Long lasting PSU?

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

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electricwinger
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Long lasting PSU?

Post by electricwinger » Wed Aug 17, 2005 11:19 am

Hello

In the last year or so, I've ended up buying a couple of power supplies based upon them supposedly being quiet.
First of all a Thermaltake Silent[hah!]-purepower PSU that was only quiet when it was off. As a replacement I got a Tagan PSU that does actually seem to have quiet fans but unfortunately gives off other annoying and worrying ticking noises.

Of course, these purchases were made before I got around to discovering this site and realised the error of my ways!

Now I am fed up of constantly thinking 'I want a new power supply'. Therefore I want to get a PSU that is quiet when it says it is and will last me for a decent length of time.
Put simply, I need a quiet PSU with all the right connectors (SATA, PCIe etc.) that has a bit of oompf for future upgrades. Oh, and it also needs to have good reliability.

How, for example do the Enermax noisetaker 485W and the Seasonic S12 500W compare? Is the Seasonic quieter? Is it worth that much more cost?

Any pearls of wisdom would be appreciated!

NeilBlanchard
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Post by NeilBlanchard » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:58 pm

G'Day!

Have you checked the recommended section? The newer SeaSonics all have ball bearing fans -- the S12 380 or 430 are plenty "future proof".

badbadtz560
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Post by badbadtz560 » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:35 pm

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=24631

eighty something dollar s12 430 watt at buy.com. there's also an additional coupon, http://www.buy.com/retail/coupon.asp?pr ... adid=17662

i'm not sure if you can use it or not, but this all seems like a great deal to me w/ or w/o the xtra 5 bux off

hope this helps

Devonavar
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Post by Devonavar » Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:44 pm

Probably not ... he's in London.

Whether the Seasonic is worth the extra money depends how powerful your system is and how much the lower noise is worth to you. If you have a low powered system, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives that are just as quiet, but for a powerful system, there's really nothing like a Seasonic. The reason? The Seasonic ramps up very late, very slowly compared to other units. If you don't have a hot system, there are a number of power supplies that are quiet if you don't put too much heat through it. But, if you have a warm system, almost all power supplies ramp up and become audible. The Seasonic is the only exception...

electricwinger
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Post by electricwinger » Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:57 pm

I have considered the S12 430 but I understand that it does not have any PCI express connectors. I don't have PCI express at the moment but I will end up upgrading to it sometime soon. If I have a S12 430, won't using PCI express take up the regular molex power connectors? This would put a limit on what other components the psu could power. At the moment I have a couple of hard drives, a couple of DVD drives, a fan controller and a graphics card needing molex connectors.

The S12 500 and the Enermax noisetaker 485 both have PCIe connectors leaving plenty of molex connectors free. The S12 500 is louder than the 430, but how does it compare to the enermax?
The db readings for the S12 500 and the enermax 475 in the reviews give similar results at lower power draws. The enermax becomes the louder of the two the higher you go but I don't suppose I will need that much power for some time yet.

Another psu I haven't looked at too closely is the antec Phantom. My case is pretty well ventilated with 120mm fans front and back. I would, of course, be a little concerned about passive psu reliability. Have they managed to get this sorted out with the Phantom?

Devonavar
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Post by Devonavar » Sun Aug 21, 2005 1:04 pm

Do you actually need the PCIe connector? Keep in mind that even if you have a PCIe card, it can probably draw its power from the PCIe slot unless it's very high powered. If you're not going to buy at the high end of the VGA market, chances are you won't need the additional connector.

If you know the model of the card you want, why not find out ahead of time whether it needs the external connector?

If you *do* need it, then, yes, the adaptor will occupy two molex connectors.

I wouldn't use the Enermax 475 review for a comparison. That review is for an older version of the power supply, and isn't necessarily representative of the newer models. I haven't heard the newer model personally, so I can't say too much about it, although we did review the 600W model of the new revision.

As far as the Phantom goes, take a look at this thread about the Phantom. In a nutshell: The 350W models from an early production run seemed to have a few problems, but nobody seems to have seen a significant problem with the 500s yet.

cotdt
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Post by cotdt » Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:14 pm

The fanned PSU's are not maintenance-free because the sleeve-bearing fans get louder after some time, and eventually fail. I'm not really sure how long this process of the fan dying takes, but it happened to me twice. Fanless PSU's are maintence free as long as you keep the case cool. So fanless > fan.

nici
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Post by nici » Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:48 pm

i dont remember what the usual mtbf of a fan is, but lets say its 50000hours. 50 000 hours = 5.70397764 years

cotdt
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Post by cotdt » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:53 pm

nici wrote:i dont remember what the usual mtbf of a fan is, but lets say its 50000hours. 50 000 hours = 5.70397764 years
Yeah, but I remember it to be slightly shorter. However, the MTBF of a PSU is much higher. Theoretically a PSU should work almost forever.

hightower
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Post by hightower » Fri Sep 02, 2005 1:10 am

This is a no brainer, you are going to want the enermax unit. Otherwise, try a more 'unknown' brand such as Seasonic S12. Here's reviews of both: http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/200507111/index.html

Kwiet
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Post by Kwiet » Sun Sep 04, 2005 2:30 am

One thing to remember is the MTBF of fans is at 12 volts... if the power supply varies the voltage, the fan will last longer. My son's computer runs a 12V Sunon 92mm fan that has been running for 6 years without problems. Yes, it was transfered to a new box a few years back. The Antec TruPower 430W power supply has been running since March 2001 (4.5 years) without any fan problems which I attribute to the varied voltage.

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