Which PSU to get, I'm going NUTS!

[ljmeijer]

Argh, ok so the guys that told me they'd sell me a nexus3000 turn out not being able to anyway.

I live in the Netherlands, and everything from the recommended list I cannot seem to find.

I'm also worried about getting a 300watt one. I read trough the sticky of all people who were able to run a zillion things on it, but I'm thinking of getting a 2.8ghz p4, and a radeon9800. The 2.8ghz has a warning label on it in the store, that says that you should run it on a 350watt power supply.

1) Is this nonsense? or should I get a 350/400 watt one, especially considering I want this power supply to stay with me for at least one more computer upgrade.

2) What options do I have for 350watt ones, that I can actually buy over here? I cannot find any seasonic, no fortrons, I did find a nexus3500, but I've found mixed sentiments about it in the forums here, and the nexus4000 didn't get a real good review.

PSU's that are available are:
- wide range of enermax.
- Thermaltake's
- Antec's
- Zalman
- Be Quiet
- Chieftec
- Klax/Levicom
- Huntkey
- Prosilence Fanless
- Qtex
- Sweex

Any suggestions would be very much appriciated, I've been trying to pick one for days now.

Thanks, Lucas

[davidstone28]

I haven't tried many of the cases on your list but of the ones I've tried I don't think the Antec PSUs are that quiet (380W single fan Sonata PSU is okay but not particularly quiet). I thought that the Aopen 300W that came with my Aopen tower case was much quieter at idle (although it ramps up to loud levels if hot air gets into the PSU from the case).

[JVM]

I've gone through just about all the recommended PSU units lested and it seems like virtually all have someone saying something negative about each one. I just read about someone describing the fan sound of a Super Silencer 400 as some sort of cricket sound. I think one can go nuts trying to pick a PSU after reading all the comments.

Maybe it's just a matter of quality control?

[dukla2000]

Is this nonsense?

Yes and no. A 2.8 P4 on its own is circa 70W. Based on VCore regulation inefficiency lets say the load on the psu is circa 90W. If you have a good psu (that can really run at its sustained 300 or 350W rating) then it is hard to conceive what you do with the remaining 210W, let alone 260W.

However, there are very many psu out there with say a 350W label, but either can only really run at 200W and/or struggle to reliably provide upwards of 100W on the +12V rail (used for VCore regulation). To try protect the masses from these problems advice to get the biggest is common. But misguided. To get farcical: the people who recommend against 300W, why not insist on 600W?

The real headline spec you are recommended to insist on if you are paying more than cheapo is (because it is a P4 regulating VCore from +12V) a minimum of "18A maximum continuous available on the +12V rail". This is in line with most recent Intel ATX power spec. This is met by a 300W Seasonic, it is NOT met by a 480W Thermaltake!

Also I know KoolnQuiet (and probably other UK suppliers) will ship to the Netherlands.

Huntkey & Sweex have the potential to be 'cheapos' (hardly well known brands!) - if their price is 1/3 of the Zalman you could always take the risk it can cope and hack it about with a quieter fan etc.

You also should be able to get AOpen - their Euro HQ are in NL. All the ones with FSP in the model number here are badge engineered Fortron/FSP. So the 120mm fanned Fortron are an option for you

[ljmeijer]

Thanks for all the info guys.

Dukla, So as long as I watch out for the PSU having a steady 18A on the +12v line, the fact that the label on the thing says 300watt shouldn't worry me? Do others agree? Other than a 2.8ghz pentium4, a pretty demanding radeon9800 and 2 raid drives, I'm not going to have anything else fancy in the machine to power.

If this is the case, it looks like the seasonic 300 would be a real nice one to go for, as it's one that I can actually get my hands on, since the koolnquiet guys are indeed willing to ship it to the netherlands.

Thanks, Lucas

[douglas]

You might be right about the 18A on the 12v, but I would make sure you know that is the case. I have heard that the 9800 card pulls quite a bit of power, combined with a 2.8GHz cpu, I would worry with a 300W supply. I had problems on a system with a 2GHz cpu, and a Geforce 4 MX at 4x agp, which draws much less power. I went to a seasonic 400w supply which is quieter than the panaflo 12v on the cpu, which means it not completely silent, but pretty quiet, and no problems. The power supply I had was a 300w antek, so maybe the 300w season would be more stable, but I would worry.

[JVM]

You might be right about the 18A on the 12v, but I would make sure you know that is the case. I have heard that the 9800 card pulls quite a bit of power, combined with a 2.8GHz cpu, I would worry with a 300W supply. I had problems on a system with a 2GHz cpu, and a Geforce 4 MX at 4x agp, which draws much less power. I went to a seasonic 400w supply which is quieter than the panaflo 12v on the cpu, which means it not completely silent, but pretty quiet, and no problems. The power supply I had was a 300w antek, so maybe the 300w season would be more stable, but I would worry.

Is that a comparison between a Super Silencer 400 and Panaflo running at 12 volts?

[douglas]

Thats a comparison between a Seasonic 400w Super Tornado, and a 12v Panaflo on a SLK800A ThermalRight heat sink. So there is a little extra "wooshing" noise from that air going through the heat sink. Oh, also under normal load, I haven't tested much with high load and the case open.

[JVM]

Thats a comparison between a Seasonic 400w Super Tornado, and a 12v Panaflo on a SLK800A ThermalRight heat sink. So there is a little extra "wooshing" noise from that air going through the heat sink. Oh, also under normal load, I haven't tested much with high load and the case open.

When you say 12 volt Panaflo, are you running it at 12 volts or are you undervolting?

[douglas]

I feel like being a little glib here, but yes that is what I trying to say. It is a 80mm L1 Panaflo at 12v, not the M or H Panaflo. But yes the cpu fan is at 12v, so it is not really silent, although fairly quiet. The Super Torado might be silent, but I can't tell because of the 12v fan. It is silent when I stop the fan, but this was done with the case open, and no load, and no heat in the case, so that doesn't tell me much. When the computer is under load I can't tell if the PSU is adding any noise above the cpu fan at 12v.

That's what I mean...

[dukla2000]

Dukla, So as long as I watch out for the PSU having a steady 18A on the +12v line, the fact that the label on the thing says 300watt shouldn't worry me?

Yup - as long as the brand is also recognisable (Fortron, Seasonic etc. Zalman, Nexus, Silenx, AOpen are all Fortron engines, or used to be!) The assumption behind this is there is less and less in the (P4 based) PC that uses the other rails (+3.3, +5 etc) so their specs are fairly academic - you may use say 20W on all the other rails combined.

18A is overkill for today's single CPU systems. Yes the latest GPU are high power: my oldie is maybe 10W, the new ones are maybe 60W. 18A on 12V is 216W. 90 for the CPU, 60 for the GPU, 20 for an optical, 10 for a hdd, 1 for a fan and you still have room for expansion. And realistically they are not all using peak power simultaneously etc etc. (And my '70W' Athlon is actually only pulling about 45W when Folding - it is fairly hard to get a CPU running at its max power rating.)

Equally, very few psu's have 18A on 12V: Seasonic do, most of the Fortron are loaded on the +5V and only 15/16A on +12V, and they do just fine. So if you get 18A on the +12V you already have one of today's biggest (usable) psus.

Now if you are overclocking things escalate quickly, but again I come back to the fact there are very few psu available (beyond Seasonic) with 18A or more on +12V.

My real gripe about focusing on the headline psu rating (300W, 500W etc) is that is a next to useless number - it is like saying my vehicle has a 400 liter fuel tank. In a car that is overkill, in a passenger jet it is pitiful. You need different info to judge the usefullness.

[snutten]

Ijmeijer, I´d recommend the Super Silencer. Nobody (?) complaining about buzzing electronics, seemingly good quality, running cool with excellent efficiency, and a working temp system. Only problem is the less than optimal fan, which fortunately is the only thing that´s easy to replace.

[douglas]

Just to add a little more data to this discussion. I dug out the power supply I had problems with, on a 1.9Ghz cpu and a Geforce 4 MX card, and two hard drives. The system was just unstable with long time use, and this was a 300W power supply. Now looking at the details it states it has a limit of 15A at 12V, and the fine print actualy states it has a limit of 276W constant use. This was an Antek supply which came with a case, I should have read the small print.
Given that the cpu, video, and hard drive pull from 12V, and this is really a limit or 180W there, not 300W, I was on the edge of problems.

It worked well with a 1GHz cpu and a Geforce 2 MX card. But now I have a 400W Seasonic Tornado, and no complaints, stable as a rock.

[ljmeijer]

Thanks for digging up that old PSU douglas, I'm reassured now , I'm getting the seasonic super tornado 300 from koolnquiet.

Thanks, Lucas

[the_bfg]

seems like you've already decided, but had a point on power usage I wanted to share anyway

I run a P4 2.66, Radeon 9700 Pro, optical drive, and two HDDs in a Shuttle...with a 200w PSU.

No problems. Ever. (except for the noise of the bloody thing! )

Now I dont know the specs on the 200W PSU, but I doubt its 100% efficient Either way it proves that some of the "reccommended" PSU ratings are a little exaggerated...