Which to get - Seasonic S12 380W or 430W?

dirtybobby · Post by **dirtybobby** » Thu May 24, 2007 3:26 am

hey people..

i'm fed up of my living room media PC sounding like it's about to take off thanks to the god-awful Antec Minuet case and PSU, so i'm going to chuck the innards in a new case in an attempt to silence it.. i've settled on the Silverstone LC17 for the case, so now i just need to decide on a PSU..

Seasonic S12s seem to get a lot of praise round here, so i've narrowed it down to one of them (unless anyone would suggested otherwise?).. would y'all recommend the 380W or 430W model?

i will not be requiring a lot of power - my single goal here is to minimise noise.. thing is, there is only a couple of quid difference between these two models, so i'm happy to spend that little bit extra if it makes sense to do so..

the guts of the PC are as follows:

Asus A8N-VM ÂµATX mobo with onboard sound & graphics
Athlon64 3200+ skt 939 with Zalman CNPS7000B-ALCU HSF
Kingston 512Mb DDR (single module)
Asus DVDÂ±RW DRW-1608P3S
Samsung SpinPoint 250Gb SATA HDD

as you can see, power is definitely not a big issue.. 380W would be more than enough, but i seem to recall reading a post here somewhere that suggested the 430W might be a more prudent choice as it is slightly quieter.. is this true, or is my memory playing tricks on me?

i notice that Scan is listing a new Seasonic S12-430 aPFC PSU Silent ATX2.0 *New Version RoHS* of the 430W variant.. is this a good or a bad thing? obviously, rohs compliancy makes absolutely no odds to me, but i'm wondering if any internal changes might affect the sound output?

so, in a nutshell: for the quietest machine possible, should i buy S12 380W or S12 430W?

thanks

edit: or, to throw another option into the melting pot, should i go with the S12 330W model? i'm sure 330W would be more than enough, but again noise level is my main consideration..

burebista · Post by **burebista** » Thu May 24, 2007 3:57 am

dirtybobby wrote: so, in a nutshell: for the quietest machine possible, should i buy S12 380W or S12 430W?

Silverstone Nightjar.

From your options S-12 330 should do the trick.

Atmosper · Post by **Atmosper** » Thu May 24, 2007 4:06 am

Buy the S-12 380 W. Cheaper than the 430 and quieter than the 330

anakintjc · Post by **anakintjc** » Thu May 24, 2007 10:45 am

Because i got the same question i thought it was no use to open another topic...

My hardware:

Athlon XP 2500 (Barton)
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Aopen Geforce TI 4200 (128 MB) (Passiv)
2 * 256 MB DDR (333Mhz)
80 GB MAXTOR
160 GB MAXTOR
NEC 2550 DVD-RW
AOPEN CD-RW 52X
120 mm casefan

Could you guys tell me how much Watt my system really uses?
(The extreme calc said 270 but ain't that too much for such a (old) system?)

Thanks!

btw: silence is the main concerne...

efcoins2 · Post by **efcoins2** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:21 am

Almost the same system as I have.
You will not use 270W, but 350W is about the lowest power PSU that anyone sells, so the actual power does not matter.

burebista · Post by **burebista** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:45 am

PCâ€™s actual power consumption.
Just to have an ideea.

cAPSLOCK · Post by **cAPSLOCK** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:32 am

dirtybobby wrote:i seem to recall reading a post here somewhere that suggested the 430W might be a more prudent choice as it is slightly quieter.. is this true, or is my memory playing tricks on me?

I think it was the 330w had smaller heatsinks than the 380 and 430 models, so it would supposedly be more noisy...

anakintjc · Post by **anakintjc** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:50 am

I guess my system will do between 220 and 250 watt...

Is the S12-380 going to make more noise than S12-430
(in my situation) ?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri May 25, 2007 5:33 am

Could you guys tell me how much Watt my system really uses?

more like 140W w/ everything going full tilt.

Is the S12-380 going to make more noise than S12-430
(in my situation) ?

they would be identical.

anakintjc · Post by **anakintjc** » Fri May 25, 2007 8:35 am

140 Watt, that low?

Hmm ok because i was a bit scared with those calculations

http://www.journeysystems.com/?powercalc

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/

They both gave +-270

I guess they take it a bit extreme

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri May 25, 2007 9:14 am

full breakdown:

Athlon XP 2500 (Barton) 68.3W
Asus A7N8X Deluxe 15W
Aopen Geforce TI 4200 (128 MB) (Passiv) 20W (?)
2 * 256 MB DDR (333Mhz) 2W
80 GB MAXTOR 10W (more @ spin-up)
160 GB MAXTOR 10W (more @ spin-up)
NEC 2550 DVD-RW 20W (burning), 0W (idle)
AOPEN CD-RW 52X 20W (burning), 0W (idle)
120 mm casefan 1W

so a theoretical maximum of 166.3W (unlikely to ever see in reality).

Which to get - Seasonic S12 380W or 430W?

Which to get - Seasonic S12 380W or 430W?

Re: Which to get - Seasonic S12 380W or 430W?

Re: Which to get - Seasonic S12 380W or 430W?