Phantom 500, zen 400, or seasonic s12+ - advice for newbie?

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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cjepple
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Phantom 500, zen 400, or seasonic s12+ - advice for newbie?

Post by cjepple » Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:08 pm

Hi Folks - what a great site, tons of info - wish I found it before my latest build! My current PSU is louder than I had hoped, so am looking for a replacement. My system is a p180 case, Asus P5k Dlx, e6600, evga 8800gtx, and single 7200rpm HD. Two Noctua NF-S12 exhaust fans, and an 80mm below the GFX. MB and processor temps are good, and GFX normally stays below 75DegC, unless I fire up Flight Sim X. The PSU is a Aerocool Zerodba. Nice supply, but fan eventually tuns on and stays on after 10 minutes or so. Doesn't really matter much which switch position I use, that only delays the turn on. The exhaust out of the PSU is barely above ambient, so I'm a bit surprised the fan needs to come on at all.

Anyway, It's certainly not "zerodba", so I'd like to replace it with the Zen 400, or Phantom 500. Read a bunch of posts that helped, and yet clouded the decision. The EVGA website recommends a minimum 450W PSU with 28Amps available on the 12V. this would normally preclude the use of the Zen400 because of the 400W rating (12V is something like 31.5, I think), but much of the info here talks about quit potent systems running with lightly rated supplies, and the measurements support that. The Antec webiste has a calculator, which for my system comes out to 343W.

Not much info about the Zen400, and mixed reviews on the Phantom500 - sounds like many have had problems. I'd like to try the Zen400, but am a little concerned about the power rating being sufficient for my system, but the Phantom is fine, too. My cooling strategy is very similar to "superquiet Superclock" article found on this website (and uses the Phantom500), which was an excellent study in cooling.

If neither is a good option, I could go with the Seasonic on the recommended list, and that would be fine as well. I can also augment the PSU (and HD) cooling in the bottom p180 chamber if needed. It didn't seem to help the Zerodba.

Any comments would be well appreciated. Thanks, and I apologize for the long post. - CJE

derekchinese
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Post by derekchinese » Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:35 pm

hmm, have u tried flipping the PSU upside down? with the fan pushing air downwards as opposed to upwards. This could help a lot with heat disspipation and is also easy to do in the p180.

If this does not help, then I would suggest the corsair 520 or 620hx. These are built by seasonic and known to be some of the quietest psu's on the market. I would not suggest the phantom because they don't have a good reputation for reliablity.

Derek

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Jul 01, 2007 4:30 am

Antec PSUs seem to be great, but only when they work, which seems to be a 50% rate for rev.1 and 75% for rev.2 and so on... I wouldn't spend my money on one right now, as there are better alternatives.

The Zen is an interesting alternative, being totally silent with no active cooling. I'm willing to bet on it being an able workhorse for your machine too, as there's just basically the card to worry about. What I would be worried about, though, is not having an immediate active exhaust next to the PSU, as there would be in a standard ATX arrangement. The Zen doesn't sound too good a choice for the P18x series, even with an additional fan blowing onto it, as the exhaust in the bottom chamber relies solely on the PSU. With PC cooling it's pretty established that exhaust comes first, intake being a plus.

I'd definitely pick the Corsair 520 myself, or a Seasonic Energy+ if you didn't need the modular cabling. An old S12 would be fine too, but stay away from the new S12II series -- the fan is medium-speed, unlike in the low-speed old series.

cjepple
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Post by cjepple » Sun Jul 01, 2007 7:06 am

I haven't tried flipping the PSU upside down, though I I've seen it done in an article. I'll give it a try since it's easy enough. If that doesn't get the job done, I'll probably go with both your recommendation of the Corsair 520. I agree about the Phantom - way too many reliability/QC complaints to take that chance.

The Zen does sound interesting to me, but agree that w/o a fan, there is just no place for that heat to in that case, and if I could fan it enough to keep the temps reasonable, I might as well just get a quiet PSU with the fan already in it. Sounds the way to go.

Thanks guys, that's great info. - Chris

theMAGE
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Just a reference point

Post by theMAGE » Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:54 am

I had a Phantom 500 in my P180 for a year and a half, and this week it died, oozing a few drops of something oily. A couple of years ago I had another Antec PSU die.

I have 4 Antec cases and I like them all. I am not that impressed with their PSUs so far: 100% failure rate within two years (with a sample of 2 units). I have two more NEO 430 in the new NSK2440 that I put in use half a year ago and I'll see how they behave in the long run.

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Jul 01, 2007 12:20 pm

You're welcome, it's my pleasure sharing what I know. Wish someone could've directed me away from the S12IIs though. :D

And thanks for adding to the evidence theMAGE. Antec does indeed make good cases, but the PSUs just aren't up to par yet.

cmthomson
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Post by cmthomson » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:59 pm

cjepple wrote:... about the Phantom - way too many reliability/QC complaints to take that chance.

The Zen does sound interesting to me, but agree that w/o a fan, there is just no place for that heat to in that case, and if I could fan it enough to keep the temps reasonable, I might as well just get a quiet PSU with the fan already in it. Sounds the way to go.
My first P500 died almost immediately (the standby 5V rail croaked), but its replacement has worked flawlessly for several years. I haven't seen any complaints of new ones failing for well over a year now, so it seems likely that Antec has found and fixed the problems. After all, RMAs are very expensive...

As for the Zen, I have no personal experience, but have seen no complaints.

In a P180, the Zen (and Phantom too) would indeed need a fan in the lower chamber. That is fine: if you put the disks down there and stick a seriously undervolted Nexus in the center of the lower chamber, you can cool both the disks and the power supply at less than 500 RPM (silent from more than a few inches).

alleycat8675309
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Post by alleycat8675309 » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:55 pm

I recently purchased a Zen 400 for my HTPC in a Silverstone LC17 case. I've had it for 2 weeks and everything is working fine. No noise that I can hear from the psu not counting the other fans.

Also I have a Antec Neo 430 that I've had for about a year now in a Antec P150 case. No problems and very quiet.

Lastly I have another system with a Corsair 520 that I had for 6 months in a Antec Solo case. Again very quiet, more so than the Antec Neo 430.

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Post by ryboto » Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:57 pm

If you look at the newegg page for the Zen 400, it has a peak output of 560W. Even if you completely load the system you have, I don't think you'll draw enough to max out this unit(I own one). I don't think I've ever seen a review of an 8800gtx system drawing much more than 300W, at least not C2D stock systems. Overclocked, or Quad-core is a different story.

cjepple
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Post by cjepple » Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:00 am

Just an update here. I thought I'd at least give the Zen400 a try. If it works, great. Otherwise, I'll get one of the recommended PSUs. I installed it last night with a Nexus fan in the lower chamber, running about 600rpm. I placed some foam in key spots so the air from the fan could only blow though the PSU, or over the PSU heatsink and out of the case. Powered the system on, and had no problems booting or running at stock speeds. I ran fsx for about an hour to stress the system a bit, and had no problems whatsoever. The air coming out of the back of the PSU was only very slightly warm. I removed a side panel and checked the PSU heatsink with my hand. Warm to the touch, but not obnoxiously hot. Sort of subjective, I know, but it wasn't concerning. I cannot hear the Nexus fan, and it does have the added bonus to run a little bit of air across the HD bay.

So far, I'm very happy with the PSU in my system. No buzzing, no fan noise, and so far appears to be able to supply my system with enough stable power. Ok, so I couldn't resist just a bit of overclocking on the CPU, so I set it up to run at 3.2Ghz. This also seemed to work fine with several hours of FSX play. I haven't run an overnight stability test in this config, so I'll see how that goes.

With a few more weeks of runtime, I'd recommend this PSU if it hangs in there. The only problem I ran into was that the 4 pin 12V EATX cable was too short for my case/MB combination, and the PCI-E power cable is only a single 6 pin. The 8800GTX needs dual 6 pin, so after purchasing a couple of adapters, I was in business.

s_xero
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Post by s_xero » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:29 pm

I've got some experience with my Seasonic S12-430.. pretty guiet. But it can be done better:

Use passive with a unbelievably slow fan, or you could hang a passive a bit OUT of the casing (Bluefront, with the positive pressure-setups has experimented a lot with it).
The Zen with mesh upwards is superb for that method!!

I find my actively cooled a tad too loud. I'm guessing about a small resistor or fan swap.

Mari0-Br0s
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Post by Mari0-Br0s » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:09 am

Hi,

I own a Phantom 500 and a Zen 300 in two different computers. I need to say that I prefer the Zen over my Phantom. But at the tme I purchased the Phantom, there was no version 400W of the Zen.

The Zen is quieter, since the Phantom is Hybrid and become quite hot after some time.

Also, please note that the Zen has this problem -> viewtopic.php?t=30289 . The 300W version sure has it, I do not know about the 400W version.

Hope this helped you a little.

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