First - fantastic site which is why I've been lurking here g=for years.

Having just put together a system order based on the list here, I think the power-supply data is getting a lttle dated. The pico' series seems to be the "last word" in silence, but I've never seen any useful data on durability/reliability for that PS.

The (2006 review) Seasonic 300 seems like the only conventional PS choice for those of use not interested in a 400/500/600/800W behemoth.

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One other aside - when performaning a board review how about mentioning the ability of the LAN to handle jumbo backets and also the max MTU. This feature is very important for max LAN performance and the recent crop of Intel media mobos don't support jumbo packets at all !!! Some of the other parts support only 7k packets.

stevea --

The question of durability/reliability cannot be answered by any review site w/o vast resources. You need to test hundreds of the things in field conditions to get any real idea. The best you or me or anyone can really do is keep atuned to good forums (like SPCR's) where people report findings, but also be aware that many companies employ incognito marketing scammers to diss others' products and promote their own. Start a poll here asking picoPSU users about durability/reliability.

As for <400W PSUs, there's a very simple phenomenon going on: Retail AXT12V PSUs generally start at 400W and go up from there. The odd brand might have 350W models but they don't distribute them widely. Only among elcheapo no name brands will you find <400W models, and even there, it's hard because those guys just relabel their 300W models to 500W.

OEMs PSUs (made for Dell, HP etc) are where you will find advanced (ie high efficiency, even 80 Plus Gold) sub-400W models. But how available are these? Mostly just on eBay. Noise? Mostly not that quiet... but perhaps it'd be worth chasing some of these down. Perhaps some interested forum members could buy some and donate samples for us to review.

Then there are SFX and other small form factor PSUs that are <300W. The main problem again is availability -- and noise and compatibility.

As for LAN support of jumbo packets, it seems likke one of a dozen details which different people might ask for... but I'll mention it to Larry who does most mobo reviews.

Sincere thanks for the reply Mike.



Fair enough, but how about seeking at least the manufacturers MTTF/MTBF. For example I see the edac power units for the PICO have a reported MTBF of 30,000 hours, which sets an upper bound.
http://www.edacpower.com/index.php?page ... t&Itemid=1

By comparison you report the NX-5000 has a 100k Hr MTBF at 25C.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article56-page1.html

It's an important factor to consider.

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It's important for GigE top performance, a simple feature to test once a system is powered up with OS, but it've very rarely reported for consumer MOBOs. If the RealTek 811* parts become any more ubiquitous the question will be pointless.


Regardless thanks for considering my suggestions.