A question or two about the Phantom 350

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 6:15 am

Has the failure rate of this psu decreased?

Do the coils hum (in the review) in every sample or was it just the one reviewed by spcr?

Are there (fanless) psu's more efficient than the phantom 350?

Is the phantom with Active PFC more efficient in the lower ranges?(50-100 W)

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:41 am

madman2003 wrote:Is the phantom with Active PFC more efficient in the lower ranges?(50-100 W)

Active PFC doesn't influence efficiency in any way except that is uses a tiny bit of power for its circuitry. So the answer is: No.

Sizzle · Post by **Sizzle** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:48 am

I get no hum out of my Phantom. Mine does not even get hot on the back side of it even after running stress tests on my box.

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:53 am

In my last chat with Antec about this PSU model a couple weeks ago, they cited >4000 units sold worldwide and less than 10 known bad units in the US. In other words, the failure rate was very low. I don't think the numbers have got worse; we have 14 reported failures in our poll & this is from an intl audience. (SPCR gets 47% from North Am, 40% from EU) Do not take the SPCR poll numbers as any real world indication -- it is horribly skewed.

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:18 am

The presence of active PFC decreases efficiency(according to antec specs), will it only lack the extra few % in it's best range(86-88%) or will it lose it everywhere(making the psu very inefficient in the low areas? (72% at 65W is already low, below 70% would be bad)

I might be mistaken of my idea about pfc, so i was wondering if this is the truth: http://www.dansdata.com/gz028.htm

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:53 am

Find the differences (except the humor):

Tibors wrote:Active PFC doesn't influence efficiency in any way except that is uses a tiny bit of power for its circuitry.

Dan's Data wrote:Active PFC can iron out lousy power factor better (than Passive PFC), but it's less efficient, not more; an active PFC circuit will waste some power (at least 10%, in this case) as heat, just like every other circuit in the world. (...) the cost per year of this extra is unlikely to be more than you can find down the side of the couch.

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:04 am

Is that a yes?

jmatucd · Post by **jmatucd** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:10 am

Ah, yes, I'm also a prosective buyer.

With all the reports of malfunctions, I'm a bit hestitant to buy something this quite heavy when it comes to RMAing.

BTW, what type of increased ventilation is needed for the phantom. Just better airflow in a case or would a fan actually blowing on the psu be a good / practical idea?

Thanks

*edit: grammar

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:14 pm

I think that it is possible that the phantom would work best in a water cooled case that also has that million-holed look to it (Lian-Li) with one fan in it on 5 volts just to avoid stagnant air, like that puny 120 nexus fan at 5 volts, just something t flow the air around the case, not even exhausting necessarily.

Baker · Post by **Baker** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:12 pm

I've had my Phantom for about 2 months now, in this system:

Antec Phantom 350W
Antec SLK3000B
Asus A8V rev 2
AMD Athlon 3000+ @ ~2.25 GHz
Geforce 6800 GT OC'd to ~Ultra speeds
Samsung 160GB (decoupled with sorbothane)
Audigy2 ZS
Rear Fan: Stock Antec Tri-Cool @ low
Fan on HD: 120mm Nexus @ ~7v

With absolutely no problems, and it is only mildly warm to the touch. I am very happy with it so far.

Baker · Post by **Baker** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:14 pm

oh yeah, zalman 7700 ALCU @ ~3.5 volts on the CPU.

Approx. Temps:

Idle:
CPU: 31C
MB: 28C
HD: 30C

Full Utilization:
CPU: 47C
MB: 30C
HD: 32C

Cros · Post by **Cros** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:47 pm

I am one of the people who reported a broken Phantom in the poll thread. I've since gotten my replacement and it works like a charm. Putting my ear to it I can hear some coil humming, but it's very very low noise, so nothing to be worried about. As for increased ventilation: the phantom seems to be happy in a "normally" ventilated case.

As for Antec, they are very responsive when it comes to failures in the phantom, as you can see in the poll thread. I've got nothing but good to say about their customer support in this matter.

jmatucd · Post by **jmatucd** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:01 pm

oh ok, ill give the phantom a try... unless i get desperate and default to a tornado 400

hehe

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:00 pm

I placed an order for one just prior to finding the poll thread. In the very least, I'm confident that if I have any issues then Antec will step up with excellent customer service, and also that if a crash happens, I've at least got my Enermax as a back-up.

I'm going to hold off on actually voting until the initial month has gone by, as most of the noted failures have happened in the first 3 weeks after installation.

ky · Post by ky » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:21 pm

I'm planning on swapping in the Phantom 350 to my system consisting of:

* Swiftech Water Cooling
* 2 Athlon 2800+ MPs (water cooled)
* 2 7200.7s in RAID0 w/ HPT RAID card (extra waterblock on Smart Cooler 2002s)
* Asus V9999GE overclocked to Ultra levels (no waterblock, havent installed Swiftech bracket yet)
* Generic DVD-ROM
* WinTV PVR card
* Single 120mm front intake, Single 120mm side intake, Dual 120mm rear exhaust fans into radiator

To test the peak draw, I got a Kill-a-Watt and when gaming, it peaks around 250W but quickly goes back down to the 210-220W range. Haven't tried running 3DMark05 on it yet to see a real stress tested power draw.

Re-reading the Phantom review a few times, I think I should be okay as I'm coming nowhere near the 300W power draw that would be near the Phantom's limits.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:29 am

ky wrote:I'm planning on swapping in the Phantom 350 to my system consisting of:

* Swiftech Water Cooling
* 2 Athlon 2800+ MPs (water cooled)
* 2 7200.7s in RAID0 w/ HPT RAID card (extra waterblock on Smart Cooler 2002s)
* Asus V9999GE overclocked to Ultra levels (no waterblock, havent installed Swiftech bracket yet)
* Generic DVD-ROM
* WinTV PVR card
* Single 120mm front intake, Single 120mm side intake, Dual 120mm rear exhaust fans into radiator

To test the peak draw, I got a Kill-a-Watt and when gaming, it peaks around 250W but quickly goes back down to the 210-220W range. Haven't tried running 3DMark05 on it yet to see a real stress tested power draw.

Re-reading the Phantom review a few times, I think I should be okay as I'm coming nowhere near the 300W power draw that would be near the Phantom's limits.

Why would you want to run a fanless PSU when you're planning on having four 120mm fans in your system? Those four fans will drown out the noise of any decent quiet fan-cooled PSU such as a Seasonic SS400.

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 7:12 am

I'd like to take this opertunity why i would want a fanless psu.

Reason 1: It's one fan less, although i intend to have a few fans in the system. (92 and/or 120 mm)

Reason 2: No need to worry about a fan swap. (and thus voiding warranty)

Reason 3: The lack of availability of Seasonic PSU's

Post by **Rusty075** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 8:24 am

madman2003 wrote:Reason 1: It's one fan less, although i intend to have a few fans in the system. (92 and/or 120 mm)

With that many fans, having a fanned PSU isn't going to make your system any noisier. Adding a fanned PSU may actually make your system quieter, since you'll likely be able to run the other fans slower.

madman2003 wrote:Reason 2: No need to worry about a fan swap. (and thus voiding warranty)

With a good PSU, you probably wouldn't need a fan swap anyway.

madman2003 wrote:Reason 3: The lack of availability of Seasonic PSU's

The new Seasonics are becoming pretty widely available now.

We're not trying to talk you out of it..what you do with your money is your own issue, but given the price, and the fact that the rest of your system is going to be fanned, the Phantom seems like a less than ideal choice.

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 11:57 am

I have yet to see any of the consumer targetted Seasonic PSU's in the netherlands and i don't want to import one from the US.

I decided i probably won't use 80mm or smaller fans, since the most quiet 80mm fan is not on par with the most quiet 92mm or 120mm.(nexus)(that seems to be the common consensus here, correct me if i'm wrong)

If i could get a S12-430 in the netherlands i would consider it.

The choice of psu's that are considered reasonably-good are:

Antec Phantom
Enermax Noisetakers
Nexus 4090

The last two don't match the phantom's efficiency. (except at very low loads, they're actually a bit better then)

Another reason is that a (working) passively cooled psu has to be a good piece of technology. The antec phantom 350 has a good warrenty as far as i know. A passive psu is as good as it's going to get and will never need a fan swap.

I hope that clears up some things.

ky · Post by ky » Sat Mar 19, 2005 4:39 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:
ky wrote:I'm planning on swapping in the Phantom 350 to my system consisting of:

* Swiftech Water Cooling
* 2 Athlon 2800+ MPs (water cooled)
* 2 7200.7s in RAID0 w/ HPT RAID card (extra waterblock on Smart Cooler 2002s)
* Asus V9999GE overclocked to Ultra levels (no waterblock, havent installed Swiftech bracket yet)
* Generic DVD-ROM
* WinTV PVR card
* Single 120mm front intake, Single 120mm side intake, Dual 120mm rear exhaust fans into radiator

To test the peak draw, I got a Kill-a-Watt and when gaming, it peaks around 250W but quickly goes back down to the 210-220W range. Haven't tried running 3DMark05 on it yet to see a real stress tested power draw.

Re-reading the Phantom review a few times, I think I should be okay as I'm coming nowhere near the 300W power draw that would be near the Phantom's limits.
Why would you want to run a fanless PSU when you're planning on having four 120mm fans in your system? Those four fans will drown out the noise of any decent quiet fan-cooled PSU such as a Seasonic SS400.

1st, because it's an existing system, there's no "planning on having", it's already there

The existing PSU is fairly quiet, just trying to eliminate yet another source of noise.

2nd, the 4 120mm fans are quiet fans. The noisiest part of the system is the 6800 video card. If I was confident at the fill 'n bleed (never done it before), then I would add the GPU water block. I might replace the fan w/ a Zalman VF700 in silent mode instead.

Unfortunately, even w/ my Kill-a-Watt estimations, after swapping the Phantom in, the system will not power on. I can hear a very faint buzz, and then I see 200W on the Kill-a-Watt briefly, then nothing turns on. I will have to swap around the power cables depending on the components and try again a few times.

A question or two about the Phantom 350

A question or two about the Phantom 350

Re: A question or two about the Phantom 350

Re: A question or two about the Phantom 350