Will the Phantom 500 be enough for my system in the P180?

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

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee, Devonavar

Post Reply
jayn
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:47 pm

Will the Phantom 500 be enough for my system in the P180?

Post by jayn » Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:08 pm

I am trying to build the most silent computer possible find that the Phantom 500 be the most viable solution. Below is my system spec for my next build:

AMD X2 4800+
Motherboard: Upcoming DFI Crossfire Motherboard
2GB OCZ Platinum Ram
2 X ROMs
1X 15.3K Seagate Cheetah SCSI
1X 10K Fujitsu SCSI

PCI Devices:
Creative X-FI Fatality
ATI TV Wonder Elite TV Tuner
SCSI controller card

Graphics card:
ATI X1800XT + X1800XT Crossfire in the future

Most of my components will be watercooled with an external radiator. I will only leave a Nexus 120mm fan in the P180 case undervolted to 6v.

Will the Phantom 500 be enough to handle the load? Also, i will be REMOVING the fan in the bottom chamber of the P180 as well to further reduce the noise since my HDs will be watercooled as well...

Rusty075
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 4000
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Contact:

Post by Rusty075 » Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:54 pm

The phantom 500 would be more than enough...


...the 350 would be plenty.

Mellman
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2005 8:12 am
Contact:

Post by Mellman » Sat Sep 17, 2005 6:11 am

i was sortof surprised when i saw you had a 10krpm scsi and a 15krpm...those are going to be the noise sources of your system, not the PSU.

mattek
Posts: 66
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 5:52 am
Location: Sweden

Post by mattek » Sat Sep 17, 2005 7:27 am

With those harddrives you could probably stick more fans in without it affecting the noise level of your system.

I might be a good idea to at least consider a Samsung Spinpoint harddrive for your system. If you are a websurfing/gaming kinda guy you wont gain much in speed from those drives. The silence/speed tradeoff in this case would definatly have me going for a quiter drive. But thats me. Reconsider at least the pros and cons of those drives.

/mattek

jayn
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:47 pm

Post by jayn » Sat Sep 17, 2005 8:56 am

i've got the HD noise in control by using this:
http://www.alphacool.de/xt/product_info ... th=5_18_22

thanks guys for your tips! i guess i'll be getting this PSU then

JonV
Posts: 107
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2005 8:05 pm

Post by JonV » Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:51 am

jayn wrote:i've got the HD noise in control by using this:
http://www.alphacool.de/xt/product_info ... th=5_18_22
Have you actually tried this with your drives? I've tried a few different HD enclosures, and none of them could silence even my relatively low-noise and low-vibration drives, much less a 15krpm SCSI.

mattek
Posts: 66
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 5:52 am
Location: Sweden

Post by mattek » Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:58 am

Nexus Drive-a-way, not watercooled but supposedly a very good enclosure. Check it out.

nici
Posts: 3011
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:49 am
Location: Suomi Finland Perkele

Post by nici » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:07 am

If you really want fast HDDs and lowish noise, i think WD Raptors in RAID configuration would be the way to go. Idle noise is no worse than the samsung spinpoint :)

Nexus drive-a-way, they claim it can cool drives up to 15k rpm but with more than enough airflow(over twice the amount i usually have) my raptor idled at 44-46c. without an enclosure sitting in the lower chamber of the P180 it idles 33-35c. I´ve tried a couple enclosures, but i dont believe an enclosure that both cools and silences a drives exists, unfortunately. The Nexus didnt even silence the dfrive that well, the hdd is quieter in the lower chamber of the case :shock: Check out my comments about the enclosure in the silent storage section, i think the thread was named something like is the nexus hdd enclosure dangerous for hhds?

The Drive-a-way might have worked a bit better with another hdd than the raptor because the raptor has a plastic top wich redices heat transfer, but still the sides of the hdd are the most hot spots and thats where the heat should be conducted away from the drive. But direct contact to a metal enclosure wich acts as a heatsink doesnt silence the drive. You would need to make it out of heavy copper and use at least two 5,25" bays per drive imo, and make shure there isno direct path for noise to escape the enclosure. even a small hole matters..

The enclosure you linked to would probably cool the drives pretty well, i cant say about noise though.. But my guess is that even with that enclosure your HDDs will be the loudest component.

btw does anyone on these forums have experience with those SCSI drives? Are they much louder than a raptor? The raptor proves a 10k drive can be relatively quiet, but how about these? For the price of one Cheetah you could get three Raptors with money to spare..
Last edited by nici on Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Bar81
Posts: 261
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 4:19 pm
Location: Dubai

Post by Bar81 » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:14 am

Idle noise is worse than the SP80 and the additional vibration from the 10k spindle means that it needs to be completely decoupled from any part of the case.

nici
Posts: 3011
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:49 am
Location: Suomi Finland Perkele

Post by nici » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:20 am

Bar81 wrote:Idle noise is worse than the SP80 and the additional vibration from the 10k spindle means that it needs to be completely decoupled from any part of the case.
Are you referring to the Raptor or the SCSI drives? The SPCR review of the Raptor says its idle noise is as quiet as the P80, and it doesnt have any motor or bearing noise. Thats exactly the same things i´ve noticed. And putting my hand on it just touching lightly, i cant feel any noticeale amount of vibration. The silicone grommets in the P180 are more than enough to stop any vibration from being transmitted to the case.

edit: answering the original question, the Phantom will be plenty for your system. You will have to use an adapter for the second graphics card though, since the PSU doesnt have two PCI-X connectors. No biggie imo.

jayn
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 8:47 pm

Post by jayn » Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:28 pm

all my SCSI drives uses Fluid Bearing motors and they are not that noisy at all. I have then installed in my lower P180 drive cage and vibration is virtually non-existent. The case shields the drive noise quiet well.

The enclosure I selected should further kill the drive noise.

I am not letting go of the SCSI. I've tried the raptor in Raid 0 and the CPU utilization is nowhere close to that of my 15K SCSI.

jermaink
Posts: 265
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 1:20 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by jermaink » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:28 am

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10854
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthr ... post225235

I've been told that the Phantom 500W PSU is not suitable for the latest DFI motherboards if you plan to use SLI, and the recommendation was hardly glowing even if you don't. I'm probably going to get a Seasonic 500W PSU (as in Australia we only have the choise between that one and the 430W one, which isn't powerful enough).

Curtis
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 4:07 am
Location: Australia

Post by Curtis » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:01 pm

I really don't understand DFI's PSU recommendations. I've seen from a number of people - and even from DFI themselves - minimum ratings of over 400 watts.

Everything on this site suggests even beefy systems aren't going to tax a quality 350W PSU overly much, so what is it about DFI boards that make people say you need a 480 watt PSU? I could understand it if they recommended an ATX V2.x unit as minmum, but the minimum wattage requirements makes no sense.

nici
Posts: 3011
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:49 am
Location: Suomi Finland Perkele

Post by nici » Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:24 am

If all people used high quality PSUs they wouldnt have to recommend such high wattage units, but the truth is many people are running crappy "500W" el-cheapo PSUs and thinks its all about the watts, probably unaware of basic eletronics and all that.. So i can understand DFIs recommendation for a 400W psu, in a way. If they wrote "300W high quality psu minimum", who would decide what a high quality unit is? People on these forums know the difference between chocolate and sheit, not everbody know. My DFI board works perfectly fine with the 350 phantom, probably could do with a lot less too.

jermaink
Posts: 265
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 1:20 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by jermaink » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:22 am

Even a Phantom 500W is not recommended by the people on DFI Street for people planning a SLI system with a DFI NF4 board.

Curtis
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 4:07 am
Location: Australia

Post by Curtis » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:53 am

nici wrote:If they wrote "300W high quality psu minimum", who would decide what a high quality unit is?
Well fair enough, but they do go to all the trouble of having a recommended PSUs thread - why not recommend a few quality 350s like the Phantom?

nici
Posts: 3011
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:49 am
Location: Suomi Finland Perkele

Post by nici » Wed Sep 21, 2005 5:28 am

Curtis wrote:
nici wrote:If they wrote "300W high quality psu minimum", who would decide what a high quality unit is?
Well fair enough, but they do go to all the trouble of having a recommended PSUs thread - why not recommend a few quality 350s like the Phantom?
No idea whatsoever.

Post Reply