Quiet PSU recommendations?

[viper_larry]

Hi all,

Just spec'ing a new PC and having trouble deciding on a PSU. Want a whisper quiet fan but this £30 is a reasonable cost, although will spend whatever if the recommendation is high enough?

Also, what is the minimum wattage I should go for assuming a AMD64 3500+? Will need SATA connectors too.

Cheers

[docevi1]

£30 for power and silence doesn't go.

There are plenty of powerful units out there, but generally speaking they are fairly noisy, I bought a ThermalTake 480W Silent Xaser or something and with the variable rate fans, it's fairly silent.

Try www.quietpc.com as they have some truly silent PSU's rather than simply very quiet ones.

The main noise in your system will come from the CPU and GPU coolers remember, I picked up a CoolerMaster Hyper6 and after replacing the fan am desperatly pleased with the cooling results!

[robdickinson]

The A64 will be extreemly quiet on its own with the retail heatsink+fan and cool/quiet.


£30 is too little, £40-45 will be enough for a decent quite PSU, I have an enermax noisetaker 370 (plenty of power and connectors) but it isnt silent (but quiet), you can get fanless PSU's now.

CPU, PSU and Chassy fan are all motherboard/PSU controlled for speed/noise.

90% of my case noise now comes from my GF 6800 card - this will be replaced with a quieter cooler one day (unless I have to RMA it).

[docevi1]

I read reports that while the cooler was "quiet" it made a fair old racket should the need for extra cooling require it. The Hyper6 is huge and as such doesn't need that strong a fan - max temps I get to are ~ 45deg unless I turn the fans on

Still, if you don't want to spend your money straight away, the retail fan can always be replaced!

[pentoman]

I bought a silenX one.

Testing it out by running it on my desk (not connected to the computer) I thought that it wasn't working, even in the silent room.

Only when I was trying to make it work and someone pointed out the fan was turning and it was in fact on, did I realise how quiet it was.

Rather expensive though at around £65?


Before that I just modified my crappy PSU and put the fan to 7v (12-5). It was jolly quiet and ran for years like this without dying, but beware that if it a PSU does die, it could take the motherboard/hard disks with it, so this may not be advisable.

Russ

[sparkythecat]

I'm no computer builder, but I recently read an article in Micro Mart magazine about installing a water cooling system on your PC.
The kit they used in the magazine was from
www.thecoolingshop.com
There's all sorts of info on fans and stuff on there which you may find helpful and others may find interesting.

[edited because the link would't work - it does now!]

>> Edited by sparkythecat on Tuesday 30th November 11:53

[robdickinson]

Water cooling is something I've been thinking about playing with.

But its not cheap, £100+ to sort out and does nothing for the PSU, so you still need a quiett PSU (I'd go for a fanless with water cooling.

With water you have pump/radiator etc, so I guess you need to isolate the pump well and a fan on the radiator (tho can be large/slow).

[manek]

I reviewed the SilentMaxx for ZDNet UK - -it ran really quietly -- in fact, with no fan running at all unless under severe load. It's pricey though, so an alternative is the QTechnology ones sold by quietpc.com.

[chillidog]

LinITX.com sell the Silverstone SST-ST30NF 300W Fanless ATX Power Supply. 300W should be enough for what you describe.

It's available from here:-
http://linitx.com/product_info.php?products_id=569

The supplier rating is here:- www.romulus2.com/feedback/company.php?256

Hope that helps.

[viper_larry]

Thanks for all the advice, will check it out.

One question not answered, what wattage should I get. i.e. is a 380W Tagan enough or should I go for 420W or 480W - what is the real difference?

[pentoman]

The extra power is useful if you're running a lot of peripherals or a ninja graphics card (my Geforce FX 5900, for example, has a power socket on it and must be plugged into the PSU!)

If it's a simple home PC, 300W should suffice even with an Athlon XP. To be on the safe side and if you plan to play games or engage in martial arts with your PC, 350 is good and 400 plentifully comforting.


Russ