What is, in your opinion, the quietest PSU around with roughly ~1kW?
Anticipating your question, the PSU shall power the following:
* Currently: Xeon W3520 (== i7-920 with ECC), EVGA Classified X58 Board, Powercolor R9-290X LCS, Soundcard, 2 optical drives, 2 SSDs, Fancontroller with VFD-Display
* Future: Haswell-E 8-Core /w high clock speed, 1 or 2 R9-290X or equivalent, Soundcard, optical drives, 2 SSDs, Fancontroller with VFD-Display
The case currently in use is a Silverstone Temjin TJ03 with a top-mounted PSU, with the fan inlet either facing up- or downwards.
The system is and will be fully watercooled (CPU, GPU, Chipset, VRMs), with pump and radiator residing in a separate room - there're still case fans, but obviously throttled to "as good as completely silent".
Taking into account that most PSUs tend to get noisy when they're heavily loaded, that multi-rail designs need some headroom to not run into the OCP on any rail and that current Platinum-designs can be pretty efficient even at ~100W, I want to aim for a unit with roughly 1000W, or 1kW and more.
Probably a 850W unit would suffice for my requirements, and if there are 850W-units that are considerably quieter than units with 1kW+, I'd be hard pressed to use such a small unit. The same goes for the opposite: if you know of a unit with 1,3kW or even more which is extremely silent, I'd happily even use such a PSU. The main focus is on silence under all circumstances, followed by being future proof. And: Overkill. I like overkill...
PSUs I've been looking at:
* Seasonic Platinum 1200 (SS-1200XP3)
I've had two of these; the first was outright "loud", a turbine-like noise; the replacement is much more quiet in this term but also produces a lot of fan/air noise. A lot more than it needed to be, given the load and efficiency. The hybrid mode doesn't last very long even on the windows desktop; every few minutes the fan will spin for a few minutes, which is more annoying to me than a constantly present noise.
As the X- and Platinum-series are so highly praised for their build quality and quietness I'd wonder if the smaller units are considerably less noisy. All of them are claimed to be 16dBA-silent up to ~50% load; I don't know how Seasonic do their measurements, but this unit is lots of above this advertised level, in my opinion.
Summing up: way too loud; the "ancient" Silverstone DA800 I had before was much more quiet. With the latter you could slightly hear the fan bearings, but the fan speed and the amount of air moved was at a minimum. The PSU however did reach ~47°C at the top (fan facing down) under load, which is - in my opinion - not too much for a high-quality PSU; nevertheless, it has shown it's first signs of instability with the new GPU (290X: PC resetting).
In any case, the Seasonic was a complete disappointment; a much higher efficiency than the old Silverstone I've owned, but with much higher noise, too.
* be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W+
These units are allegedly made by Seasonic and are based on their X-Series (which is 80plus Gold). Would "be quiet!" offer units that were based on the current Platinum-line from Seasonic, I would have already ordered one.
Reviews on the net are contradictory whether this PSU is really silent or not; word has it that the units tend to get really noisy when heavily loaded or at higher ambient temperatures. I'd also like to know whether there are considerable differences between the 850W, 1000W and 1200W units, regarding noise behaviour.
* Enermax Platimax
When asked for silent PSUs, you often get "Platimax" as an answer; these are obviously in the same class as the Dark Power Pro 10. Sadly, as with the DPP10, one does not know whether the higher wattage models are equally quiet than the smaller ones. As Enermax is sticking strictly to their multi-rail-design, the headroom with this model should be calculated a bit higher than with the be quiet, which could be switched to single-rail-mode in case of OCP-problems.
* Antec High Current Pro Platinum
Again, there are a lot of contradictory reviews on the net; some suggesting this PSU to be wonderfully silent even under high loads and high ambient temperatures, others stating it to be "not too loud". There seem to be pretty strong differences between the different wattage models, too; with some higher wattage ones to be rated quieter than smaller ones, if one is allowed to compare reviews from different sites...
* Corsair AX1200i/AX1500i
Some reviews state this PSU to be utterly silent, whereas a lot of users report a "clicking" sound coming from the unit "testing" the fan. Don't know what to believe or whether I should consider these units or not...
* EVGA Supernova, different models
The latest models from EVGA seem to get praised for their electrical and build quality; however, little is known about their fan- and noise behaviour...
I can cope with some fan and air noise when loading a PSU (i.e. gaming), up to a level of e.g. the Seasonic Platinum 1200. But at the Windows Desktop it should certainly not be louder than my old Silverstone DA800. If it stays that silent when gaming: all the better.
Furthermore, I don't like a hybrid mode. First of all, it's not favourable for the lifetime of the PSU; secondly, it's annoying if it's constantly switching it's fan on and off, even in longer intervals.
Based on this dissertation
above: what would you recommend to me?Thanks a lot in advance for your suggestions!
Michael
