Quiet PSU doesn't need to be powerfull & electricity bill question!

Munky1080 said:
really?!? what do they say?
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CONCLUSIONS

The Enermax NoiseTaker has fallen far, from a star on our recommended list two years ago to a sub-par performer today. The change is not Enermax' fault so much as the result of higher expectations and stiffer competition. Two years ago, quiet, highly efficient power supplies of the type that we recommend today were very difficult to find. Now, efficiency and noise have become major selling points, and Enermax has not kept apace of the changes in the marketplace — at least not with the NoiseTaker II.

The best things about the NoiseTaker II are the features that prompted the new revision. The cables are longer and more varied than the previous version, which should please those who want to run multiple processors. The mixed SATA and IDE connectors on the same cable is also a nice feature, as is the inclusion of "plain" cables for those who don't like the mixed cables. The change to the exterior casing also seems to have been for the better, as the new version seems to be better cooled.

Nevertheless, the NoiseTaker is in need of more than just cosmetic changes to bring it up to current standards. We hope to see a NoiseTaker III with better quality fans and a low-noise fan controller. Until then, there are better (and much cheaper) options than the NoiseTaker II
 
malcolm said:
Another vote for the Enermax range here.

I measured the power drawn from the following system:

HP XW6200 workstation, dual Xeon 3.2GHZ CPU's (skt 601), 2GByte ram, 3 SCSI hard drives and an Adaptec 29160 PCI SCSI card. Gfx card in an nVidia Quadro, very basic but dual output.

With BOTH cpu's fully loaded the power draw never exceeded 220 watts. The system has a 500 watt PSU. I was using a plug in power meter bought from that High Street electronics store that sounds like the staff should wear yellow coats!
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thanks that's very interesting,could mean the seasonic 380 is best for me
 
My system is a

Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 2.67Ghz Stock (Yeah I give my CPU an easy life as my graphics card is the main bottleneck anyway)
Geforce 7900GTX
4Gb Ram
2x320GB Seagate 7200.10
Soundblaster X-Fi
4 case Fans
DVD/Zip & Floppy drives

The whole system draws about 140W off the mains when idle/web browsing etc.

If I load up both cpu cores with Prime95 (CPU0/1 @ 100%) then the system draws 175W, and if I run a CPU+GPU heavy game I have seen occassional peaks of up to 225W.

PSU's should be run in their 'comfort zone'. So some 1KW psu's are losing efficiency considerably when the system is only drawing 140W, whereas a 500W psu is more likely to be more efficient at when the system is idle.

Seasonic PSUs (be it the 380, 500 or 600) are pretty much 80% efficient or better from 80watts load to around 90% max load. So no matter which you get it would be wasting power.

Its worth remembering that as PSU's age their capacitors deteriorate slowely. So after a few years a 380W PSU may only be able to supply 330W with any kind of stability. By having a reasonalby overspecced PSU you extend its working life because its never being pushed hard. But thats no excuse to get a 1KW supply. It also means you dont need to worry if you upgrade the graphics card.

Im still bottlenecking my Core 2 Duo with the 7900GTX because I dont think the additional speed of an 8800GTS/GTX justifies the additional power use. Although I have to admit, Im quite tempted by the new more 'conservative' 8800GT.
 
Of course, if you were to build a system with dual ATi 2900's which are renowned for their heavy power usage, and then added a pair of 125W AMD Phenoms 4x4, stuffed in 8gb of ram, and 4 hard drives.... Well in that case even idle the system would probably be in the 'efficiency' zone of even 1Kw PSU's... So its not like the big PSU's are just some joke to get your money.. For some computers its the correct choice. However in my experience, a lot of people think their PC's need 500-600W while in reality they can probably get by with 250-350W.

Me, well I know my system only draws a peak of 225W, but I still have a 500W PSU, because 1) its a very quiet lightly loaded Seasonic, 2) The seasonic is 80% efficient at anything more than 80 watts, so my 140w idle is just fine for the PSU, 3) as the PSU ages it will still be running with plenty of spare, and 4) Eventually I know I will have a Penryn or Nehelem quad core processor, and a fancy new graphics card. Hopefully by then they will be just as power efficent as my current hardware, but if they do need more power I am confident my 500W seasonic will handle it :)
 
Been reading more about the consair 520
And it seems a lot them also suffer from buzzing noises like my antec earthwatts!

Also when i swith my antec psu off sometimes it starts making a clicking noise
 
The Tagan TG480-01 that I have in my system is completely silent, and I mean it truly is. I actually had to put a small piece of paper into the fans to confirm they were spinning!
 
Yep been looking at them.Can't find a 350w version anywhere tho.Also do they suffer from any buzzing?

The other fanless i was looking at were fortron zen
and the silverstone ST30NF

My only worry is would my system have enough airflow.I have 120mm cpu fan spinning at 700rpm and fan at the back of the case,also spinning at 700rpm

As staed i only have basic core duo setup with a cheap fanless graphics card
 
Yes you're right,seems a lot people have had problems.Also strange that some websites state 1yr warranty while others state 3yr.Would like to know for certain how many years the warranty is

So for now i have ordered the corsair 450 the review on slientpc says 21db ,1db lower than the 520.Hopefully it won't buzz like the earthwatts!
 
questforquiet said:
Yes you're right,seems a lot people have had problems.Also strange that some websites state 1yr warranty while others state 3yr.Would like to know for certain how many years the warranty is

So for now i have ordered the corsair 450 the review on slientpc says 21db ,1db lower than the 520.Hopefully it won't buzz like the earthwatts!
Click to expand...

Let me know what you think of it
 
Right got the consair 450 today

Now if i have my cpu fan spinning at 1200rpm,you cannot hear the psu.However if you lower the cpu to 6-700rpm you start to hear a low level humming.Not as bad as the antec earthwatts,but still there

So i guess a lot of people over at the slientpcreview forums are correct.The consairs do have this humming sound,it's just most people would not notice it...

I guess my next stop is a fanless psu,tho i have heard some of these suffer from slight humming
It must be how they make the psu's these days...
 
I have an enermax noisetaker 600w and it is not a quiet PSU, in that I can hear it over my fans and stock AMD cpu cooler!

It has a very strange noise actually...not a whooshing of air as such...difficult to describe, but it is on my list of things to replace actually in the quest for quiet computing.

Its not loud by any means but not silent either.
 
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