New Seasonic Snow Silent PSU

[quest_for_silence]

Seasonic updates the Platinum Series, improving the overall quietness apparently with a new FDB fan and a wider fanless range of operation.

Seasonic news: http://www.seasonicusa.com/news33.htm

Marketing info (mostly fan curve, in german): http://www.computerbase.de/2014-11/1.05 ... zent-last/

[developer1]

Looks neat. I wonder if it will come in lower wattages

Their new S12II (350 and 430w) version also features an FDB fan. Looks that their are going to include it on every new psu, maybe?

Please don't hit me for bringing up the S12ii on a Platinium series PSU thread

[Abula]

I would have hoped more they look into their Coil Whining more than a different fan, personally i don't have any issues with their fans, but if its quieter.. then its a welcome change... i also was hopping more for a TITANIUM certified... but i guess we will have to wait more.

[edh]

i also was hopping more for a TITANIUM certified...

It doesn't surprise me too much that it isn't Titanium. At the moment the only Titanium PSUs are around 1500W. This still leaves the possibility for a higher power Snow Silent PSU to be Titanium rated however.

There clearly has been some small improvement in efficiency if the fan now only typically switches on at 50% load.

Maybe this is the start of a rollout of other PSUs in the same family. I would expect to see a few higher power models, maybe Titanium efficiency, a few slightly lower power models still fan cooled and then maybe some replacement passive PSUs underneath, possibly now going up to 600W given efficiency improvements.

As for the fan change to FDB, I doubt this in itself will make much difference when the fan is spinning slowly. If however the fan gets worn over time, it should stay quieter than previous models.

[chriszhxi]

Seasonic has a long tradition to make high pitched noise, I used to have a Corsair AX860 which is OEM by Seasonic has high pitched noise, and I just tried the Seasonic Platinum 1050 W, it has too.

[tim851]

There clearly has been some small improvement in efficiency if the fan now only typically switches on at 50% load.

Not necessarily. 50% of 1050w is 525w, which is the wattage of SeaSonic's highest power passive PSU. So in essence, you get that passive PSU with 525w additional fan-cooled watts on top of it.

[RIchardF]

As for the fan change to FDB, I doubt this in itself will make much difference when the fan is spinning slowly. If however the fan gets worn over time, it should stay quieter than previous models.

My understanding is that Seasonic has been using ball bearing fans which last longer than sleeve bearing fans but are louder when fresh than sleeve bearing fans are. FDB is a type of sleeve bearing as far as I know, one that works better when mounted horizontally than a regular sleeve bearing design.

Only so much can be done with a 120-140mm fan with low noise, though. Hopefully the size of the heatsinks has improved. I would like to see a new form factor, like a double length ATX, that uses two large fans at lower RPMs with larger heat sinks. The ATX power supply form factor wasn't designed for 1000 watts. I also wonder if a vapor chamber might improve the PSU noise-cooling ratio.