular 830 series.

• HDD: Again, if 2TB is overkill, you could take a Western Digital Caviar Green in either 500 GB or 1 TB flavors.

• GPU: The Radeon 6670 costs much less, but packs less of a punch and has a fan. Is it worth the switch? Your call.

• PSU: Seasonic also produces a 430W power supply that is not fanless, but costs half as much and still gets good reviews for its low noise levels.

• OS: You can save $40 with Win 7 Home Premium if you don't need any of Professional's bells and whistles.

If you were to make all of the adjustments listed above, you'd end up with the following:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

So, to meet your needs of a powerful and quiet development machine, you're looking at a price tag between $1300 and $1750. If the first build is too expensive and the last build isn't good enough, you can mix and match parts until you find a sweet spot that satisfies both your needs and your budget.

If you have any follow up questions, feel free to ask. Happy building, and good luck with your startup!