Month: September 2006

80 Plus hits Retail: Silverstone’s Element ST50EF-Plus

80 Plus approved models are the most efficient of the efficient power supplies. 80 Plus certified power supplies are difficult to find on the retail market, however, because the program is aimed at system builders, not DIY enthusiasts. That’s beginning to change. The Silverstone Element Plus is one of a handful 80 Plus power supplies

Read More
blog image

What is a “Silent” Computer?

Admittedly, it’s a bit odd that Silent PC Review has taken over four years to publish an article that deals explicitly with what a “silent” computer is. This seemingly innocuous question is far from simple. Trying to answer it gets at the heart of PC acoustics issues, and the challenges for those trying to create

Read More
blog image

SPCR in the News

This is a collection of articles about Silent PC Review, Quiet Computing and/or Mike Chin that have appeared in the media over the years. It is not complete or exhaustive. Also listed are works about computing by Mike Chin published outside of SPCR.

Read More

Shuttle’s Smallest Yet: XPC X100

Shuttle has evolved from a motherboard OEM to the inventor of the barebones system to a company that sells fully integrated systems. They’re still doing the Small Form Factor thing, though, and the X100 is clearly an attempt to woo the form and function part of the market that Apple has captured. The comparison with

Read More

Scythe pushes towards Infinity (renamed Mugen)

The Scythe Infinity is a sequel to the wildly successful Ninja: It’s gigantic, has widely spaced fins, and seems well suited to quiet computing. The question is, is it better, and, if so, how much better? Has Scythe produced a heatsink to surpass the Ninja? Scythe hopes so. Thermalright’s Ultra-120 has already proven that the

Read More

Samsung Spinpoint T Series: Successor to a Quiet Legacy

Samsung has a long history of producing quiet drives, and we expect the Spinpoint T Series to continue that legacy. The capacity can’t quite match the 500 GB and 750 GB drives on the market, but the real question will be whether it can match Western Digital’s recent drives for noise.

Read More