Silverstone Element 500 - new silent/efficiency king?

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

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burebista
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Silverstone Element 500 - new silent/efficiency king?

Post by burebista » Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:25 pm

Until we have here on SPCR a review, i found one. Just a few quotes:
The SilverStone Element 500W is one of the few power supplies we've seen where the two 12V rails are actually additive (18 + 18 = 36.) This power supply has a whopping 36A available on the combined 12V rails.
Not once could I hear the power supply fan inside the chassis.
The Good....

* 80%+ efficiency
* Active PFC
* Solid rails with only a .1V drop over a 12A load on the 12V rail and less than 50mV of ripple!
* SLI/Crossfire ready with two PCI-e connectors and plenty of juice
* Plenty of connectors
* Great price
Cheaper than a S-12 500 (probably than a S-12e+ too), more efficient and it's seems that it's quiet too. A winner?
Of course they have a 400W model for normal peoples. :)

Kimpsu
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Post by Kimpsu » Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:25 pm

At least according to specs, Antec Neo HE 550W is capable of producing about 42A to its three 12V rails simultaneously, so that 36A is not that "whopping". Using only two rails it would be that 36A, since it is 18A each. Just as a side note.

To put it in another way, Antec Neo HE is capable of producing 504W to 12V rails alone, which is about the same as the silverstones total rated output.

DanW
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Post by DanW » Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:34 pm

Kimpsu wrote:At least according to specs, Antec Neo HE 550W is capable of producing about 42A to its three 12V rails simultaneously, so that 36A is not that "whopping". Using only two rails it would be that 36A, since it is 18A each. Just as a side note.

To put it in another way, Antec Neo HE is capable of producing 504W to 12V rails alone, which is about the same as the silverstones total rated output.
But then again, the Neo HE is rated a total 50w higher than the silverstone so that shouldn't be much of a surprise.

burebista
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Post by burebista » Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:58 pm

DanW wrote:But then again, the Neo HE is rated a total 50w higher than the silverstone so that shouldn't be much of a surprise.
...and in my country Silverstone Element is $53 cheaper than NeoHE 550 and $42 cheaper than S-12 500... ;)

Devonavar
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Post by Devonavar » Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:57 am

A review is in the works, pending some questions about the sample we received. Efficiency and noise are pretty similar to the 80+ Enhance that we tested not long ago — no surprise since the innards come from Enhance.

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:09 am

It uses the same fan as the SilverStone Strider ST60F... which is the same fan used by the SilverStone Strider ST56F reviewed by SPCR.

And it was NOT quiet (it's a high speed fan unlike Seasonic's).
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article294-page4.html

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Post by Sthrioll » Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:36 am

rpsgc wrote:It uses the same fan as the SilverStone Strider ST60F... which is the same fan used by the SilverStone Strider ST56F reviewed by SPCR.

And it was NOT quiet (it's a high speed fan unlike Seasonic's).
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article294-page4.html
It's high speed depending on how much voltage you give it. It really is going to depend on how well the fan controller is built.
Kimpsu wrote:Antec Neo HE is capable of producing 504W to 12V rails alone, which is about the same as the silverstones total rated output.
As DanW points out: The NeoHE is a 550W while the Silverstone is 500W. The Antec costs almost twice as much. That's like pointing out that the Corsair HX620W puts out 50A on it's 12V rails and not recognizing that it's a 620W PSU. ;)

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:36 am

Sthrioll wrote:It's high speed depending on how much voltage you give it. It really is going to depend on how well the fan controller is built.
Err... No. It's high speed because it's high speed. HS (2200rpm max).
Image

Seasonic's fan is medium speed MB (2050rpm max).
Image

Sthrioll
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Post by Sthrioll » Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:20 am

"Err..." 2200RPM Max... as in Maximum. What makes you think it's always... or even ever... spinning at 2200RPM?

rpsgc
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Post by rpsgc » Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:47 am

Sthrioll wrote:"Err..." 2200RPM Max... as in Maximum. What makes you think it's always... or even ever... spinning at 2200RPM?
...

1. Ever read a PSU review? Apparently not because if you did so you'd know this.
Image
So yes it is going to spin at 2200RPM!

2. Did I say it would be always at 2200RPM? No, then don't put words in my mouth. I specifically said "max" as in "it would go that fast". And since no (generally speaking) fan starts at less than 5V (4~5V) a high-speed fan would start faster hence louder! YES! And in this case, that would mean 24dB right from the start.

3. It's a high-speed fan! If they wanted it to be quiet they would have chosen a medium-speed fan like the one on the Seasonic.

Jeez... One person tries to bring some facts (that some people would find useful) into the discussion and is treated like a liar..

Sthrioll
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Post by Sthrioll » Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:13 am

LOL! You're funny. I'm actually picturing you with veins buldging from your temples. :twisted: Or eyes buldging like the coffee drinking guy from the old MadTV episodes. :shock:

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but you can't deny that you made the implication that the fan could not possibly be quiet because it's the same fan as in the ST56F. Did I misunderstand that?

Of course the fan can potentially be given a full 12V and spin at full RPM if the temps get up that high. And if it does, then it will be loud. But the Element 500 is a much more efficient power supply than the ST56F and shouldn't get as hot. If it doesn't get as hot, the fan controller isn't going to spin the fan up as fast as early as it did in the ST56F. So we can't make the assumption that the ST50EF is going to be as loud as the ST56F even at the same load just because the two have the same fan.

Of course, this is all speculation until SPCR gets the review done. ;)

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:25 am

The two fans only have 150rpm difference in top speed, and presumably that difference persists throughout its working range. This is not a big difference.

Like Sthrioll said, until it hits the SPCR testbench we won't know anything about its true performance (acoustically). So let's reserve judgment until that time. There's no point arguing over it until then, and most issues should be covered in the article anyway.

mantralord
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Post by mantralord » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:26 am

Since very few people will ever reach 400W, I doubt the fan will run at full speed. However, I doubt even more than it will run quietly.

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Post by qviri » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:28 am

Sthrioll wrote:But the Element 500 is a much more efficient power supply than the ST56F and shouldn't get as hot. If it doesn't get as hot, the fan controller isn't going to spin the fan up as fast as early as it did in the ST56F.
Hmm, so it will stay at 4.7 volts for a longer time, emitting only 24 dBA. Sure "sounds" like a new champ to me.

Of course they could lower the controller voltage... Oh wait, this is a high speed fan and probably won't start at 3 volts it would have to get to reach 20 dBA.

burebista
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Post by burebista » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:42 am

Oh, I feel that I've opened Pandora's Box. :)
I guess that "king" wasn't a good choice, maybe "contender" is more appropriate.
I'm pretty sure that after SPCR review Element will fall behind Seasonic or NeoHE, but I want to point at a PSU which is efficient, silent and cheaper than well-known S-12, and maybe someone which is not a hardcore silencer is willing to trade 2-3 dBA in full-load for saving a good amount of money.

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Post by merlin » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:58 am

qviri wrote:
Sthrioll wrote:But the Element 500 is a much more efficient power supply than the ST56F and shouldn't get as hot. If it doesn't get as hot, the fan controller isn't going to spin the fan up as fast as early as it did in the ST56F.
Hmm, so it will stay at 4.7 volts for a longer time, emitting only 24 dBA. Sure "sounds" like a new champ to me.

Of course they could lower the controller voltage... Oh wait, this is a high speed fan and probably won't start at 3 volts it would have to get to reach 20 dBA.
I'm not sure why champ comes into play here. 24 dBA certainly doesn't compare to the 20-21 dBA that the NeoHE, Seasonic Models and a few others achieve. It's certainly a very good psu and an option for many, but definitely no "champ". Not to mention there's a number of new models out there with very high efficiency and possibly lower noise.

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Post by qviri » Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:18 am

I thought my sarcasm was pretty obvious.

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:18 pm

Now what is that saying about sarcasm being the lowest form of wit...?


24dB(A) is still very quiet for normal people who aren't absolute silence freaks.

qviri
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Post by qviri » Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:36 pm

I'll shut up now.

merlin
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Post by merlin » Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:09 pm

qviri wrote:I thought my sarcasm was pretty obvious.
Serves me right for reading too quickly and not noticing :D

burebista
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Post by burebista » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:05 pm

jaganath wrote:24dB(A) is still very quiet for normal people who aren't absolute silence freaks.
That was my point.

Now, not a scientific approach, just a slice of real life usage.
Yesterday three peoples bought this PSU (yep, I'm persuasive :)) and all three told me their first impressions: cold and silent.
Cold - a good thing, means high efficiency, low RPM, quiet.
Silent - heh, nothing scientific, dBA numbers or so, only three pairs of ears. :) For now it's enough for me.
One of them told me that with this PSU CPU temperature rose with ~3°C over old Delta PSU, so it's seems that PSU fan is spinning at low RPM's.
It's seems that jonnyguru was right:
Not once could I hear the power supply fan inside the chassis. That's good, but do be mindful that the power supply may not be exhausting all that much heat from the inside of the chassis. Notice the intake temperatures are higher than the exhaust temperatures. It's not as if the power supply is chilling the air. It's just not sucking that much of the air up into it. So the hot air must escape the case by other means.
Now I'm waiting for a SPCR review...

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Post by SST Guy » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:15 pm

Hi guys, for Element series power supplies, we use two different model fans:


ST50EF - AD1212HS 0.44A

ST40EF - AD1212MS 0.34A

winguy
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Post by winguy » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:16 pm

SPCR reviews of ST50EF-Plus and ST40EF would be nice. :)

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Post by dhanson865 » Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:37 am

rpsgc wrote:
Sthrioll wrote:"Err..." 2200RPM Max... as in Maximum. What makes you think it's always... or even ever... spinning at 2200RPM?
...

3. It's a high-speed fan! If they wanted it to be quiet they would have chosen a medium-speed fan like the one on the Seasonic.
You made some quality points. I just wanted to point out that in the SPCR review of the ST50EF-Plus the fan voltage never hit 12 and it stayed consistantly lower than the chart you posted. In fact I just checked over 10 SPCR reviews and couldn't find another power supply that hit 12v. Most topped out at 10.x or 11.x volts on the fan control.

It's notable that comparing to the Seasonic supplies the fan controller in the S12 maxes at 11.0v in the 330w, 430w, and 500/600w reviews.

Code: Select all

Silverstone Strider 560W
Ambient conditions during testing were 21°C and 19dBA, 119~121V/60Hz.
Watts  42    66    90   150   200   249   300    401    499
Fan V 4.7   4.7   4.8   5.6   7.3   9.2  12.0   12.0   12.0
SPL    24    24    24    24    28    36    40     44     44

Silverstone Element Plus ST50EF-Plus
Ambient conditions during testing were 20°C and 18 dBA, with 121VAC/60Hz input.
Watts  41    67    89   148   202   249   302    399    500
Fan V 4.5   4.5   4.5   4.5   4.5   4.9   6.8   10.3   11.6
SPL    23    23    23    23    23    25    34     41     43

Seasonic S12-500 / 600
Ambient conditions during testing were 21°C and 18 dBA, with 120VAC/60 Hz input.
Watts  xx    65    90   150   200   250   300    400    500
Fan V  xx   3.8   3.8   4.2   5.4   6.5   7.8   10.1   11.0
SPL    xx    21    21    22    25    28    34     39     40

Seasonic S12-550E+
Ambient conditions during testing were 22°C and 17 dBA.
Watts  41    64    91   150   198   250   299    400    500
Fan V 3.8   3.8   3.8   3.8   3.8   3.9   5.6    9.9   11.3
SPL    20    20    20    20    20    21    25     38     40

Seasonic S12-650E+
Ambient conditions during testing were 22°C and 17 dBA.
Watts  41    64    91   150   198   250   299    400    500
Fan V 3.8   3.8   3.8   3.8   3.8   4.1   5.3    9.1   10.9
SPL    20    20    20    20    20    21    25     36     43

kaange
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Post by kaange » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:39 am

I was wondering about the acoustic effect of placing a diode in series with the fan (to give a small constant voltage drop).

A 1N5819 Schotky diode would give about a 0.35V drop (assuming that the fan never draws more than 1W). Using 4 in series/parallel would ensure a consistent 0.7V drop and would give almost the same voltage curve as the S12-650E+.

Has anyone tried this form of undervolting with PSU fans? I'm tempted to try with my ST-50EF+ (which I think is very quiet apart from coil whine when the PC is off and is about 60% of the price of a S12 500E+ down here) but if anyone has already tried this, I'd love to know.

Greg

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Post by hulubei » Sat Dec 23, 2006 3:27 pm

Some over here know my disappointments about this PSU in terms of noise. I got today my PSU and tested it next to another new one. Both had that whine sound with no load un 5v and both fans where spining as fast (or at last my eyes seen that) and the same amount of fan sound. I got back home and told my that i'm a silent freak. Then, I got my multimetter and tested the voltaje on the fan with no load un the PSU again. There was 5.6v and not 4.5v to the high speed ADDA fan (2200RPM and ~85CFM at 12v based on the datasheets). That was a lot more compared to the numbers that SPCR got in the review.
Now I can't imagine that the other PSU i've tested had another bad fan-controller. Nor it has an old one because it was even other revision of the PSU (the fan grill is a bit different and some wires inside of it were routed differently). I don't want to tell that is something wrong in the SPCR review either but there is something strange over here!
SST Guy, can you tell us what is the starting voltage for the fan? And how to lose the whine noise? The fan controller monitors the temperature, load or both?

To note some other thing, probably almost half of the noise it makes is by the buzzling or whine or whatever is called. I'll try to get some more load un 5v line to see what it happens.

If the S12-430 is as silent as STEF+, then I must to admit that NeoHE430 is the quietest active cooled PSU ever made in large serie. To be more specific, i own a NeoHE430 and it's damn quiet PSU but it has an ugly drawback, I RMAed 2 time in almoest a month and a half and you don't want to know the stories!

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Sat Dec 23, 2006 3:57 pm

If the S12-430 is as silent as STEF+, then I must to admit that NeoHE430 is the quietest active cooled PSU ever made in large serie.
The SPCR reviews clearly show that the S12-430 is quieter than the NeoHE at all loads.

winguy
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Post by winguy » Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:10 pm

jaganath wrote:The SPCR reviews clearly show that the S12-430 is quieter than the NeoHE at all loads.
Not quite at all loads, actually.
And if you look at the S12-330 sleeved version, it scores 21 dBA at low loads, suggesting the same for S12-430 sleeved version.

I reckon the NeoHE sounds smooth at low loads too. My sleeved S12-430 certainly doesn't.

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:25 am

And if you look at the S12-330 sleeved version, it scores 21 dBA at low loads, suggesting the same for S12-430 sleeved version.
The 430 has bigger heatsinks, so it doesn't follow that it will be noisier just because the 330 is.

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Post by winguy » Sun Dec 24, 2006 12:39 pm

jaganath wrote:The 430 has bigger heatsinks, so it doesn't follow that it will be noisier just because the 330 is.
I was actually referring to the minimum noise before the fan ramps up. :)

Unless there's reason for Seasonic to implement a lower minimum voltage for S12-430 's fan controller?

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