Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W PSU

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

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Vogias
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 am
Location: Athens, Greece

Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W PSU

Post by Vogias » Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:58 am

Hello everyone! This is my first post to your awesome forum here. I really fell in love with the silence concept since I wasn't aware of the variables that I need to be in control of in order to keep a PC silent. I only wish I was smarter a few months earlier when I bought my motherboard but... what's done is done.
I am now looking at buying a PSU since I'm feeling my tagan is going to feel a bit overaged anytime now. The thing is that I've read tons of topics here and I can't make up my mind. I'm hearing many people have buzz sounds from their seasonic and they recommend a kingwin or a super flower... but none of these two are available in Greece unfortunately. I then got a look at enermax platimax 500. It was reviewed here (if I recall correctly it was the 600 that got reviewed here but I suppose that if it's in the same series with less watts, it can't be worse) so I felt a bit safe about it but it gave me the feeling that its fan will fail long before the PSU.

My system is:

Lian Li PC-101
Asus Sabertooth z77
Intel i7 3770K
ATI 6570
2GB x4 RAM
Western Digital 7200rpm 500GB x2 (I will get the green ones anytime now ;) )

I don't really care about the price of the PSU. All I want is a great efficiency, long lasting, quiet PSU.

Thanks in advance and a great thank you for the abundance of information you people provide!

CA_Steve
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Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:15 am

Welcome to SPCR.

Your stressed load power (Prime95 + Furmark) is in the 170-190W range depending on whether you have the DDR3 or GDDR5 version of the HD 6570. So, unless you plan to get a high wattage GPU, you could easily move down to a lower power PSU. Your actual load will probably range up to 125W.

The Seasonic electronic buzzing issue seems to be hit or miss. It could be related to the other components in the PC, it could be due to AC line quality. There isn't a definative answer. Lots of people have no problem. I have an x-560 and it's silent. If you were to go with Seasonic and want a fanned version, there is the G series 360 or 450. You only need the power of the former, but the latter has semi-modular cables. Or, there's the x-560. You can set the fan so it'll be off for loads less than ~20%.

Be Quiet!might be available in Greece. The Dark Power Pro 10 series only goes down to 550W, but the Straight Power P9 series goes down to 400W.

You could go the Enermax Platimax route...it looks like there is a 500W version...but that's a lot of $'s for what you need.

Vogias
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 am
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by Vogias » Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:02 am

Thank you for your really quick reply!

Be quiet! is available in Greece indeed. I looked at Straight Power 480 CM which is modular, which is of some importance to me (something I failed to mention earlier). I was also interested in the seasonic G series but just didn't get enough opinions for those.

From opinions around the forum I got the feeling that a seasonic PSU can't be a wrong choice and to be honest, I was quite intrigued by it.
I could get my hands on either the seasonic G450 or the bequiet! straight power 480W. Have you any experience or heard any good (or bad) words for any of these products? I'm leaning towards seasonic to be honest but still want to be sure.

Vogias
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 am
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by Vogias » Sat Jan 26, 2013 5:11 am

Ok, so I've got to update this with new info on my side!

First off, seasonic is really hard to get my hands on here and whenever I found one, it was overpriced.
Then I'm beginning to have thoughts on how big my PSU should be cause I'm going to upgrade my system (overhaul it, to be more exact).

So my new system will include:

Fractal Design Define R4
Asus Sabertooth Z77 (same as before)
Intel i7 3770K (will overclock it)
4*2GB RAM (same as before too)
6*140mm PWM fans (not sure I'll use all of them but I'll have to try first to achieve my perfect balance of cooling and quietness)
Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E (I'll remove the stock fans and install 3*TY-147 just for symmetry and looks)
4 HDDs (2 normal and 2 greens)
Nvidia GTX 660 ti
and I could maybe install a couple of liquid neon lights just for the fun of it (not quite sure about that but it's a possibility nevertheless)
I'd like to have some room for a future upgrade too.

I was looking at a list yesterday that had info on PSU makers, designers and rebrand companies and XFX caught my eye since its PSUs are made by seasonic. (they are not modular in the range I'm looking at but Define R4 seems to deal easily with cable management).

So, any thoughts on the new info?

CA_Steve
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Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:44 am

Some XFX PSUs are made by Seasonic. It might speed this process up by listing what PSU brands you can get.

Do you plan to overclock with overvolting or without overvolting?

Probably a tad overkill on the fan count.

kuzzia
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Location: Denmark

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by kuzzia » Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:29 am

I know Nexus makes very quiet PSU's (just look at the recommended liste of PSU's here at SPCR). They can be bought at quietpc.com (based in UK. Shipping costs are quite reasonable). Look at the Nexus NX5000 (530 W) or the Nexus Value 430 W which have both been reviewed here at SPCR. Though a bit outdated, they are very quiet. And though they are not modular, having some extra cables at the bottom of the case is easy to live with.

Vogias
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 am
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by Vogias » Sat Jan 26, 2013 10:16 am

I'll overclock with overvolt (which I think is the right way to do it, but I'll have to research it further)

I know 6 fans are too much but even if I won't fit them all (which will probably be the case) I'll end up having 2 or more spares to replace a possible failed fan in the future.

Well it's quite a long list but I'll try not to include the bad ones (according to info I gathered from around the net, can't be absolute though)

Antec, Be Quiet!, Chieftec, Coolermaster, Corsair, Enermax, FSP/Fortron, OCZ, Sharkoon, XFX, Xilence.

There are tons more but they are either too cheap to convince me they're working or confirmed bad ones. For instance, I can get my hands on Thermaltake but I won't trust them, I've heard too many complaints about it's noise.

Kuzzia, first off, thanks for the info! I'm trying to keep the cost low so I'm avoiding shipping costs for just one product. I would, though, buy it if it was best from all others available to me, so I'll keep that in mind.

CA_Steve
Moderator
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Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Jan 26, 2013 2:26 pm

Of those listed, Be Quiet! has the best track record for quiet/performance. Given your build, and that you may overvolt, go for the 550W Dark Power Pro 10. For the GPU, here's a list of potential 660 Ti's.

Vogias
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 am
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Looking for an active cooled silent and efficient 500W P

Post by Vogias » Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:11 am

Ok... you guys are my good luck charm I guess... Seasonic PSUs just got available to one of the shops in Greece (pretty near to my home too)!!!
They have the S12II (430 and 620W) and the G (450, 550 and 650W) series!!!! They offer others too but they are too big for my needs! I'll go with the G 550 probably (unless I'm pointed to another better option by you guys)!

Thank you all for the info and the advice! I really love this community, really helpful and polite!

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