Exotic PC's 14dBA PSU?

Does anyone here own one? Or has anyone seen one perform? Are they really that silent?

I was looking at getting a Nexus, but they only do 300W and I'm going to be running a lot of stuff. (And yes,.. I've already checked the "How much will a 300W PSU run?" thread. )

I just wanna know if the 350W is worth the 100 bucks it's gonna cost me.


WATYF

I'm in the same boat as you. That dB figure looks totally unbelievable to me, for obvious reasons. From the reading I've done it looks like the only currently available higher-wattage semi-quiet PSUs that have some reputation on this forum (although not everyone agrees on their relative merits) are the Seasonic 400 watt, the Antec Truepower series and the Ultra-QuietPC series... I'm going to post asking for comments from anyone whose has compariative experience with the latter two. The Seasonic is too weak on the +12v rail for my needs.

I have two Seasonic power supplies, and I believe that they meet most power requirements. The price is more reasonable than the exotic ones, but they look hella plain to me. The Antec 550W is a good power supply, but it's quite pricey for a power supply that lists its specified output wattage with a peak maximum rating instead of maximum sustainable power rating (the same may apply to the 14dBA 350 Watter on ExoticPC).

In terms of noise, the Nexus is the current "Lexus" of PSU, with an exponential fan control method and a very effective fan by Protechnic Electric (38 CFM, 0.24A and 29 dBA). The Seasonic lacks the latter and would do just as well, if not better, with a Protechnic upgrade.

On Tom's Hardware, I read a review, "Inadequate and Deceptive Product Labeling: Comparison of 21 Power Supplies," of the top PSU on the market. I beg to differ on some of the results, but check it out for the overall comparison. For an "exotic" $200 PSU, try Engelking. They have a modded Fortron with a part-time fanless operation (specs @ http://www.engelking.de/power/pdf/ap2-6300sfc-a.pdf).

Is the Engelking really a Fortron? If that's true I'm amazed!

You're right to be dubious abbt it. I am sure it is merely the "esitmated" fan noise in free air at whaever the default voltage is. Even a Panaflo at 5V, when inside a PSU, sounds nowhere close to the sub-10 dBA it is in free air. I would be surprised if it was much better than 20 dBA.

Among the 3 PSUs mentioned the Seasonic is the quietest, for sure. It is bettered only by the Q-tech, which I think is probably prone to overheating, and the Nexus, which you don't think has enough juice. The other makes are not in the same league for noise; The Ultra-QuietPC Silencer PSU by PC Power & Cooling actually has the very honest noise rating of 34 dBA. I think the TP may be better, but it is probably not better than 30 dBA.

All the above is at low to mid power of course. At 2/3 power or more, they all get pretty loud. They need to, with the fans going close to 12V, to stay cool.

I have never heard of this. Could you give some evidence?

I'll have to look into this some more and try to dig up some evidence.

It looks like the Exotic PC PSU is merely the same thing. If you read it carefully, it describes a Fortron FSP350-60BN, which is close to what Tom's reveiwed (the Fortron was a 300, the Verax was a 350 with a Verax fan). So this would be comparable to the Verax in that review, since it is just a normal ol' Fortron with a quiet fan and "better fan control circuitry," whatever they mean by that...

I think you're right about the observation.

I also noticed recently the remarkable resemblance between some of the exotic power supplies and the average ones. I'm no pro, but i've realized that the pcb is sometimes a giveaway to the manufacturer of the power supply. Like a Chevy Tahoe and a GMC Yukon, I see Sparkle/Fortron in Nexus and Engelking. Hmm.....maybe, I can somehow turn my Camry into a Lexus...dream on

the model numbers are often the same too. Like I belive that the verax power supply had nearly the exact model number as a standard sparkle/fortron 300w

There's some confusion going on here: The Verax psu certainly is a modified Fortron, but I don't think the Engelking is.

Sounds excellent! If I can't get my HEC-350 to shut up a little more, I'm gonna look into the Exotic PC! Thanks!

Hey digitalix, thanks for that informative post.

What is the airflow like from the silenx?

As I mentioned elsewhere, my air flow decreased and case temperature increased a fair bit when I installed the Nexus. It is nice and quiet though...

I can't imagine a PS/2 at 14dBA without some thermal issues. If it runs cool, and it's on sale, I think I'll get one.

I'm convinced now. I'll buy one next week; it's payday. The sad part for me is that the quieter my psu gets, the more I notice the whining, rattling and noise coming from everything else.

I ordered mine yesterday (I ordered the 350 watt, simply because it's got a socketed fuse which hopefully I'll never need to care about!).

I have three PCs in my 'office' at home, and the noisiest thing in the room is my Viewsonic 17" crt monitor. When it 'sleeps', the room goes silent. When it's 'on', there is a perceptible buzz. My other two monitors are LCD and don't have this buzz. I just bought a princeton lcd monitor, though, and at one particular 'brightness' setting, there is a high pitch whine. So yes, the quieter the computer gets, the more you notice everything else.

My newest project (the one I bought the SilenX for) is for a dedicted video processing system (with 2.4 GHz P4) - ripping DVDs, encoding video to MPEG2, etc. This kind of work REALLY stresses a CPU (for hours on end) and will be a great test of my silencing abilities!