I'm considering building a system with mini-ITX LGA 1155:

• i3 (maybe 65W i5 if I can find a good deal)
• Intel DH67CF
• 2.5" HDD
• SSD
• optical (maybe slim, but probably 5.25")

It looks like a 120W PicoPSU + power brick would be adequate, but I'm not sure if it would be the most power efficient solution. However, assuming the system spends a lot of its' life at idle or low power, the 300W-400X SFX and ATX PSU options may be far from ideal as the low power draw of the system may be less than 10% of the PSU maximum, and quite a bit outside of the 20% low range defined by 80 Plus certification.

Are there any other good options? mini-ITX cases that are supplied with PSUs are a possibility, but very low noise is important without sacrificing too much power efficiency.

There are several ITX cases which include a Pico style PSU: an external power brick an an internal DC/DC board.
Akasa Crypto, nice and small, has a grill over the CPU area. 80 watts should be okay for dual core One slim optical and one 2,5" HDD.
Lian Li Q09, nice aluminum case available in silver, black and red, has a grill over the CPU area. 80 watts should be okay for dual core One slim optical and one 2,5" HDD, 110 watts.
Silverstone LC-19 nice aluminum case available in silver and black, has a grill over the CPU area. 120 watts, one slim optical and one 2,5" HDD or 3,5" HDD. VERY slim, hard to find a fitting CPU cooler.
SilverStone Milo ML02similar to the LC19. includes VFD and remote. 120 watts, one slim optical and one 2,5" HDD or 3,5" HDD. VERY slim, hard to find a fitting CPU cooler.
Scythe Kozuti cooler SHOULD (no guarantees) fit those slim cases, quieter than stock, enough power for 65 watt CPU.

Also the ISK300-65 is another option. Antec has stated you can use 95w bricks with this as well if you need more power than the included external power supply.

Thanks, I looked at all of these and there are certainly some convenient options there. I really want to use a Lian Li PC-Q11 if I can figure out the best PSU option, but maybe I will give up and choose one of the easier alternatives.

I've been reading the jonnyGURU picoPSU round up and none of the picoPSUs sound tremendously impressive. I wondered if the problem is that the power bricks jonnyGURU tests are not that impressive, but the FSP120-AAB is Energystar 5 according to Fortron's spec page. Other Energystar 5 power bricks are available in 12V, 19V, 24V and the same price regardless of output voltage. That said they’re not exactly cheap. XP Power AEF look like a possible alternative to Fortron/FSP.

Lintx has a 12V 150W FSP power brick coming in. with a 12V 150w Pico PSU, that should be a great combination.
For a better price performance ratio this 90W FSP bundle caught my eye.

Those FSP plug in adapters appear to be available in 12V & 19V input, and 65W & 90W power rating. Useful if you want to use other power bricks. I like the fact that it's all SATA.

FSP065-5DC12(20)
FSP090-5DC12(20)
FSP065-5DC19(20)
FSP090-5DC19(20)

found the product codes here: http://jeffreysview.wordpress.com/2009/ ... solutions/


I'm struggling to find the Lintx 150W PSU, product code as they list it: FSP150-AHBN1 is not on the FSP website. FSP150-AXBN1 is on the website though, the H may just be one of this range though. Haven't worked out what the H means (voltage? power? plug type? region?) The price looks OK though, especially if it is 150W Energystar 5 compliant adapter.

Does your experience on sound level compared to stock from experience or is it just reasonable expectation. I would also expect that Kozuti would run quieter than the stock dual core Sandy Bridge heatsink... but it would be nice to know if this has been confirmed by someone's personal experience.

Here is a small FSP PSU with a plate that allows it to mount like an ATX PSU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817104075

It will give you more space and room for more PSU options.

Useful info, esp that jonnyGURU review, thanks

I didn't know the laptop 'standard' was 19V, and perhaps that is why Mini-ITX boards with built in power supply tend to be 19V, e.g. the Intel DH61AG.

As efficiency ranks high in my choice, I think I'll go this way in future

Im not completly sure its the same as JonnyGuru pico roundup, but brick isnt that expensive, FSP120-AAB Power Supply Charger AC Adapter 19v 6.3a $24.76, the expensive part is the PSU, pico-PSU-120WI-25V $55.

It's a good review for sure, but remember it is only one review. I'd like to see a repeat with some better AC-DC PSUs, especially on the 12V picoPSUs. I'm not sure why the 'wide input' picoPSU should be more efficient than the 12V version, in theory the 12V should be the best. Either the crappy EDAC bricks crippled the 12V picoPSU in the review, or for some reason the 12V picoPSU is a worse design than the WI edition.

it's a new concept, Intel's "Thin Mini-ITX" form factor that was shown at this years Computex. While it's convenient I'm not sure it's ideal for efficiency. There's an extra voltage stepdown which surely introduces additional losses:

110V or 230V -> 19V -> 12V + 5V + 3.3V

why not make it simpler for better efficiency and just convert directly:

110V or 230V -> 12V + 5V + 3.3V

It's been a long time since I studied physics and electronics so I could be wrong...


As my point above, I would like to see a higher quality, Energystar 5, power brick delivering 12V to the standard picoPSUs. According to the specs published by Mini-Box the picoPSU-160-XT ought to be the best if paired with a good AC-DC PSU.

I'm 99% sure it will be. Remember that FSP is a massive ODM/OEM/contract manufacturer supplying 1000s of products in 1000s of variations to most of the household name electronic brands. Fujitsu would be just one typical example.

My PICOPSU-80 which I bought two months ago, came with an Energystar 5 rated brick.

I have picoPSU-160XT (because of high MTBF rating) and a Seasonic SSA-0901-12 brick. This AC-DC brick is a 80W model with efficiency of >= 87% at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% load. Even at full power the brick is barely warn running at less than 45 degrees Celsius case power. It has no fan.



MTBF rating is 80000 hours at full load and it has Japanese capacitor. Mini-box usually supplies EDAC bricks with MTBF of just 30000 hours. My system is Athlon 250u, ASUS 760G motherboard, 8 GB ECC RAM, 2.5" Scorpio Blue and it idles at just 18W with this combo.

It is hard to find, I had it supplied through dealer on a special order from SeaSonic but it is worth it. There are also 102W, 60W, 50W and 40W models available.

Seasonic list a few adapters on their website: http://www.seasonic.com/product/adapter.jsp up to 120W for the SSA-1201-xx however the 12V version is listed as 102W, not sure if that's a typo, but it's the same on the pdf product flyer.

I assume these are for OEM supply, I can't see them for sale anywhere using google and the (European) product and price search engines. Maybe they are also available to special order?

SSA-1201-12 is probably limited to 102W because of large current. I don't think it is a typo.

I don't know if it is for OEMs only. Actually I emailed SeaSonic asking for availability and they sent me a datasheet and a contact to a local importer in my country. That's probably the way to get it. I had to wait for like one month though as it was the first production batch in October last year. Those 60W (SSA-0601D-12), 50W and 40W models are now available for just few weeks. Those are pretty new series.

my i3 LGA1155 mini-itx rig is powered by a PicoPSU 90 + a 72w 12v power brick. [ viewtopic.php?f=14&t=62743 ]
Seems to me a pretty efficient combination.
If you want even more efficiency, there is a new "green" picopsu:
http://cgi.ebay.com/PicoPSU-90-XLP-90W- ... 19c6ab52fb
I haven't tried it.