News regarding the Antec Phantom 350w

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

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Xspringe
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News regarding the Antec Phantom 350w

Post by Xspringe » Wed Feb 18, 2004 9:47 am

I just received an E-mail from Antec Europe that the Phantom 350w psu will be available at the end of april, so I expect it to be in stores at the beginning of may.

Oh well, I'll just have to buy one of those Nexus PSU's then :)

Obergrenadier_Hoot_Gibson
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Post by Obergrenadier_Hoot_Gibson » Wed Feb 18, 2004 10:47 am

I can't wait. I was thinking of picking up that silentmaxx fanless psu but I think I'll wait. Right now I have the silenx 400 psu and to be frank..the noise level is just not cutting it. :roll:

Doomer
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Post by Doomer » Mon Mar 29, 2004 12:12 pm

I received reply to my inquiry from Antec. They say that there isn't official release date yet and the product is in "final revision phase".

Waiting is the hardest part...

zuperdee
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Post by zuperdee » Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:25 pm

In the meantime, why not check out Coolmax's fanless power supply?

RaNDoMMAI
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Post by RaNDoMMAI » Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:31 pm

zuperdee wrote:In the meantime, why not check out Coolmax's fanless power supply?
Can u really have a system with no fans in it at all? wouldnt things just overheat real fast?

~RaNDoM

zuperdee
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Post by zuperdee » Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:00 pm

RaNDoMMAI wrote:Can u really have a system with no fans in it at all? wouldnt things just overheat real fast?
Yes, things WOULD overheat really fast with no fans at all. If you are running a fanless PSU, you'd need to make doubly sure you have good case ventilation. That's why personally, I think fanless PSUs are a silly idea. For the average system of today, the PSU is probably tied with the video card for the 2nd biggest generator of heat. (Though this may change with Prescott and the next-generation NVidia NV40.)

IMHO, if you MUST have good case ventilation to exhaust the PSU heat plus all the other heat in the system anyway, then my view is that you might as well just have a fan in the PSU, and enjoy greater stability. So far, every fanless PSU I've heard of, like the Silentmaxx, has tended to bite the dust after only a year or so of use.

That being said, I'd say if you INSIST on a fanless PSU, the Antec Phantom and the Coolmax fanless will probably advance the state-of-the-art in this area a bit, and give you more choices.

sgtpokey
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Post by sgtpokey » Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:09 pm

Although, you CAN make a compelling case for this fanless psu if you pair it up with that new Zalman watercooling 'reserator'. That would draw the cpu heat outside of the case and into the big blue 'reserator' as detailed in the nordichardware review:

http://www.nordichardware.com/reviews/c ... an_passiv/

For the graphics card, a fanless ATI 9600 is cool-running, or a card equipped with a VGA Silencer would take care of it's own heat dissipation (the nordichardware review mentions that Zalman should be coming out with a waterblock for the video card as well so you could also go that route).

The last bit that would concern some folks are the hard drives. I've experimented with mounting those guys outside of the main case in my HTPC. I just stuck my data drive in an external SATA casing and it dropped the case temps of the micro-atx case by 3 degrees celsius. I wasn't happy with the noise of the hard drive in the external casing so I:
a) cut up the Highpoint racketmate 1000 casing and removed the electronics to use the eSATA cable with an ATA drive
b) Mounted the hard drive in a Zalman HD cooler to drop down HD Temps
c) Mounted the above contraption stealthed in a wooden box from Pottery Barn lined with dampening material, with the back cut up to provide some airflow
c) placed it into the TV cabinet along with other stealthed electronics (wireless router, etc)
e) the end result is a replaceable media harddrive at normal ATA speeds that runs reasonably cool and quiet.

Combine all these techniques and you get:
1) fanless psu
2) slow fan or no fan video card
3) cpu serviced by a fanless external watercooling tower
4) external hard drive(s) dumping there heat elsewhere

I may try this out... I'm already halfway there...

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