I am a little surprised that I can find no reference at all in reviews or the forums to the SilentMaxx water cooled 500W PSU. This seems to be the only production water cooled PSU that I can find on the market, based upon (from what I can see) the SilentMaxx fanless unit reviewed here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article312-page1.html
Does anyone have any experience with this PSU? Although my gut tells me that putting water in my power supply is just asking for trouble, I guess the same could be said about having water anywhere near my PC. This would be a nice solution for dealing with the loudest part of my rig.
I found it available for purchase here:
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl. ... 7&CATID=13
SilentMaxx has made much of their web site available in English however the product page for this PSU is still only in German.
Brian
SilentMaxx water cooled PSU
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee, Devonavar
Interesting....how have you silenced your hard drives? The best fanned PSUs (Seasonic/Corsair) usually are below the noise floor created by the hard drive(s). There are also some very good fanless PSUs (Silverstone ST30NF) without the necessity of going to watercooling.This would be a nice solution for dealing with the loudest part of my rig.
The hard drive is indeed a seperate challenge. I am just working on solving the PSU issue right now. I have water cooled CPU/GPU so I figured that extending that to the power supply was a logical solution. Before I do so, I am just looking for some feedback from anyone else who has done so. The fanless power supply that you mention is certainly an option for me if I decide not to do this.
Interesting.
Considering that it's pretty clearly based on their fanless model, the watercooling portion wouldn't have to be very effective at all for this to work. Basically the waterblock could be nothing but window dressing and it would still work just fine. (assuming they didn't muck up the internals too badly)
But it does bring up a question: Why not just use a fanless PSU? The fanless Silentmaxx or Zen is about half that price. Any system that you would have the CPU, GPU, and PSU all WC'd in would still have to have some ventilation for all the non-waterblocked heat producers...if thought out properly that airflow would be enough to keep a fanless PSU cool as well.
Considering that it's pretty clearly based on their fanless model, the watercooling portion wouldn't have to be very effective at all for this to work. Basically the waterblock could be nothing but window dressing and it would still work just fine. (assuming they didn't muck up the internals too badly)
But it does bring up a question: Why not just use a fanless PSU? The fanless Silentmaxx or Zen is about half that price. Any system that you would have the CPU, GPU, and PSU all WC'd in would still have to have some ventilation for all the non-waterblocked heat producers...if thought out properly that airflow would be enough to keep a fanless PSU cool as well.
Well, price aside (yes, it's a lot more to pay for water cooling), I still think that this would be a very good option for my system. There is no doubt that there are cooling concerns for fanless and this can only help. Further, I am using a Lian-Li case with the PSU at the bottom. In this case, there is a serperate air channel and fan just for the HD and PSU. If I could cool both of these things without air, I could disable that fan entirely, leaving just the single fan at the back of the case which pulls air over the MB.
Howdy guys,
I've not seen the silentmaxx psu in real life, but there are a few benefits from such designs.
I'm building a HTPC that I want completely silent, I live in the country side where it is that quite if you sit still you can hear the blood in your ears after 10-15 minutes. I have a Antec phantom 500, great design, but it still heats up, ~80% efficiency still produces a fair amount of heat, air flow is needed.
My office pc, that i'm typing this from, is water cooled and uses the phantom. System is *almost* silent, quiet enough not to be annoying. I can just hear hard disk seeks from my four 15k rpm scsi drives. The case is not sealed, hot summer days I take the side off.
Anyway, for my htpc I'm water cooling an Enhance 500w http://enhanceusa.com/series.php?series_id=4#115 psu so that my htpc case can be fully closed. Almost finished it, got blocks/pipes made and 3/4ers soldered together. Got one output inductor cooling bracket bent up, one more to make and its done. Design inspired by blade runners work at www.zfz.com
Water cooled, radiator and pump are under the house in the basement. I have a common radiator for all my water cooled pc's. Radiator comes from commercial air conditioning system, its actually an air conditioning evaporator, 5 foot long, 1/2" copper pipe galvanized fins. Water stays at air temp all the time. Separate pump just for radiator. 60 liter bucket for pumps, pump for each pc and pump for radiator. System is open, was too hard closed. Means pumps have to be BIG, 6 meter elevation from pump bucket to office pc, plus 15 meter run each way with 1" poly pipe. Using redline water wetter additive, been no problems for over a year.
So htpc, water cooled cpu, gpu, psu, hdd, north bridge, and run a small radiator inside the case with slow fans to keep the temp down in the case. Remember, its a sealed case. Case is not built yet, but planning something heavy.
I've not seen the silentmaxx psu in real life, but there are a few benefits from such designs.
I'm building a HTPC that I want completely silent, I live in the country side where it is that quite if you sit still you can hear the blood in your ears after 10-15 minutes. I have a Antec phantom 500, great design, but it still heats up, ~80% efficiency still produces a fair amount of heat, air flow is needed.
My office pc, that i'm typing this from, is water cooled and uses the phantom. System is *almost* silent, quiet enough not to be annoying. I can just hear hard disk seeks from my four 15k rpm scsi drives. The case is not sealed, hot summer days I take the side off.
Anyway, for my htpc I'm water cooling an Enhance 500w http://enhanceusa.com/series.php?series_id=4#115 psu so that my htpc case can be fully closed. Almost finished it, got blocks/pipes made and 3/4ers soldered together. Got one output inductor cooling bracket bent up, one more to make and its done. Design inspired by blade runners work at www.zfz.com
Water cooled, radiator and pump are under the house in the basement. I have a common radiator for all my water cooled pc's. Radiator comes from commercial air conditioning system, its actually an air conditioning evaporator, 5 foot long, 1/2" copper pipe galvanized fins. Water stays at air temp all the time. Separate pump just for radiator. 60 liter bucket for pumps, pump for each pc and pump for radiator. System is open, was too hard closed. Means pumps have to be BIG, 6 meter elevation from pump bucket to office pc, plus 15 meter run each way with 1" poly pipe. Using redline water wetter additive, been no problems for over a year.
So htpc, water cooled cpu, gpu, psu, hdd, north bridge, and run a small radiator inside the case with slow fans to keep the temp down in the case. Remember, its a sealed case. Case is not built yet, but planning something heavy.