Upcoming Reviews & Articles

MikeC · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:00 am

In response to popular demand, here are the articles and reviews in our queue, in possible chronological order. Delivery is not guaranteed! I'll try to keep it uptodate. Reviewed items will get deleted, new items added to the bottom.

Updated Aug 8, 2006

Cooling, motherboard VRMs, efficiency & power consumption - this is more important than you might think, especially for higher power CPUs
Antec Take3/4 - rackmount cases
Antec Fusion - htpc case
mCubed FanAmp - fan controller
Seasonic M12 - PSU
Seasonic S12-80+ - PSU
Coolermaster Greenpower 500 - PSU
beQuiet Dark Power Pro - PSU
Enermax Galaxy - 1000w PSU
Shuttle XPC X100 - complete SFF system
AOpen EPC945M8 - complete ePC
AOpen Flex 945 - mITX Core solo/duo motherboard
Qmicra - SFF case
several AM2 motherboards
several AM2 EE A64 processors
two Core 2 processors + motherboards
umpteen fans
more zerotherm heatsinks
Aerocase Condor - vidcard HS
Systrin & Arctic Cooling - vidcard HS
nMedia 280 - HTPC case

frankgehry · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:44 am

M,

Regarding the smartpower 2.0 500w motherboard incompatibilities, are you referring to cable lengths, the original fan speed monitoring problem, or major league neo he problems? TIA - FG

MikeC · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:49 am

That comment was placed behind the wrong Antec PSU. Corrected now: re - NeoHE 550.

Shadowknight · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:57 am

So... absolutely no PSUs in the list then?

On a more serious note, you might want to fix the "bold" tags for
Power/heat/performance analysis of AMD X2-3800+ vs Intel 820 in the context of a quiet system[b]
[b]Search for the quietest 3.5" drive: 1-platter models from all the majors

rpsgc · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 12:03 pm

I'm looking forward to it

Jordan · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 12:32 pm

Is it wrong that I'm most excited about an mATX PSU?

Will you being paying attention to the performance of these cards at all or just referencing performance figuresfrom other sources? I'm completely for the latter if that's what you choose to do, I'd rather you guys focused your time on your very specialist field than waste time on something so many other sites cover.

Ever thought about setting a partnership up with another site? They coould refer to you for noise references and vice-versa for performance aspects?

EDIT: And with your keen ear and experiance Mike, I'd love to see audio sunjectional based audio related reviews from you.

Aleksi · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 12:36 pm

Hi Mike, the trouble maker posting here... :lol:

Really looking forward to some of the reviews, especially the Silenx PSU with the 14db fan will be interesting to see. Hopefully it will get some people to understand _realistic_ fan specs.

Any hope of you guys being able to take a quick dB(A) measurement of the fan itself? I understand it isn't exactly top priority, but judging by the amount of time-to-time discussions on the forums, it would be helpful to point to people raving about SilenX fan specs.

MikeC · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:16 pm

Jordan wrote:

Is it wrong that I'm most excited about an mATX PSU?

nope.

Quote:

Will you being paying attention to the performance of these cards at all or just referencing performance figuresfrom other sources? I'm completely for the latter if that's what you choose to do, I'd rather you guys focused your time on your very specialist field than waste time on something so many other sites cover.

Ever thought about setting a partnership up with another site? They coould refer to you for noise references and vice-versa for performance aspects?

I presume you are talking about vidcards? That's a good idea - partnership. I have explored it before w/ lukewarm responses. Maybe now that SPCR has a bigger audience, it's worth another try. Still not sure why Storage Review was unresponsive before...

Quote:

EDIT: And with your keen ear and experiance Mike, I'd love to see audio subjectional based audio related reviews from you.

Me too. Just rubbing my hands in anticipation of the cool toys... :lol:

As for pulling the SilenX fan from the PSU, Alexi -- probably not. We'd rather treat the PSU as an integral unit and look at real retail fan samples separately. There's just too much potential for problems. Write to the sample supplier, if you like: www.3DCOOL.com -- sales@...

Sizzle · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:25 pm

Aleksi wrote:

Hi Mike, the trouble maker posting here... :lol:

Really looking forward to some of the reviews, especially the Silenx PSU with the 14db fan will be interesting to see. Hopefully it will get some people to understand _realistic_ fan specs.

Any hope of you guys being able to take a quick dB(A) measurement of the fan itself? I understand it isn't exactly top priority, but judging by the amount of time-to-time discussions on the forums, it would be helpful to point to people raving about SilenX fan specs.

I had sent Mike a 80mm SilenX earler last year I think. Though now SilenX has since gone to a different fan it appears.

MikeC · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:37 pm

Sizzel --

Yes, I have it.

I know the Great Fan Roundup project is not in the above queue. This is because we are utterly daunted every time we look at the mountain of fan samples and the array of testing that we've still got to do. The formatting and data presentation is quite a challenge, too. It's more complex than you'd think, if you're trying to be really thorough.

We will get a start on it before the year is out -- with a short review on at least a small selection of fans. Is that a promise? Maybe. I hope I can keep it. This time of year is always so frazzled...

Aleksi · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 2:01 pm

Hi Mike,

thanks for the answer. I thought you had SilenX fans but didn't have the chance to test the, RE: the fan roundup. OK, I'll shoot those guys a mail, worth a shot and won't cost me a dime.

wim · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 3:31 pm

just out of curiosity, the SI-97 review which was on the cards a while ago - why was it dropped? i know you guys sometimes won't publish reviews if they are overtly negative, but this sink is really good - probably best socket A cooler, and SI-97A version extends compatibility to K8.

ushac · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 4:13 pm

Um, Zalman Z700? Is that a new version of VF-700? I can't seem to find a single reference to a Zalman Z700 anywhere on the web..?

/ushac

Live · **Posted:** Fri Nov 25, 2005 5:20 pm

Quote:

Zalman Z700 & NV Silencer 5 rev 2/3 -- these are tough to review as VGA card temp monitoring is the pits.

For the VGA cards are exact temps really a necessity? I think it’s more about the noise and about how the coolers affect other temps, i.e. does the silencers ability to evacuate heat or the Zalmans ability to cool the surroundings make a difference in total system noise/cooling. Instead of temperatures you could just run some heavy stress testing on the cards at different noise/fan settings to see what is manageable. Or am I missing the problem completely?

I would also like to see a review of the Thermaltake BigTyphoon and the Thermaltake Rocket against Zalman Reserator 1 Plus. I know they have bad rep but that does not mean all there products have to suck.

Otherwise looking very good!

vapb400 · **Joined:** Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:15 pm **Posts:** 63

ushac wrote:

Um, Zalman Z700? Is that a new version of VF-700? I can't seem to find a single reference to a Zalman Z700 anywhere on the web..?

/ushac

i would like to know this as well.

wainwra · **Posted:** Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:54 am

Woo - impressive list! Are you planning to sleep at all??

I'm particularly looking forward to ah - well most of it! But these especially:

Quote:

Seasonic SS-300SFD "80 Plus" microATX PSU -- very efficient, small
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 - HSF
Cooling, motherboard VRMs, efficiency & power consumption - this is more important than you might think, especially for higher power CPUs
Zalman Z700 & NV Silencer 5 rev 2/3 -- these are tough to review as VGA card temp monitoring is the pits.
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium & A8N32-SLI dlx - w/ notes on PSU incompatibilities
Power/heat/performance analysis of AMD X2-3800+ vs Intel 820 in the context of a quiet system
Search for the quietest 3.5" drive: 1-platter models from all the majors
Quiet & fanless gaming vidcards from Asus, Gigabyte, etc
Also coming soon -- reviews of PC-based Audio/Video components. This has been a long time in the making; I've been into audio/music since ~ age 10.

Quote:

Will you being paying attention to the performance of these cards at all or just referencing performance figuresfrom other sources? I'm completely for the latter if that's what you choose to do, I'd rather you guys focused your time on your very specialist field than waste time on something so many other sites cover.

Ever thought about setting a partnership up with another site? They coould refer to you for noise references and vice-versa for performance aspects?

I presume you are talking about vidcards? That's a good idea - partnership. I have explored it before w/ lukewarm responses. Maybe now that SPCR has a bigger audience, it's worth another try. Still not sure why Storage Review was unresponsive before....

I think there are other "kindred spirits" out there too. I came across http://www.behardware.com recently. If you've not been over there Mike, I strongly recommend you take a look (for their review style). They are obsessed with Monitors, though, which although sometimes noisy are rarely as noisy as hard drives, of course.

gamingphreek · **Posted:** Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:59 am

Mike,

I thought you mentioned that you would put a review of the Single Platter Seagate 7200.9 HDD up. If you aren't is there anyway you can let me know how it performs in comparison to the Samsung and the older 7200.7's.

Thanks,
-Kevin

halcyon · **Posted:** Sat Nov 26, 2005 8:48 am

Oh my, oh my. What a load of goodies. Waiting anxiously. And good job on the articles done already. This is one of the few sites, which I just love to re-visit, because there is always new interesting articles and the quality is top-notch.

Can you give us a sneak peek to the audio gear article (what gear)?

MikeC · **Posted:** Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:56 am

halcyon wrote:

Oh my, oh my. What a load of goodies. Waiting anxiously. And good job on the articles done already. This is one of the few sites, which I just love to re-visit, because there is always new interesting articles and the quality is top-notch.

Can you give us a sneak peek to the audio gear article (what gear)?

Let us surprise you.

MikeC · **Posted:** Sat Nov 26, 2005 11:02 am

wainwra wrote:

Woo - impressive list! Are you planning to sleep at all??

I think there are other "kindred spirits" out there too. I came across http://www.behardware.com recently. If you've not been over there Mike, I strongly recommend you take a look (for their review style). They are obsessed with Monitors, though, which although sometimes noisy are rarely as noisy as hard drives, of course.

re sleep: No promises about when these things will be posted. :lol:

Thanks for the behardware link. Had not seen that one before.

dragmor · **Posted:** Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:52 am

Mike,

When you do the review of "Cooling, motherboard VRMs, efficiency & power consumption" can you make sure to compare a couple of motherboards with 8 phase power and include some notes on the reduced heat generation.

There was a comment on Anand's by one of the staff that the P4 820D on an 8 phase motherboard had a 5c lower temp than a 6 phase board.

MiKeLezZ · **Posted:** Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:23 pm

Mike, since Asus A8N-SLI Premium will be my next M/B, can I ask you what PSU is incompatible with this M/B?
I was planning to use a Seasonic S12 500W, and I wouldn't buy a lemon unit

Since I already know some issues with DFI UT Lanparty Ultra-D and S12 500/600W (maybe solved in REVA2..maybe).

SnooP · **Joined:** Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:01 am **Posts:** 106

Quote:

Silverstone Zeus ST56ZF PSU

Can i make a suggestion? there has been a fair bit of contoversy about this PSU in regard to its cross loading requirements. Any chance as part of the review you can test how well it handles a lot of 12V load, but not much 5V/3.3V load (to simulate a heavily overclocked SLI system with only a one or two hard drives)?

Quote:

Mike, since Asus A8N-SLI Premium will be my next M/B, can I ask you what PSU is incompatible with this M/B?

AFAIK Antec NEO HE series, and perhaps others.

Quote:

I was planning to use a Seasonic S12 500W, and I wouldn't buy a lemon unit

IMO the DFI debacle wasn't entirely seasonic's fault (issue arised from seasonic's sensitive protection circuits being tripped by surges), but rather mainly DFI's fault for designing a motherboard that surges the 5VSB rail at startup (also affected early revisions of zippy 700w / pcp@c 850w). So as such the unit isn't a lemon, but rather just incompatable with the DFI board.

Filias Cupio · **Joined:** Sun Oct 09, 2005 7:53 pm **Posts:** 76

I'd love to see that great fan round-up. In the academic world, when faced with the requirement for a large amount of tedious data collecting, we know how to handle it - make a graduate student do it. Could you use cheap student labour, or collaborate with a university engineering or acoustics program on data collecting?

Another thought is to do a quick once-through to eliminate 2/3rds of the fans as not worthy of careful measurement - but I guess that wouldn't be all that quick, as you'd at minimum need a rough airflow and noise measurement at two voltages for each fan.

chillbill7 · **Joined:** Sun Apr 24, 2005 11:33 pm **Posts:** 2

Have you heard of FSP's new Green PS?
"Features:

• High Eefficiency exceedings 85% (at full load)
• Low power consumption on standby (<1W)
• Under 30dBA low noise design
• Low on heavy metal compounds
• Reduced weight (from 2.5kg reduced to 1.9kg) for less recycling tax (EU)
• PCI Express Connector for graphic cards
• Environmentally friendly PSU
"
Planning on reviewing it? it's supposed to be very efficient and silent.

rpsgc · **Posted:** Mon Nov 28, 2005 2:46 pm

chillbill7 wrote:

Have you heard of FSP's new Green PS?
"Features:

• High Eefficiency exceedings 85% (at full load)
• Low power consumption on standby (<1W)
• Under 30dBA low noise design
• Low on heavy metal compounds
• Reduced weight (from 2.5kg reduced to 1.9kg) for less recycling tax (EU)
• PCI Express Connector for graphic cards
• Environmentally friendly PSU
"
Planning on reviewing it? it's supposed to be very efficient and silent.

Ahem...
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article280-page1.html

CraiginNJ · **Posted:** Mon Nov 28, 2005 4:53 pm

What about the extra low noise Papst 120mm 4412 F/2GLL and F/2GLLL I donated to you back in June? Even though they aren't readily available in North America as far as I know, I wanted to find out if they might be quieter than the orange ones most people assume are the quietest. (I'd hate to think that nothing came of my buying them from Germany and shipping them up. Even a simple subjective A vs B test at 12v would satisfy my curiousity.)

Craig in NJ

MikeC · **Posted:** Mon Nov 28, 2005 5:07 pm

CraiginNJ wrote:

What about the extra low noise Papst 120mm 4412 F/2GLL and F/2GLLL I donated to you back in June? Even though they aren't readily available in North America as far as I know, I wanted to find out if they might be quieter than the orange ones most people assume are the quietest. (I'd hate to think that nothing came of my buying them from Germany and shipping them up. Even a simple subjective A vs B test at 12v would satisfy my curiousity.)

Craig in NJ

Thank you for your contribution Craig, rest assured something most certainly will come of your effort.

MikeC · **Posted:** Mon Nov 28, 2005 5:12 pm

Actually, so as not to clutter this thread, could ALL fan contributers please contact me by email and remind me what they contributed, along with forum names? This will help me keep track of who to acknowledge for what when the time comes.

Thank you.

alexo · **Joined:** Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:47 pm **Posts:** 60

SnooP wrote:

IMO the DFI debacle wasn't entirely seasonic's fault (issue arised from seasonic's sensitive protection circuits being tripped by surges), but rather mainly DFI's fault for designing a motherboard that surges the 5VSB rail at startup (also affected early revisions of zippy 700w / pcp@c 850w). So as such the unit isn't a lemon, but rather just incompatable with the DFI board.

Please consider the following:
* The Lanparty boards work fine with all the other major PSUs.
* Seasonic offered free replacement to the A2 revision (which may or may not solve the problem), which is tantamount to admitting the problem.

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