So...my power supply has become the noisiest thing in my case (at idle). I am looking at the 460W Seasonic fanless supply.

I have an Antec P180. There is probably half an inch above the power supply to the divider between the bottom chamber of the case and the main chamber. There is a fan in front of the power supply blowing back over the supply. Is this enough cooling, or is the lack of space above the supply going to be an issue, even with the fan?

The CPU is a 95W AMD Phenom II, and graphics is an AMD 6850-based card.

At idle, the system draws about 85W from the wall.
Under load (gaming), the system draws around 180W typically, with spikes above 200W.

Given all of the above, is the 460W fanless supply an option, or should I look at a power supply with fan?

Thanks!

It should be possible.. Just take a look this system with a somewhat similar power consumption.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Puget_Com ... CR_Edition


It uses the Seasonic X560 that receives no airflow in the lower chamber. It is run completely fanless since the power draw doesn't reach the point where the fan starts to spin. If that thing can be run fanless in a quality built like the Serenity Mini, then the Seasonic x400 should be able to run in the lower chamber, especially since it has just a bit amount of airflow.

You'll be fine. You're probably looking at losing maybe 15W as power supply heat at the max power you'll be drawing and that doesn't take much to blow away.

You definitely don't need the 460W if you only barely break 200W so you can save a bit of money too. The 400W is more than enough and a number of reviewers tests have shown that the X series PSU's are substantially under stressed with much higher wattages having been given in test conditions.

Assuming your current PSU is not more than 85% efficient, your power demand is about 70~150W, low enough that even with any of the fan-cooled X-series models, the fan probably would never come on, especially with constant-on fan in the lower chamber. As you know, all the X-series PSUs have hybrid-passive/active cooling; the fan does not come on at all till around 150~200W DC load (depending on ambient temp).

An X460 would have no problem either, thermally or in power capacity.