SPCR

CA_Steve wrote:Gabriel has a review up at Hardware Secrets.

Thanks for this! It was a rather dry and brief review vs. some others I've readon HWS, but still, good to know! Wish there were sound fan noise qualification / quantification. Looks like the tested efficiencies are a bit lower than those listed in the 80+ certification site, and the ones obtained by another reviewer here were a bit higher. So I wonder if efficiency varies from unit to unit enough to account for the variation.

Good to know that peak load is 440 Watts - more than plenty for my system if I do decide to run some overclocked benchmarks.

Another review available in German (use Google Translator):
http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/sho ... tent_start

"
Load * Volume +3.3 V (ripple & noise) +5 V (ripple & noise) +12 V (ripple & noise) Efficiency / PFC Δθ **
---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- -----------------
5% 17 dB (A) 3.35 V (3 mV) 5.05 V (5 mV) 12.23 V (12 mV) 71.76% / 0840 2.5 ° C
10% 17 dB (A) 3.34 V (4 mV) 5.05 V (5 mV) 12.23 V (16 mV) 82.62% / 0936 2.9 ° C
20% 17 dB (A) 3.34 V (4 mV) 5.04 V (6 mV) 12.21 V (22 mV) 88.51% / 0952 3.5 ° C
50% 18 dB (A) 3.32 V (7 mV) 5.03 V (6 mV) 12.21 V (24 mV) 90.90% / 0976 5.1 ° C
80% 24 dB (A) 3.31 V (12 mV) 5.01 V (9 mV) 12.19 V (29 mV) 90.50% / 0985 7.6 ° C
100% 29 dB (A) 3.30 V (16 mV) 5.00 V (11 mV) 12.21 V (34 mV) 89.83% / 0989 11.1 ° C
"
But they do mention "chirping" sounds from the fan even at low levels Hopefully that varies from unit to unit, and not all are afflicted.

Connected my new G-360 and it's on! It's completely silent on my desk, very close to me. I have my other case fans very undervolted, and I cannot hear the PSU over them, even when I had my ear right next to it. Very happy right now It's powering an i7 3770 (undevolted and slightly overclocked) and a GTX 670 (ASUS TOP). I'll be doing some tests soon to see how adequate it is, but it appears to be doing just fine so far, which I am fairly sure it will continue to be.

Edit: no chirping sounds whatsoever! Just silence to a very slight whoosh of air at load (just ran Prime95 for a while).

Congrats on your new PSU.

CA_Steve wrote:Congrats on your new PSU.

Thank you. An update with some real-world usage numbers (with a Kill-a-Watt, so take them with a grain of salt):
http://www.overclock.net/t/1126863/real ... t_18164451

TLDR: Ivy i7 + GTX 670 = plenty of power and more! Wonderful little PSU.

Planet3Dnow.de's review (in googlish)

CA_Steve wrote:Planet3Dnow.de's review (in googlish)

That's the one I linked above

I'm very glad that my unit has nothing of the chirping noise they report. My PC Power and Cooling Silencer MKII has a chirpy fan (2 of them did), but not this PSU!

ShadeOfBlue wrote:Connected my new G-360 and it's on! It's completely silent on my desk, very close to me. I have my other case fans very undervolted, and I cannot hear the PSU over them, even when I had my ear right next to it. Very happy right now It's powering an i7 3770 (undevolted and slightly overclocked) and a GTX 670 (ASUS TOP). I'll be doing some tests soon to see how adequate it is, but it appears to be doing just fine so far, which I am fairly sure it will continue to be.

Edit: no chirping sounds whatsoever! Just silence to a very slight whoosh of air at load (just ran Prime95 for a while).

Very nice to know

kuzzia wrote:

ShadeOfBlue wrote:Connected my new G-360 and it's on! It's completely silent on my desk, very close to me. I have my other case fans very undervolted, and I cannot hear the PSU over them, even when I had my ear right next to it. Very happy right now It's powering an i7 3770 (undevolted and slightly overclocked) and a GTX 670 (ASUS TOP). I'll be doing some tests soon to see how adequate it is, but it appears to be doing just fine so far, which I am fairly sure it will continue to be.

Edit: no chirping sounds whatsoever! Just silence to a very slight whoosh of air at load (just ran Prime95 for a while).

Very nice to know

Ok, I had to double check, disconnecting other fans temporarily, and there is very very faint buzzing when my ear is about a foot away from the PSU, so I take it back - not completely silent at idle. But at 3 feet from the PSU, I can no longer hear it, which is why I thought it was silent before.

ShadeOfBlue wrote:That's the one I linked above

I really need to stop posting b4 the caffeine kicks in.

ShadeOfBlue wrote:Ok, I had to double check, disconnecting other fans temporarily, and there is very very faint buzzing when my ear is about a foot away from the PSU, so I take it back - not completely silent at idle. But at 3 feet from the PSU, I can no longer hear it, which is why I thought it was silent before.

Moral of the story: Don't wear your PC like a boombox and it'll appear to be silent.

Minor thread hijack -- http://www.silentpcreview.com/Seasonic_G360

+

GIVEAWAY: Seasonic USA is generously giving away G360 PSUs to two lucky SPCR forum members. There are only two requirements:

1. Be a SPCR forum member and provide your real location in your profile.
2. Post a relevant entry in this thread.

Seasonic USA will only ship to North American addresses. (Not my rule, folks)

The winners will be randomly drawn and announced at 10am Pacific Time, Monday, 24 Sept 2012.

How comparable are these efficiency values to the older power supply reviews. I just bought a fanless Seasonic X series PSU and I'm kicking myself =) At least mine does not exhibit a lot of coil whine which is great.

Anyway these look great and I might pick one up for my server. It's great to see Seasonic releasing these lower wattage, highly efficient and silent power supplies.

fyleow wrote:How comparable are these efficiency values to the older power supply reviews. I just bought a fanless Seasonic X series PSU and I'm kicking myself =) At least mine does not exhibit a lot of coil whine which is great.

Anyway these look great and I might pick one up for my server. It's great to see Seasonic releasing these lower wattage, highly efficient and silent power supplies.

Efficiency results are close. My guess is that newer X series (ie, later runs) are better than earlier ones -- there's always some improvements in any production line as managers tweak for best results, lowest rejects. In any case, the X series Start at 400W, have more high quality parts, and are probably more fault tolerant. Their fans also don't ramp up at all to a much higher temperature/load -- though this is much less important now that cases have better design for PSU cooling.

MikeC wrote:Minor thread hijack -- http://www.silentpcreview.com/Seasonic_G360

+

GIVEAWAY: Seasonic USA is generously giving away G360 PSUs to two lucky SPCR forum members. There are only two requirements:

Ohhh new review!!! Wow, the efficiency!! I'm honestly so impressed with this power supply. I don't think I was this excited about a PSU in a while, considering all the recent low-power technology, which makes high performance possible at very low watts.

Also adding my entry for the contest! Love this little PSU and would replace an aging 80+ in my mother's computer!

looks like the pico+good brick combo is still efficiency king <40-50w, if i needed a regular power supply though this would be it.

Nice looking PSU - 360W is still overkill for my PCs. I'd love to see a 200W PSU with efficiency numbers pushed up to 90% at lower power outputs, especially in the 30-50W range where most PCs spend their time idling these days.

I bought my first Seasonic because they were reputed to be quiet and good quality. I've kept buying Seasonics more because they've always stayed reliable over a good long life than anything else.

Pumped about modularity hitting more of the lower-wattage parts as well. That's something I've always missed on with my builds.

MikeC wrote:Minor thread hijack -- http://www.silentpcreview.com/Seasonic_G360

+

GIVEAWAY: Seasonic USA is generously giving away G360 PSUs to two lucky SPCR forum members. There are only two requirements:

1. Be a SPCR forum member and provide your real location in your profile.
2. Post a relevant entry in this thread.

Seasonic USA will only ship to North American addresses. (Not my rule, folks)

The winners will be randomly drawn and announced at 10am Pacific Time, Monday, 24 Sept 2012.

Sweet, I was just about to order another of these fro myself...guess ill wait a week.
I assume posts in this thread prior to your giveaway announcement count as an entry?

It would be interesting to be able to set different fan profiles for PSUs with fans. It's sort of built into the hybrid models, but what would be interesting is to let the PSU run hotter at lower loads in the interest of noise while remaining in tolerable conditions, and then if there is a spike which causes heat to build up, ramp up the fan more quickly and shut off in extreme cases.

I can't be sure if it's a cost or feature-set issue, but that's one reason I relegated my S12II-380 to a backup, because the fan sped up quite soon because of the way I designated the cooling of my case.

We do this with CPU and GPU coolers already.

This PSU looks really promising and delivers 80 plus gold certification at a really nice price point. Unfortunately, my newer desktop builds feature smaller cases the lengths of these cables seem too long. The G360W may still be ideal for replacing older power supplys for EATX desktop computers. Typically most of my computers don't exceed 360W even under full-load. I agree with fuzzy math with running the PSU at lower loads. This would simulate my computer idling in my hot room.

xan_user wrote:Sweet, I was just about to order another of these fro myself...guess ill wait a week.
I assume posts in this thread prior to your giveaway announcement count as an entry?

yes

MikeC wrote:Seasonic USA will only ship to North American addresses. (Not my rule, folks)

That seems to fit, because it's Seasonic USA.

But regarding that spcr is an international plattform, this marketing feature backfires imho.

So i've rarely found a company before (except Microsoft or Apple) that's trying to do a promo event and at the same time kicking all international buyers in the butt.

Well done, Seasonic USA.

fuzzymath10 wrote:It would be interesting to be able to set different fan profiles for PSUs with fans. It's sort of built into the hybrid models, but what would be interesting is to let the PSU run hotter at lower loads in the interest of noise while remaining in tolerable conditions, and then if there is a spike which causes heat to build up, ramp up the fan more quickly and shut off in extreme cases.

I can't be sure if it's a cost or feature-set issue, but that's one reason I relegated my S12II-380 to a backup, because the fan sped up quite soon because of the way I designated the cooling of my case.

We do this with CPU and GPU coolers already.

The main problem with this usage model is that unlike CPUs and GPUs, a PSU subject to long term overheating is almost assured to break down. I'm guessing capacitors are among the key components which suffer heat deterioration over time. I used to run early Seasonics with Panaflo 80L fans at 5V... and eventually most of them failed for one reason or another. Granted, it took years, and I ran those PSUs 24/7 mostly, in very low airflow cases, and those PSUs did not have super Japanese caps or better than ~75% max efficiency. Anyway, I can't see any PSU maker allowing such user control over their fan behavior -- there'd be so much user error they could not afford to provide any kind of warranty.

This is very different from CPUs and GPUs, which have internal throttling and fail-safe kill switches to stop them from overheating damage. I've yet to see a single heatspreader CPU get damaged by heat in all of SPCR's years of reviewing and abusing them.

Going back to the fan behavior -- it's easy enough to customize, tho you'd lose the warranty. That's what fan modding of PSUs was all about -- back in the day when none were quite quiet enough. Given a reasonable sounding fan like the one in the G360, if you wanted to delay fan ramp up to a higher temperature, all you'd have to do is open up the unit, play with a variable resistor inline with the fan to set the minimum safe start resistance, then replace the pot with a 1-2W resistor of that resistance. Put a switch in line to switch the resistor in/out of the circuit during hot weather or high load stretches (like if you're video encoding or playing demanding games for hours).

One the other hand, it would be way simpler (and safer) to spend a few $$ more for a Seasonic X-560 or similar, which would give you better heat/noise headroom.

This is totally a perfect psu for any budget build I do for people. Can't beat getting a high efficiency seasonic device for $60 or less. I'm definitely gonna be interested in seeing the pricing for the G450 as a modular device is popular as well.

Thanks for the review, Mike!

I like the smaller dimensions of the PSU. Lately all of my Seasonic purchases have been pretty long. Still overkill for all of my systems!

Now, there's the AURUM GOLD 400 from FSP, the Magna Platinum 400 from Sparkle Power, the Golden Green 80 PLUS Gold 350P14XE from Super Flower

This calls for a roundup! Any offers of PSUs for test from these suppliers?

Just one small typo at the top of page 2, 'ADD' should be 'ADDA'.

It does make me wonder: The X400 is fairly similar to their 750W models but is redesigned and downrated for passive use. Would a modified G360 with different heatsinks, no fan, a different case design and tighter shutdown parameters be marketable as a 150-200W passive unit for a similar price?

How precise does our location have to be?

Is there any other fine print?

There is only one graphics card power connector, which is appropriate for the G360's power rating.

Is it? I'd expect at least two PEG connectors. Just one doesn't make a lot of sense.

Olaf van der Spek wrote:Is it? I'd expect at least two PEG connectors. Just one doesn't make a lot of sense.

The X-400 only comes with a single 6-pin connector as well. You don't really see more in this power bracket, even if we do know that they can supply that level of power. Part of the issue is that graphics card makers are actually overspeccing the connectors that they put on cards, some have 2x6-pin connectors yet barely exceed the power supply specs of the PCI-E slot. They also state over the top power supply requirements like 550W minimum, hence inflating the PSU expectations of the market higher. Most graphics cards do include a 2xmolex - 6-pin PCI-E adaptor anyway so it is not impossible to use such a card without resorting to modificatiosn to cables.

Scan are now offering the G-360 in the UK for £48:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/360w-sea ... et-fan-psu