Need a quiet & cheap PSU ~400w

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

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gcwebbyuk
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Need a quiet & cheap PSU ~400w

Post by gcwebbyuk » Wed Jun 23, 2010 6:31 am

I am putting together a cheap file server for home and have purchased a MB/RAM/CPU and am fitting my old hard disks to it, all built into my old Coolermaster Elite case.

However the PSU that I had acquired from work, which mentioned silent on it (I know - that means nothing!) - is far from silent!

I therefore need a cheapish PSU that will power a couple of hard disks / DVD drive and an AMD X2 3800.

I have found: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/400W-Cor ... r-warranty

In my main build I have a corsair HX620W which is nice and quiet. WOuld the one above be a similar "loudness"?

Scoop
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Post by Scoop » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:03 am

How much more obvious could the answer be? Nexus Value 430.

frostedflakes
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Post by frostedflakes » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:10 am

Have you considered swapping the fan on the PSU you already have?

Anyway, SPCR reviewed the CX400W and it's reasonably quiet at low load. Past about 150w, though, the fan ramped up fast. Keep in mind, though, that this was in the hot box. If you're using it in a case with a separate PSU chamber or some other means to prevent the PSU from sucking in hot air from the system, it shouldn't ramp up quite as fast.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1008-page5.html

For comparison, here are the noise measurements from the HX620W that you're currently using. It's slightly louder than the CX400W at low load, but the fan doesn't ramp up nearly as quickly.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article692-page4.html

grizzly
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Post by grizzly » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:13 am

Scoop wrote:How much more obvious could the answer be? Nexus Value 430.
I'm thinking on buying that PSU as well.

Do you think it can power a non-OCd (well, maybe I'll play with it, but only a little) Phenom II X4 955 + 1 hdd, 1 ssd, + Sapphire Vapor-X 5850 ?

doveman
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Post by doveman » Wed Jun 23, 2010 9:15 am

I should think so. I'm currently running a Nexus Value 430 powering an overclocked X3 720, 3 fans (including the CPU one), 2 HD, 2 Optical Drives (although I've never used them both at the same time), and I'm planning on putting a 5850 in when I can afford one.

I did some calculations when I built the system so I'm pretty sure I've got enough leeway. The Nexus fan will obviously ramp up if I'm doing heavy gaming as the load will be approaching it's limit, but that won't bother me as I won't be able to hear it over the game.

I just checked again with http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and the CPU and 4GB DDR2 RAM get's a recommendation of 170/200W (X4 630/X4 955) and the 5850 pushes that up about 100W so you've got 300W. Even with a couple of HDs, a DVD-RW and a Blu-ray drive, plus a couple of fans, the recommendation only gets to 415W and that's overly cautious (the minimum given is 365W).

I recently bought another Nexus Value 430 but sent it back as there was a slight but annoying ticking from the fan. Probably couldn't hear it from 1m, but knowing it was there and that it might get worse I thought it best to return it. The supplier agreed that it was faulty, so check the fan carefully when you get it.

I do get annoyed by all this mesh sleeving on the cables though. It makes it impossible for me to tuck the cables away behind the motherboard or in any little cubby holes my case might have :evil:

gcwebbyuk
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Post by gcwebbyuk » Wed Jun 23, 2010 4:51 pm

My Phenom 965 / 8GB RAM / 5770 / 2 x 1TB drives / 1 x SSD / 1 DVD / 5 fans - draws 100w at idle, 200w during usual Office apps / 300w gaming, as per a simple power monitor in the plug socket. In fact writing this with Outlook and Media Monkey playing it is drawing 101.8w 0.43 amp?.

I ordered the Corsair as it was £32 rather than £62 for the Nexus Value-430.

It will be in a mail server now, so will just be ticking along and hardly drawing any load. Keeping my files saved on my main machine.

For reference, the damned PSU in the machine is a WinPower 450w 8cm fan (box quote "POWERFUL & EXTREMELY SILENCE" :shock:

gcwebbyuk
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Location: East Sussex (UK)

Post by gcwebbyuk » Thu Jun 24, 2010 1:44 am

Corsair arrived today, and so far during the install of SBS2003 I can't even hear it - so all seems good to me!

I am running the CPU with my old Zalman CNPS10x Flex cooler with no fans attached. The only fan in the system is a Phobya G-Silent 12 1500rpm Red LED fan which I won in a competition. It is silent at low rpm but gets noisy when sped up, it is controlled via the PWM onboard and I will probably use speedfan to keep control of this. I am using it as the exhaust fan at the rear of the case, so very close to the Zalman. The PSU 120mm fan is directly above the Zalman too, so sucking air out that way as well.

Hard drive is a 5400rpm laptop drive, so quiet too.

Will add pics to the gallery when complete.

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