400W SilenX or Silentmaxx Prosilence ???

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Sun May 11, 2003 9:47 am

Right, my antec 480 true blue has to go .... seems like a very stable psu and although its rated as being "quiet", now that my systems only other audible noise are x3 papst 7v fans (which aint much !) it sound very loud indeed.

I have spoken with Peter at silenx and it seems i can easily have one sent over to me here in the UK. Thing is custom PC's will be stocking the Prosilence in a few weeks.

Here are teh pros and cons:

silenx:

pro:

-cheaper (by about 50-80 ukp)
-will add to case exhaust

cons:

-it still has a fan however quiet
-shouldnt generate much heat
-if anything goes wrong with it i have to ship it all the way back to the US
-the review on this site said that it cut out twice during heavy stress testing (not sure if this is something to eb concerned about)

prosilence

pro:

-completely fanless
-if anything goes wrong with it getting it repaired/replaced will be easier with uk supplier

cons:

-expensive
-will create fair bit of heat
-quite possibly not powerful enough. 3+5.5 rating is only 170W which is pushing it for an overclocked P4 3.06 system

to be honest its a tough call. The money isnt really much of an issue but heat build up in the case is (i dont want to add another case fan cos of teh prosilence's heat .. kind of defeats the object) and also the power rating. I absolutely love the idea of the prosilence and the pictures of it look fantastic but i really am in doubt as to whether it will be solid enough for my system esp. as i intend to move to something like a Radeon 9800 pro in the near future:

P4 3.06 @ 3533
x1 WD800JB
x2 Maxtor Diamond Max RAID 0 (to be replaced by x2 SATA Raptors)
Gigabyte 8KNXP
1Gig Corsair XMS 434
x3 120mm 7v fans, x2 80mm 7v fans
x1 matrix orbital lcd
x2 dvd-rom exetrnal via USB 2.0

luckily most of the stuff is watercooled (HD's, NB, GPU, CPU) so i dont have that many fans running and dont have any pci cards cos lan,firewire, sound etc is all on teh board.. but im not sure how much that helps psu load in any case and i would imagine that the overclocked CPU is pretty demanding and needs 100% stability

so all comments welcome I suppose. I have read most of the silenX and prosilence threads here but to be fair many peoples posts dont seem that objective and theres more than a hint of "blind love" in what many people have said. So i'd appreciate some objective views esp. from anyone who has actually tried or owned both if these psu's

regards

Richard

Mr_Smartepants · Post by **Mr_Smartepants** » Sun May 11, 2003 9:52 am

Well, since it's watercooled, why not just attach a cold-plate to the roof of the PSU? That'd keep temps down a bit.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Sun May 11, 2003 10:29 pm

I own both of these PSU's, as well as quiet a few others. I don't think that many other people here are using the Prosilence 350 yet, but I could be mistaken.

Since you've already said this will be in an overclocked system, that you'll be adding a Radeon 9800, that internal case heat and exhaust are major concerns for you, that power requirements of your system are heavy, etc, I think I would have to recommend a fanned PSU to you. One other fanned PSU option you might want to consider, in addition to the SilenX model you're looking at, would be the new Nexus NX-4000 that can be purchased at SiliconAcoustics.com among other places. Or try the watercooling option just suggested above, but I personally know next to nothing about watercooling...

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Mon May 12, 2003 7:56 am

al bundy,

thanks for the response

i was hoping that you wouldnt say that

why do you think a fanned psu , is it becuase the prosilence won't enough enough juice ?

Mr_Smartepants · Post by **Mr_Smartepants** » Mon May 12, 2003 8:22 am

Actually, with your watercooling setup and the three case fans you already have, you have sufficient airflow through the case. You probably don't need a fanned PSU if you use a coldplate. Fanless PSU's are hard to come by though.
It's a toss up. You could go either way and be happy.

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Mon May 12, 2003 8:32 am

i've been thinking, remember that all my stuff is watercooled so actual case temps are pretty low... probably a lot lower than any normal aircooled system cos all eth components are giving out their heat to the water rather than the case air.

Also, there will be airflow in there and i could duct one of the fans out to an exhaust then use one of those zalman plastic air feeder things to point the expelled air up at the external heatsink.

So i dont think heat will be a problem (and yesy i coudl easily attach a watercooled lump of copper onto the psu) ... the only problem is whether the Prosilence has the power for a 3.06 at 3533, 3 hard drives and a radeon 9800 ?

marc999 · Post by **marc999** » Mon May 12, 2003 12:03 pm

Al,

I own both of these PSU's, as well as quiet a few others

So what are your thoughts on the SilentMaxx? Could you give us a mini review? I think it looks really awesome. I probably would buy one if it had Active PFC. I read that they are coming about with a new model, although there was no date on the page that said that, so maybe that's already come and gone.

an updated version of the prosilence PSU comes out during the Cebit

from
http://www.teschke.de/heatpipes/News/co ... art_2.html
Silicon Acoustics is sold out of them right now anyways !!

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Tue May 13, 2003 12:43 am

jackal2513 wrote:al bundy,

thanks for the response

i was hoping that you wouldnt say that

why do you think a fanned psu , is it becuase the prosilence won't enough enough juice ?

Hi jackal25813,

I think that the Prosilence 350 would probably work fine for you. The reason I recommended a fanned PSU to you was just due to your expressed concerns about overclocking, wanting very high spare wattage, and reducing heat sources in the case. The Prosilence 350 will likely increase your internal case temps by a few degrees, will generate less max watts than a 400W+ fanned PSU, and of course reduces your case exhaust by one fan.

Your system would most likely be able to handle these things with the Prosilence just fine - but if you're like all the overclockers that I know, then you would probably rather not have any temp increase, you want tons of wattage to spare, and you would like to have maximum case air flow too! So, just in case that is true, I recommended a fanned PSU to you instead of a fanless one.

There is a new model of the Prosilence coming very soon though, as you mentioned in another thread. Perhaps it would be perfect for you, if you can wait for its final release?

marc999 wrote:Al,
So what are your thoughts on the SilentMaxx? Could you give us a mini review?

Hi marc999,

I posted some of my experiences with the Prosilence 350 in this thread originally started by bigred. So far, the Prosilence 350 is working extremely well for me, and has the most stable rails of any PSU I've ever used before. I'm extremely happy with it! (Remember, you should consider the info posted by 'digitalix' in that thread to be highly doubtful at best).

I'm hoping that more of us silence-oriented people will also have a chance to try out the Prosilence and post their experiences. Two friends of mine with newly-built P4 machines are having very good experiences with the Prosilence as well, for the record...

Tripitz · Post by **Tripitz** » Thu May 15, 2003 1:35 pm

al bundy wrote:I own both of these PSU's, as well as quiet a few others. I don't think that many other people here are using the Prosilence 350 yet, but I could be mistaken.

Since you've already said this will be in an overclocked system, that you'll be adding a Radeon 9800, that internal case heat and exhaust are major concerns for you, that power requirements of your system are heavy, etc, I think I would have to recommend a fanned PSU to you. One other fanned PSU option you might want to consider, in addition to the SilenX model you're looking at, would be the new Nexus NX-4000 that can be purchased at SiliconAcoustics.com among other places. Or try the watercooling option just suggested above, but I personally know next to nothing about watercooling...

I just put together a watercooled P4 2.4b at 3.0 with a 9700 pro (fanless) with a 400w Nexus and I am seriously thinking about returning the nexus. I'm already having video issues and the 12v rail is at 11.7, which is disapointing for such an expensive psu. I'm only running 2 case fans and 2 hard drives. Very disappointing. Plus, after about 10 - 15 minutes of just idling in windows, it decides that the power drain is too much and the fan starts blasting away. It is actually louder than my old Antec True Power 380.

The nexus 300w I have is actually nice and quiet, but unfortunately it can't power my system (or at least I don't think I'd want it to)

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Thu May 15, 2003 11:36 pm

In another thread gksam brought up the new Zalman ZM400A-APF power supply. I think this one looks very nice.