Tagan TG480 U22 compared to Seasonic S12 430?

minktoast · Post by **minktoast** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:21 am

Anyone know how this Tagan (TG480 U22) is noise wise? Especially compared to the Seasonic S12 430.

I like the Tagan as it has inline fans and may thus facillitate making a PSU duct from the 5.25 bays as described in these forums. But noise is crucial to me so I'd go Seasonic unless someone has good things to say about the Tagan.

I can get both for the same price in the UK (about £54 GBP).

Many thanks if you can help.

brigitte · Post by **brigitte** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:44 am

I owned two Tagan U01 PSU's and have switched to two Seasonic S12-430's.

I replaced my Tagan 480W because I no longer trusted the brand due to numerous RMA-cases (my particular unit being an RMA replacement itself); my 330 was replaced last week because it couldn't cope with the heat (my second computer is inside a cupboard due to space limitations).

As for the heat issue: dramatic improvement after switching to the Seasonic unit, a drop of no less than 10 degrees under load for CPU and motherboard. Although a PSU is not to be relied on for moving hot air of the case, Tagan did the opposite: it generated so much heat itself, it was a mini-oven sitting just above my CPU. The case was very hot to the touch, whereas the same area is now merely a few degrees hotter than the surrounding area.

Noisewise, I tend to believe Seasonic is quieter than the Tagan units. It definitively is under load. Of course this is subjective, I don't have any measuring equipment.

A recent test in a Dutch hardware magazine showed the U22 to be a tad noisier than the 01 version. If this is true, Seasonic has a definite edge on the Tagan U22 in the noise area.

I'm extremely pleased with my switch to Seasonic and as long as they continue to manufacture units of this quality, I will not consider another brand.

minktoast · Post by **minktoast** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:00 am

Brilliant - thanks for such a quick reposnse. Seasonic it is then.

(What great forums and thanks everyone for all your help.)

okayfine · Post by **okayfine** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 5:38 pm

No so fast.

I have the U01 Tagan, and couldn't be more happier. It is completely silent, and it is cool to the touch, not hot at all. I'm also ducting cold air straight into the PSU, and maybe that is the difference, but of all the PSU's I've had so far, Tagan has been the most stable, cool, and quiet.

Check out the picture of it here : Ducted Tagan 480W

The inline fans are key - like you said, it makes ducting so much easier. And it's not like I'm not using much power - the PSU is powering two CPU's (Dual Bartons) + 3 SCSI drives, + 3 IDE's HD + SCSI CD-Rom + IDE CD-Rom + ATI Dual DVI + Firewire + USB powered phone charger.

I'm so happy with my U01 Tagan, I will be getting a U22 Tagan soon.

minktoast · Post by **minktoast** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 10:37 pm

can't get the link to work okayfine, i've registered on ocforums - but still no joy.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 11:06 pm

People's experiences with sound levels differ. What one considers completely silent may be unacceptably loud to another person, or in another machine. (A 'completely silent' PSU in a machine with a leafblower VGA fan comes to mind.)

Personally, I'd go with Brigitte's advice then, since she was able to hear both power supplies in question personally.

okayfine · Post by **okayfine** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 6:46 am

can't get the link to work okayfine, i've registered on ocforums - but still no joy

Here's the complete URL :

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php? ... ost3814572

By the way, the ducting is a bit elaborate and was only possible because I have a huge ass case. The case is the same one as reviewed here : http://www.ocprices.com/index.php?action=reviews&rev_id=11&page=2

This is the sequence of air flow to the case :
Fan filter (changed every month) - Panaflo - Duct - Panaflo - Two Spacers - PSU. The panaflo's have fanmates to turn the speed all the way down. Because of the fan filter, there is not a speck of dust - and dust is your enemy when it starts coating the heatsinks inside the PSU.

qviri wrote:People's experiences with sound levels differ. What one considers completely silent may be unacceptably loud to another person, or in another machine. (A 'completely silent' PSU in a machine with a leafblower VGA fan comes to mind.)

Can't speak for brigitte, but I am very sensitive to sound, which is why I ended up spending $600 for an elaborate watercooling setup. Believe me, when I say the Tagan is silent, it is silent.

I think the difference between my and brigitte's experience is that Tagan was probably not meant to exhaust hot air like the PSU's with big 120mm fans. Perhaps brigitte had problems because his/her case was full of hot air from a hot CPU's heatsink in close proximity and with the case exhaust fans turned down for noice control whearas my Tagan only sees cool air ducted directly from the front of the case.

All I can say is that with ducted cool air, Tagan makes less noise than my panaflos.

brigitte · Post by **brigitte** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:21 am

I'm a she.
My experience is not based solely on the second PC that got very hot, but also on my main rig with very low temperatures (CPU low-40's idle). Not a PSU in its right mind would ramp up in this system.

okayfine · Post by **okayfine** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:13 am

I was just conjecturing .. that's all.

minktoast, if you are looking for an inline PSU, take a look at the Antec Smart Power 2.0 series. They have the same configuration as Tagan, but Tagan's heatsinks look beefier than the Antec's, IMHO.

dr snuggles · Post by **dr snuggles** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 10:52 am

My Tagan 480 U1 died a few days ago. It was really hot, although I'm not using that much power (the pc runs now with an old 340 W PSU).

Since the Seasonic is not beeing sold here (Holland), I'll probably change my dead Tagan for a Fortron Blue Storm 500 W with an 120mm fan. This one is supposed to be a lot better and quiet. All other PSU's make to much noise. Now I could mod them, but that would blow away my "guaranty" (I hope that is the right way to put it in English

).

Good luck with searching for your new silent psu

.

brigitte · Post by **brigitte** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:48 pm

I know of two shops in Germany that sell Seasonics. Both accept Paypal or bank transfer and shipping takes two days. Consumer rights are quite well protected in Germany and Seasonic is a reputable brand, so why not do as I did? I'm afraid the Fortron will prove to be a disappointment noise-wise. Have a look at the recommended PSU's, the Fortron is not even listed.

Nexus is a modified Fortron and it scores only a 5- while Saasonic gets an 8. It's a known fact Fortron source is not as good as their modified counterparts, so I'm assuming it will score even less than a 5- where noise is concerned. Read the SPRC review, the final line:

Although the noise it produces at higher output levels would be unacceptable to a hardcore silencing enthusiast, it is likely that in a high powered system there would be other, greater sources of noise.

Basically what they're saying here is that in a high-end system other sources of noise will be louder so you won't notice it. That's not the same as "it's pretty quiet".

minktoast · Post by **minktoast** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:13 am

thanks for your thoughts everyone.

at the moment i'm coming down on the seasonic side of things. my planned system is not going to be overly powerful / overclocked. and silence *is* the most important aim.

the ducting option certainly makes sense - but perhaps i'm starting to think it's too much work at this stage - maybe in my next build

dr snuggles · Post by **dr snuggles** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:30 am

brigitte wrote:I know of two shops in Germany that sell Seasonics. Both accept Paypal or bank transfer and shipping takes two days. Consumer rights are quite well protected in Germany and Seasonic is a reputable brand, so why not do as I did? I'm afraid the Fortron will prove to be a disappointment noise-wise. Have a look at the recommended PSU's, the Fortron is not even listed.

Nexus is a modified Fortron and it scores only a 5- while Saasonic gets an 8. It's a known fact Fortron source is not as good as their modified counterparts, so I'm assuming it will score even less than a 5- where noise is concerned. Read the SPRC review, the final line:
Although the noise it produces at higher output levels would be unacceptable to a hardcore silencing enthusiast, it is likely that in a high powered system there would be other, greater sources of noise.
Basically what they're saying here is that in a high-end system other sources of noise will be louder so you won't notice it. That's not the same as "it's pretty quiet".

Thanks for your advice. But I can only change the Tagan for another PSU in the store where I bought the Tagan. This store does not sell any seasonics. If the Fortron sucks noisewise, I'll just buy a good 120mm fan

.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:07 am

dr snuggles wrote:Thanks for your advice. But I can only change the Tagan for another PSU in the store where I bought the Tagan. This store does not sell any seasonics. If the Fortron sucks noisewise, I'll just buy a good 120mm fan .

That may seem a reasonable thing to do... but often, it is not a great solution. The fan itself is only the most visible part of the cooling system, the obvious noise source -- sort of like the speakers in an audio system. Yes, it's the part that makes the noise, but it is dramatically affected by all the things in the chain that come before it.

In a stereo, the cables, the amp, the CD player, and the actual CD/recording itself -- they dictate what the speaker ends up doing. You don't like what comes out of a speaker, try changing what goes into it. Like maybe a different CD with different music might work perfectly well to improve the sound quality (at least from your point of view).

In a thermal fan speed controlled PSU, the fan speed/noise is affected by the quality of the fan itself, by the control circuit that feeds the voltage to the fan, by the temperature/fan speed algorithm of the fan controller, by the cooling efficiency of the internal heatsinks, by the efficiency of the PSU, and by the amount of heat the PSU fans draw in.

So, given all that... let's say that with the stock 60cfm fan (that's just a guess), the fan controller starts increasing the fan speed when the internal temp sensor reaches 50C, and does so linearly after this point. Changing to a slower fan will actually do very little to change the behavior of the fan controller. The default noise may go down. But the change from lower speed to higher may happen faster than with a faster fan because the PSU will tend to heat up faster with lower airflow.

You can avoid this only by also reducing the amount of heat the PSU sees at the intake so the internal temp stays as low as possible. Just bypassing the internal fan controller to a fixed low voltage is an option, but this ignores the heat issue. Also, if the fan control circuit is using poorly design PWM, the buzzing/clicking that this can cause will likely show up in fans other than the stock one.

Hopefully, understanding the above will help you achieve lower PC / PSU noise.