Pico PSU and power brick round-up

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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quest_for_silence
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Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:39 pm


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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:47 pm

Nice find...unless the Googlish version mistranslated, or maybe I didn't "get it", isn't the conclusion that all of the tested units are crap?..erm...not so great?..no added value? The only upside I saw was saving a watt or two at 25W load. The downsides were numerous (thin wiring, bad ripple, no or poor PF correction, ..)

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Feb 28, 2015 2:44 pm

CA_Steve wrote:isn't the conclusion that all of the tested units are crap?..erm...not so great?

They clearly stated that kind of PSUs most of the times performed rather poor with reference to ATX design guide and standards (as pointed out also by an old round up on JonnyGuru.com of some years ago).
On the other hand we could ask whether or how much those docs and standards really matter, but that's another whole story.

I guess the main problem lies here, being a small niche there's a lack of standardization, to say there are virtually no complete/exhaustive datasheets (or even a worlwide accepted certification process like the infamous Ecova Plug 80Plus programme) about power bricks and DC converter, so it's extremely difficult for a consumer (like me) to be well informed in order to pick the greatest or just the right products, at least with the same confidence we might have in the ATX PSU market.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Stevo_ » Fri Mar 27, 2015 7:15 am

Not much of a roundup, the Johnnyguru one is more representative than that one but even that is wildly out of date. Between picoPSU, pico-box, and HD-Plex for DC-DC converters there's a multitude of quality choices. For bricks, too numerous to mention really but mainstream PSU makers supply many, FSP, EDAC, Delta, Dell(OEM).

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Fri Mar 27, 2015 2:49 pm

Stevo_ wrote:Not much of a roundup

Bla-bla-bla... sorry, couldn't resist. :wink:

Yes, we know, you're sort of a Pico advocate: nonetheless those are information, your ones just a bunch of forum opinions.

Don't get me wrong, please: if you have some comprehensive figures, as the ones found by that german reviewer, we all will be glad to learn, because the real shame is that very few bricks come with reliable datasheets, and that most of bricks are really crappy. That's probably the main value of that review, to show some products which have to be avoided.

In the end, is that crap enough to run somehow some systems? Yes, but for many enthusiast that's not enough (perhaps as well as for that german reviewer).

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Stevo_ » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:48 am

quest_for_silence wrote: In the end, is that crap enough to run somehow some systems? Yes, but for many enthusiast that's not enough (perhaps as well as for that german reviewer).
Apparently that crap is enough. I laugh at the Silverstone's supposedly quality SFX PSUs that get good ratings, but if you go on [H] forum you'd think they plugged in a vacuum cleaner, three separate threads on those PSUs. The funniest part is some guys have bought the 450, then 450v2, then 600, and now 500 SFX-L and still the same crappy fan and whining issues, Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind. I'll just keep on enjoying my trouble free, absolutely silent, crappy pico PSUs.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Vicotnik » Sat Mar 28, 2015 11:00 am

Stevo_ wrote:I'll just keep on enjoying my trouble free, absolutely silent, crappy pico PSUs.
+1

Until they bite me I will keep trusting them. I've used numerous picoPSUs in a lot of systems over the years. With a good brick most of the time but also with bricks I've found in the dumpster.

But I'm just interested in good efficiency in the 10-15W range really. If something better than picoPSU+good brick comes along I'd be tempted to switch.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by washu » Sat Mar 28, 2015 5:25 pm

I won't claim that my results are scientific, but in the limited tests I have done Pico-PSUs and other DC-DC based power supplies are not more efficient than decent regular power supplies. I have a couple of real Pico-PSUs (an 80 and 150) plus a couple of generic DC-DC boards that came with cases. Even with very low wattage PCs (Atom D510, Celeron 1007U) they never beat out a regular 430W Bronze PSU by more than 1 W, at least according to my power meter. The real Picos also never beat the generic DC-DC boards I have. I use them when size is important, but not for efficiency. The PCs that I really care about for efficiency have good gold or platinum PSUs.

As for reliability, I've never had a Pico fail but I have had crappy regular PSUs fail. However, I've only had a handful of Picos but I've delt with hundreds of regular PSUs.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Mar 28, 2015 9:06 pm

Stevo_ wrote:I'll just keep on enjoying my trouble free, absolutely silent, crappy pico PSUs.

That's a paralogism: whether you need a 450W (or more) PSU, what are you doing with a Pico-like PSU? On the other hand, whether the on average about max 150W Pico were enough juice for a given task, what are you doing with a 450W or more PSU?

That's cannot be the decisive point: the decisive points are just either the dimensional squeezing (where the Pico-like PSU are though to beat!), when needed, or a sub 20W efficiency, when it really matters.
Performance-wise those diminutive PSUs are just from crappy (several ones) to average (the best ones): but I guess that's not what they're designed for.

Eventually, about the supposed "high ratings" of Silverstone 450W and more SFX PSUs, for the record what SPCR found out is that they're just below average, noise-wise (for the typical "SPCR" expectations). If other people on [H] or elsewhere want to think differently, well, to me it's a "somebody else's problem".

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Stevo_ » Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:51 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:
Stevo_ wrote:I'll just keep on enjoying my trouble free, absolutely silent, crappy pico PSUs.

That's a paralogism: whether you need a 450W (or more) PSU, what are you doing with a Pico-like PSU? On the other hand, whether the on average about max 150W Pico were enough juice for a given task, what are you doing with a 450W or more PSU?

That's cannot be the decisive point: the decisive points are just either the dimensional squeezing (where the Pico-like PSU are though to beat!), when needed, or a sub 20W efficiency, when it really matters.
Performance-wise those diminutive PSUs are just from crappy (several ones) to average (the best ones): but I guess that's not what they're designed for.

Eventually, about the supposed "high ratings" of Silverstone 450W and more SFX PSUs, for the record what SPCR found out is that they're just below average, noise-wise (for the typical "SPCR" expectations). If other people on [H] or elsewhere want to think differently, well, to me it's a "somebody else's problem".

Well, that's your paralogism not mine, not even close to my use case at all. Really don't care about the efficiency other than space, one AC-DC powers several computers allowing small boxes or laptops.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by xan_user » Sun Mar 29, 2015 3:37 pm

I have used picos for many years. I dont care at all about the power efficiency/
I use them because they take up zero space, they are completely silent and they keep a lot of the PSU heat outside of the case. those features make them perfect for small, silent computers.
PLUS, they have units that run off variable and dirty power, making them ideal for carpooters and solar powered applications.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:10 pm

Stevo_ wrote:Well, that's your paralogism not mine, not even close to my use case at all.

No, you just misunderstood my comment, probably due to my not so clear original quote.
Rephrasing that quote you said: "I laugh at the Silverstone's supposedly quality SFX PSUs that get good ratings, but if you go on [H] forum... some guys have bought the 450, then 450v2, then 600, and now 500 SFX-L and still the same crappy fan and whining issues... I'll just keep on enjoying my trouble free, absolutely silent, crappy pico PSUs".
Summarizing, whether you need a 450W (or more) PSU, Pico is not an option, while where Pico is an actual option, they should have not look at those below average (as recorded by SPCR test), noise-wise, SFX units: so if a Pico matches your usage case, that's good and not any paralogism, the paralogism is to think that a Pico can match the usage pattern of a 450W PSU, in case.

Stevo_ wrote:Really don't care about the efficiency other than space

And maybe you misunderstood again, without the unwanted help of any too concise quote, because as a matter of fact I wrote: "...the decisive points are just either the dimensional squeezing (where the Pico-like PSU are though to beat!), when needed..."

xan_user wrote:they keep a lot of the PSU heat outside of the case
But a really decent PSU doesn't dump such a lot of heat inside a case, at about any expected Pico-like power output.
Last edited by quest_for_silence on Mon Mar 30, 2015 1:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Silencer56 » Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:36 pm

xan_user wrote:I have used picos for many years. I dont care at all about the power efficiency/
I use them because they take up zero space, they are completely silent and they keep a lot of the PSU heat outside of the case. those features make them perfect for small, silent computers.
Image

My Seasonic runs at 93% efficiency with 50% load, that is around 16W of heat loss. Assuming an i5 with 84W TDP and a power efficient Nvidia GPU at 150W TDP, these additional 16W won't pose a challenge. If you want to make a completely passive system, you don't need to build a PC because in that case you can just buy a decent laptop. My X240 Thinkpad is completely passive in Idle.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Vicotnik » Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:00 am

Silencer56 wrote:If you want to make a completely passive system, you don't need to build a PC because in that case you can just buy a decent laptop. My X240 Thinkpad is completely passive in Idle.
My Raspberry Pi is passive at full load. ;)
A laptop is great if you need mobility. But the cost is usually higher than a stationary system and you sacrifice modularity. Apples and oranges.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:15 am

Vicotnik wrote:My Raspberry Pi is passive at full load. ;)
My new HP 250 G3 too (and I guess it isn't so much less modular than the average Raspberry, though it actually costs much more than a Pi)! :wink:

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Silencer56 » Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:18 am

Vicotnik wrote:
Silencer56 wrote:If you want to make a completely passive system, you don't need to build a PC because in that case you can just buy a decent laptop. My X240 Thinkpad is completely passive in Idle.
My Raspberry Pi is passive at full load. ;)
A laptop is great if you need mobility. But the cost is usually higher than a stationary system and you sacrifice modularity. Apples and oranges.
Well there is a reason business laptops are used for years while gaming laptops are obsolete like half a year after they hit the market... modularity isn't needed because there is hardly any component you ever need to upgrade in a business PC except for storage, which is always possible.

If not a laptop, getting a NUC would be still much cheaper and more silent than any PC build for the same money. Desktop PCs are all about being able to fit GPUs and for gaming. Out of the silent enthusiasts, there are probably around 85% gamers annoyed by the noise of their rigs, 10% video editors and 5% with simply highly sensitive ears.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Vicotnik » Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:32 am

quest_for_silence wrote:My new HP 250 G3 too (and I guess it isn't so much less modular than the average Raspberry, though it actually costs much more than a Pi)! :wink:
It's not so expensive, less than a third of the cost of the X240 Thinkpad. And with the same screen resolution. :)
Silencer56 wrote:If not a laptop, getting a NUC would be still much cheaper and more silent than any PC build for the same money.
No, building your own system with small desktop stuff will be cheaper. But a little bit bulkier. Noise will be roughly the same for any system with no moving parts.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Stevo_ » Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:38 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Stevo_ wrote:Well, that's your paralogism not mine, not even close to my use case at all.

No, you just misunderstood my comment, probably due to my not so clear original quote.
Rephrasing that quote you said: "I laugh at the Silverstone's supposedly quality SFX PSUs that get good ratings, but if you go on [H] forum... some guys have bought the 450, then 450v2, then 600, and now 500 SFX-L and still the same crappy fan and whining issues... I'll just keep on enjoying my trouble free, absolutely silent, crappy pico PSUs".
Summarizing, whether you need a 450W (or more) PSU, Pico is not an option, while where Pico is an actual option, they should have not look at those below average (as recorded by SPCR test), noise-wise, SFX units: so if a Pico matches your usage case, that's good and not any paralogism, the paralogism is to think that a Pico can match the usage pattern of a 450W PSU, in case.
Actually this one is rated 550W peak, from Pico Box.
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 13627.html

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Mar 30, 2015 8:36 am

Stevo_ wrote:Actually this one is rated 550W peak, from Pico Box.

Would you like to point out also a suitable 550W AC/DC power brick?

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by Stevo_ » Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:47 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Stevo_ wrote:Actually this one is rated 550W peak, from Pico Box.

Would you like to point out also a suitable 550W AC/DC power brick?
It has 2 power connectors so that 2 bricks can be used. I think this has very limited usefulness with 2 bricks but with a 330W brick you could likely handle 400W peak loads fairly safely.

Edit: Dondan in his A4 thread on [H] had some numbers for the Dell 330W brick, won't shutdown until 440W. Also handles sustained loads greater than rating for various mixes of OC'd CPUs and GPUs.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1799326&page=5

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Mar 30, 2015 1:43 pm

Stevo_ wrote:It has 2 power connectors so that 2 bricks can be used. I think this has very limited usefulness with 2 bricks but with a 330W brick you could likely handle 400W peak loads fairly safely.
Really? A 330W brick for a 400W load? I don't get how a DC-DC converter can "create" power from such a brick: and above all how can it do silently, whether the Picobox states that "At max load, forced air ventilation is required" (36A from the 12V rails, 432W)?
Eventually, what about the dimensional advantage of the Pico-like PSUs? Any single Alienware brick (160 USD MSRP each, 120-130 USD street, plus those 90 USD for the DC-DC converter gives a total of 210-450 USD depending of source, location and set aside shipping charges) weights almost a kilogram and have 12 x 20cm footprint, having one or two of those box out of the PC enclosure sounds like sort of "externalization", rather than a real downsizing.
I think there should be a more practical way to obtain such a power, not to mention that power may require a 16 or 18AWG wires (pretty stiff to fit inside a shoebox and usually not easily seen on Pico converters), to be safe, but if you think that's the right way, it's your call (I'd like to see the ripple/noise rejection of those bricks pumping out 400W).
IMO Pico still can't match the usage pattern of a 450W (and more) ATX PSU.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by rawr » Sat Apr 11, 2015 7:29 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Stevo_ wrote:It has 2 power connectors so that 2 bricks can be used. I think this has very limited usefulness with 2 bricks but with a 330W brick you could likely handle 400W peak loads fairly safely.
Really? A 330W brick for a 400W load? I don't get how a DC-DC converter can "create" power from such a brick: and above all how can it do silently, whether the Picobox states that "At max load, forced air ventilation is required" (36A from the 12V rails, 432W)?
Eventually, what about the dimensional advantage of the Pico-like PSUs? Any single Alienware brick (160 USD MSRP each, 120-130 USD street, plus those 90 USD for the DC-DC converter gives a total of 210-450 USD depending of source, location and set aside shipping charges) weights almost a kilogram and have 12 x 20cm footprint, having one or two of those box out of the PC enclosure sounds like sort of "externalization", rather than a real downsizing.
I think there should be a more practical way to obtain such a power, not to mention that power may require a 16 or 18AWG wires (pretty stiff to fit inside a shoebox and usually not easily seen on Pico converters), to be safe, but if you think that's the right way, it's your call (I'd like to see the ripple/noise rejection of those bricks pumping out 400W).
IMO Pico still can't match the usage pattern of a 450W (and more) ATX PSU.
I don't know what your normal usage pattern for a 450W PSU would be, but I going to assume that most people would use, at most, an consumer i7 of some sort, and, let's say, a single GPU.

An HD-PLEX and Dell 330W adapter combo is more than enough for that. Stevo mentioned dondan previously; here are his tests with both a 780 and a 980. The 330W adapter can simply go over its rated specification. He's also been running an overclocked i5 and 670 off of the setup prior to this test for multiple years.

Sometimes there's no other choice than to go with a power board + brick if you are going really small. Dondan's A4 "Default version" is one example. An even more extreme example is this project. It's sub 3L, with a 970. Try and fit an SFX, or even an ATX PSU in that.

Finally, you talk about externalization like it's strictly a bad thing. Why? It simply moves volume out of the case that you see on your desk, and removes it to under your desk, where it's out of sight. It even removes heat from out of your case. And contrary to the whiny and annoying 80mm fan on the SFX PSUs, you can cool the power board however the hell you want; maybe you don't even have to cool it if your hardware is efficient enough.

Also how did you reach a figure of 450 dollars? Minimum should be $90 + $85.

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Re: Pico PSU and power brick round-up

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Apr 12, 2015 6:30 am

rawr wrote:I don't know what your normal usage pattern for a 450W PSU would be, but I going to assume that most people would use, at most, an consumer i7 of some sort, and, let's say, a single GPU.

Yes, it is a reasonable scenario.

rawr wrote:An HD-PLEX and Dell 330W adapter combo is more than enough for that.

In my opinion, no. First of all because performances matter: at the rated 330W ripple/noise suppression, transient load response and load regulation is likely way worse than with an high quality ATX PSU.
And as I said to Stevo_: "I think there should be a more practical way to obtain such a power... but if you think that's the right way, it's your call". I mean, it's Stevo_'s (or your) own trade off: you can't have a whisper quiet, really tiny and very high performance rig at the same time, it's always a matter of cutting/rounding corners.

rawr wrote:The 330W adapter can simply go over its rated specification.

Ok, maybe Dell under-rated the published specs of that brick: on the other hand, as Pico Box and dondan clearly wrote, at that power level forced ventilation is required at least for the power board (and with reference to that I don't think HD-Plex can make any radical exception).
I don't think that having forced ventilation on the board and likely buzzing bricks may be an overally better scenario, when quietness is paramount.

rawr wrote:Sometimes there's no other choice than to go with a power board + brick if you are going really small.

Indeed, but whether it is an interesting concept, it doesn't apply to silent computing, the way SPCR does: law of physics cannot be overcome.

rawr wrote:Try and fit an SFX, or even an ATX PSU in that.

No, currently it isn't possible, and it has never been my point: as a matter of fact I already wrote twice that: "...the decisive points are just either the dimensional squeezing (where the Pico-like PSU are though to beat!), when needed..." - maybe you missed that.

Even if with a similar footprint, I think it's not possible to go under the 10-15lt volume with contemporary standard hardware: but as said, what dondan made, although noteworthy, doesn't seem perfectly suitable for a SPCR-quiet rig (I mean, something like 14dB under load, as in the SPCR GTX 960 review).

rawr wrote:Finally, you talk about externalization like it's strictly a bad thing.

No, you're messing up/misunderstanding the things.
Just with reference to the "proposed" dual brick setup, we were (or I was, if you rather) talking about Stevo_'s requirement: "Really don't care about the efficiency other than space".
So I just noted that splitting the overall volume in three or more smaller ones (and so increasing even the overall footprint) isn't necessarily reducing space, having to deal with relatively huge external bricks and multiple cabling: that's rather plainly evident. Whether it's either good or bad, it's a matter of cutting corners.

rawr wrote:It simply moves volume out of the case that you see on your desk, and removes it to under your desk, where it's out of sight.

Put a mini tower under the desk or in a cabinet: you still save the same desk space, and it's probably as well as effective without messing with so many hassles (i.e. it's a different trade off).

rawr wrote:And contrary to the whiny and annoying 80mm fan on the SFX PSUs, you can cool the power board however the hell you want; maybe you don't even have to cool it if your hardware is efficient enough.

Set aside what I guess the very same dondan wrote ("I also noticed quite a bit of buzzing"), you still exploit a likely under performing PSU: with reference to that, I'd like to read a Paul Johnson review on HardOCP about such a solution, in order to thoroughfully clear all the relevant aspects (to be honest, I'm rather agnostic about, at the moment). And set aside placing the board elsewhere (another hassle), about not cooling it at all, that's just a nonsense: heat is the bane of any electronics.

rawr wrote:Also how did you reach a figure of 450 dollars?

With reference to the dual brick setup we were then talking, you just didn't noticed it was a mere typo, since all the addends were there: 2 x 130 + 1 x 90 = 350 and not 450 (with a ten-key-less keyboard the 4 is right nearby the 3, you know).

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