550W quiet PSU?

[johanp]

Hi all,

I'm trying to find a quiet PSU for my dualie system (spec's see sig - Johan's PC). A DVD burner will be added. Currently I'm using a PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 475W. and although very good it is horribly noisy.

It seems the Enermax Noisetaker series has a good reputation in this forum and also got a good review on the site. But this usually refers to the 470W version. I'm considering the EG701P-VE-SFMA 600W. Question is, does ithe noise level scale as gracefully with the power usage as the EG475P-VE SFMA does? I don't expect to really come near 600W usage but I want some margin for future upgrades. My next upgrade will probably be a dual opteron. My main requirement is that it stays quiet during low power usage. Where exactly that is with my system I don't know.

My next question is regarding different models of Noisetaker. The only thing I can get locally is this. It only says EG651P-VE, it doesn't say SFMA. Is this still Noisetaker?

Any other suggestions are welcome too. Requirement is min 550W. Price is not an issue.

Johan

[sthayashi]

Any other suggestions are welcome too. Requirement is min 550W. Price is not an issue.

Ah... Finally, a machine that is virtually an equal to my own. First, 550w should not be the minimum you're looking at. 400W is. I'm running my entire dual system under 400W (250-265W from the wall to be more exact, running at full power draw).

Second thing, is that PC Power & Cooling is REALLY FRIGGIN' LOUD. I've used them before, and almost ANYTHING that you go with will be quieter. With that in mind, I'd humbly suggest the Antec TruePower/TrueControl 550 which, though not nearly as quiet as the Noisetaker, should be quiet enough for you, especially since you're not running quiet hard drives.

I'd love a dual Opteron system myself (a bargain at only $1500), but according to this site the power draw of an Opteron 246 is only 23W more than an Athlon XP 2400+ (which is the pair that I have, modded to run dual). So not counting motherboard, a dual Opteron setup will draw about 50W more than my dual XP 2400+ setup. Okay, I can see why you may want more than 400W, since you'll probably be pulling about 300W-325W from the wall with the dual Opterons, but it still seems unnecessary to go all the way to 550, when 475 will suffice.

[shathal]

What the heck do you have in your case that you need 550W at LEAST? Are you sure you got your power requirements right? Those numbers seem awfully bloated.

What you runnig - a quad system?

[Ralf Hutter]

What the heck do you have in your case that you need 550W at LEAST? Are you sure you got your power requirements right? Those numbers seem awfully bloated.

What you runnig - a quad system?

Nah, he ain't runnin diddly. I'd guess a 350-400W PSU would be more than enough for his setup.

Here's a cut 'n paste of it:

Code: Select all

CPU:  	Dual AMD Athlon MP 2200 x 2 1800MHz
Motherboard: 	Microstar K7D Master-L
Memory: 	512 MB of Crucial PC 2100 REG ECC
Video Card: 	ATI Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis PRO (ATI Radeon)
Hard Drive: 	WD Caviar Special Edition 200.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS
Additional Hard Drives: 	IBM Deskstar 120 GXP 80 GB
Maxtor 80GB 5400 RPM x2 (backup)
Monitor: 	Sony 400 PS (19" Trinitron)
CDR/CDRW Manufacturer & Model: 	Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40
Storage Interface: 	IDE
Sound Card: 	SoundBlaster Audigy Player
Speakers: 	Very old Creative Stereo
Internet Connection: 	Bostream xDSL @ 8 Mbit / 800 Kbit
Operating System: 	Win 98 SE / Win XP / Red Hat 7.3 / Debian Sid
Other Components: 	Case: Cooler Master ATC 110-SX1
PSU: PC Power & Cooling 475W
Hauppauge WinTV
SCSI card
Epson Stylus Color 740
Zalman CNPS5100-Cu x2 CPU cooler
Zalman ZM-NB47J NB cooler

And if he wants headroom for future upgrades, the Enermax 475 will be waay more than he'd ever come close to using.

[johanp]

With that in mind, I'd humbly suggest the Antec TruePower/TrueControl 550 which, though not nearly as quiet as the Noisetaker, should be quiet enough for you, especially since you're not running quiet hard drives.

Why should I consider the Antec if it's not "nearly as quiet" as the Noisetaker? I may not have quiet drives now, but after an upgrade I may. Also, isn't the high efficiency of the Noisetaker an additional benefit? Does the Antec have any advantage over the Noisetaker?

As for the power usage, l know I don't need 550W now, but I want the PSU to survive a couple of upgrades.

And if he wants headroom for future upgrades, the Enermax 475 will be waay more than he'd ever come close to using.

Now that's just plain stupid. How could you possibly now what future upgrades I will make?

[Ralf Hutter]

And if he wants headroom for future upgrades, the Enermax 475 will be waay more than he'd ever come close to using.

Now that's just plain stupid. How could you possibly now what future upgrades I will make?

Sigh...

Because you're probably only using about 250W right now under artificial "fully loaded" conditions and I can't imagine how you could possibly add another 200+ watts of components to that system. But, like I always say, "YMMV".

Have a nice day!

[tay]

With that in mind, I'd humbly suggest the Antec TruePower/TrueControl 550 which, though not nearly as quiet as the Noisetaker, should be quiet enough for you, especially since you're not running quiet hard drives.

Why should I consider the Antec if it's not "nearly as quiet" as the Noisetaker? I may not have quiet drives now, but after an upgrade I may. Also, isn't the high efficiency of the Noisetaker an additional benefit? Does the Antec have any advantage over the Noisetaker?

As for the power usage, l know I don't need 550W now, but I want the PSU to survive a couple of upgrades.

And if he wants headroom for future upgrades, the Enermax 475 will be waay more than he'd ever come close to using.

Now that's just plain stupid. How could you possibly now what future upgrades I will make?

Why should some help you when youre obviously being a prick to BOTH the people that are giving you advice?

[MikeC]

johanp --

Have a cruise through How much will a 300w power supply run?. You will be shocked how little power your PC draws.

I've tested some 60~80 PSUs and measured the power dissipation of some 40 PCs over the past 3 years. The highest power draw I saw from any system was a dualie system similar to yours that had <250W AC power draw with a PSU known to be <70% efficient. This means it was putting out max ~175W in DC voltage to the components.

Let's say you add a super power hungry VGA at 75W. OK, then take out the 25W consumption of the current current card.... now you have 225W with this super duper VGA.

Let's say you go for a major upgrade and super OC of the CPUs -- and end up adding another 50W. Now you have 275W.

You'd be real hard pressed to get the total to 300W with any desktop components in the next year or so. You probably can't reach that without going to a Prescott or dual-Prescott, new board, new everything...

Not that you should.

[sthayashi]

With BTX coming around the corner, the future upgrade reasoning becomes bleak.

MikeC, chances are, it was my dualie system you read. I'll post the specs, but it's almost identical to his computer.

-Asus A7M266-D
-2xAthlon XP 2400+ (modded to run dual).
-512MB PC2100 Kingston Registered memory.
-Highpoint RocketRaid 404.
-2x Samsung SP80 40GB hard drives in Raid-1
-2x Seagate Barracuda V 120GB hard drives in Raid-0.
-ATI FireGL X1-128MB.
-Plextor PX-708
-3Com Ethernetcard 3CR990B-97
-2x 80mm M1BXs, 1x 92mm Zalman, and 1x 120mm FBK Panaflo cooling the CPUs and case.
-Artic Cooling VGA Silencer.

-Zalman ZM400B modded w/ a Panaflo M1A. Draws ~250W from the wall (measured via a Kill-A-Watt, doing 2 instances of F@H and burning a DVD-RW right now)

NOW. You wanted to know about the Enermax 600W power supply. I have no idea whether it scales gracefully. Presumably, it does.

The EG651P-VE is NOT the Noisetaker and is in fact rather loud. I know because I own one. This was my power supply prior to the PCP&C 400W Silencer (which turned out to be just as loud). The Antec TruePower 550 was MUCH quieter than both of them. It was only AFTER I replaced my case, hard drives and heatsinks, that I noticed that my TruePower was the loudest component. I could hear it from the user position and it was a whooshing-like noise. My then-girlfriend could hear barely hear it from behind me, and didn't find it at all annoying.

My point is that if you're looking for a 550W Minimum PSU, and the 600W Noisetaker isn't available in your area, then you may wish to consider the the Antec TruePower.

[MikeC]

MikeC, chances are, it was my dualie system you read. I'll post the specs, but it's almost identical to his computer.

Actually I was talking about a system I measured.

And BTW, BTX is not "just around the corner". Reading all the Computex coverage over the past week, and recent chats with various manufacturers, I get the distict impresion of an industry very reluctant to move to BTX. I think ATX will be with us for a lot longer -- unless Intel makes some major changes for BTX 1.1 or 2.0 and does it fast.

[johanp]

sthayashi, thanks for the info on the EG651P-VE. Guess I will not be buying that one then.

I'm not so worried about BTX as I am about EPS 12V. There are already dual operon boards that require it (Tyan Thunder K8W). Fortunately there are still others like MSI K8T-Master Far that accepts standard ATX - but for how long? I'm near the end-life of my current mobo so I was hoping to reuse a new PSU for at least one upgrade, preferably two but maybe that's unrealistic.

Because you're probably only using about 250W right now under artificial "fully loaded" conditions and I can't imagine how you could possibly add another 200+ watts of components to that system.

I should probably not have posted my current specs, since it seems to add to the confusion about what constitutes an "upgrade". In my book a new mobo is an upgrade, so it could indeed be quad CPUs - but that's unlikely. A more likely (first) upgrade is (like I said) dual opterons, and perhaps a RAID0 array of 4 Cheetah 15K.3 to replace 2 of my current disks. There was nothing magic or scientific about the 550W. Over at 2cpu.com a consistent recommendation now is the PPC 510 for most dualies. Since many of these guys have a lot of experience in running SMP systems 24/7 I think that deserves some respect. There is also the issue of specs not being valid at typical temps like is mentioned in your PSU Fundamentals article. Since, if the noise level is dependent on actual power usage not max usage by using temperature controlled fans, then there is no disadvantage to using a beefier supply other than price, and I thought I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I cruised through the 300W thread, and there are lots of testimonials from people running lots of stuff with uniprocessor systems and 300W. The thing with multipro systems, other than the extra power requirement for the additional PSUs is that they are much more likely to come close to max power usage since it allows you to do much more multitasking, e.g. burning DVDs and CDs while playing games while ...

There is also the issue of amperage distribution. Many lower wattage PSUs simply don't have enough 12V current to run dual CPUs. In AMDs system builders guide they estimate HDD current draw at 2A, and this is used both by THG and FiringSquad in their guides. Using this I get a requirement of 19A on 12V even for my current rig (I also get a lot more total wattage than 250). This rules out 400 watters like Fortron (16A) and Antec True380 (18A). Seasonic Super Silencer 400 otoh is much more sensible on amperage distribution (for me) and is perhaps a good fit for my current system.

[MikeC]

the issue of specs not being valid at typical temps like is mentioned in your PSU Fundamentals article.

True for most PSU makes that don't specify a temp -- you can usually assume 25C is their standard if they don't say. But not true of the Enermax Noisetaker (40C), Seasonic (50C), PCPower&Cooling (50C) or Fortron (50C) -- and the many brands that Fortron OEM for, like Zalman, Nexus, etc...

Some of mid-power PCP&P PSUs are made by Fortron, BTW, tho it looks like they have a new OEM supplier for their Silencer line, and I can't recall who makes their high power models.

[DG]

By the way, does Seasonic makes it's own PSUs? Or are they using some others brands OEM ?

[MikeC]

Seasonic is a manufacturer. They've been doing OEM production since the days of the original Apple -- apparently Apple's first PSUs were made by Seasonic. We're talking ~3 decades continuous history in the same field. They don't make anything other than PS products. AFAIK, the bulk of their products go unbadged into other brand PCs and other IT gear. They do tons of industrial PSUs as well. The SS-xxx-FS series was their first ever retail product; the Super series is their second. I also know that Fortron was started by ex-Seasonic folks, as was SevenTeam.

[shathal]

Urm ... you want a QUIET PSU, and you intend on shoving not one, but four 15K drives into that rig?

The thought occurs that you might want to think things through a little more.

Performance "at any cost" is a rather difficult road to tread, when intending to get a silent PC (or, at least, quiet).

Also, 550W is more than many a SERVER will suck.

If I might suggest that you maybe commence with doing a power-budget of the components you're actually intending to use?

Incidentally, there's no guarantee of "future proof" or somesuch, as you might find (for instance) that 2-3 years from now, the die-shrinks of CPU's requires a tightly (or tighter) spec'ed PSU (for instance) than you have now.

I wouldn't worry about BTX too much, since the hand-over will likely last a few years yet. But certainly, you should be careful about considering your setup to be "future proof" for several years.

It's usually safer to be conservative in this regard, and "hope" for the best, but not necessarily expect it.

Hope this helps

[jinu117]

With that in mind, I'd humbly suggest the Antec TruePower/TrueControl 550 which, though not nearly as quiet as the Noisetaker, should be quiet enough for you, especially since you're not running quiet hard drives.

Why should I consider the Antec if it's not "nearly as quiet" as the Noisetaker? I may not have quiet drives now, but after an upgrade I may. Also, isn't the high efficiency of the Noisetaker an additional benefit? Does the Antec have any advantage over the Noisetaker?

As for the power usage, l know I don't need 550W now, but I want the PSU to survive a couple of upgrades.

And if he wants headroom for future upgrades, the Enermax 475 will be waay more than he'd ever come close to using.

Now that's just plain stupid. How could you possibly now what future upgrades I will make?

Not sure about couple of upgrade. BTX might catch up might not. You won't be able to use ATX PSU on BTX obviously... (not in efficient manner).
As for HDD... the SCSI's are overrated unless used in server ATM with quality SATA such as WD Raptors are available. Its much quieter than what most of people can imagine for 10k RPM HDD. Very comparible to my 180GXP till it starts seeking And performance is right on top with SCSI drive if not better for workstation usage.
(If you isist on more HDD bandwidth, your MOBO really need to have something other than PCI slot for controller obviously so different ball game again).
I would take Noisetaker over rest ATM with its great rails and high efficiency (have one of CoolerGiant line used in my system which works well).

[johanp]

The cheetahs are just an (extravagant) option I want to stay open for. Obviously I would have to sacrifice some in the silence dpt in this case. You are right, Raptors are a much more sensible choice for workstation type usage.

(If you isist on more HDD bandwidth, your MOBO really need to have something other than PCI slot for controller obviously so different ball game again).

True but even my current mobo has 64 MHz/64 bit PCI. Something like this is common on duallie boards.

I would take Noisetaker over rest ATM with its great rails and high efficiency (have one of CoolerGiant line used in my system which works well).

I have decided to go for EPS12V to be maximally compatible with coming SMP boards. I'm heavily leaning towards the Tagan 480W. I'm aware of the clicking noise problem, but I've read reports from people who has not experienced it, and I've read that it only occurs when the system is powered down but plugged into the wall. I'm just hoping I'll be lucky here. The Tagan also has fairly tightly regulated voltages. I assume that the Enermax EPS12Vs are not nearly as quiet as the Noisetaker. Any other EPS12V supplies I should be looking at?

[MikeC]

Any other EPS12V supplies I should be looking at?

The newest >400W Seasonic Super series PSUs -- due out probably in July. Most efficient of current gen PSUs, with Active PFC.