Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

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

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samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:22 am

I haven't owned a retail Seasonic, but did own a Corsair HX520 for a while which was very quiet, but did suffer some vibration that became obvious due to the very low noise level of the system it was housed in, and a lightweight aluminium casing. Interestingly the CX430 in that case now does not suffer the same issue, and is to all intents and purposes inaudible. Somehow the old stone-age Seagate mechanical disk in there doesn't vibrate much even though that case used to be prone to it (especially with Samsungs) - the seek noise is hideous but because the drive isn't used that often it's livable. It'll probably end up being switched out for a large SSD when I can justify the expense. As a LAN party PC, it doesn't really need a lot of money spent on things I won't see the benefit of when at home.

Anyway back to the server, if I were to buy a Seasonic for this one, what would you recommend? The X-650 looks lovely, but not spending £150 on a PSU for a PC that barely needs half that much wattage :)

Abula
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by Abula » Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:32 am

If you can wait a little time to go in stock this is what i would pick Seasonic P660 660W 80+ Platinum Certified PSU with Full Modular Jap Caps and DBB Fan £125.99 & FREE Delivery in the UK. But compared to the Corsair CP-9020054-UK RM Series RM650 80 Plus Gold 650W ATX/EPS Fully Modular Power Supply Unit £79.99 & FREE Delivery in the UK is almost £45 more expensive.... weather its worth the platinum cert and better inside components... its only up to you and your wallet, and remember there are some users here in the forums that had bad luck with Sesonic into coil whinning, this is something that can happen to any PSU, but seems more reported on seasonics platinum, that said, i own two SS860XP2 and they are totally silent under two different setups, and couple of gold series and also perfect.

samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:43 am

It is a little spendy, I'm just thinking, is there not a 500-550W equivalent to either of those units?

Abula
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by Abula » Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:54 am

samuelmorris wrote:It is a little spendy, I'm just thinking, is there not a 500-550W equivalent to either of those units?
Seasonic Platinum only goes to 660, on gold there was the X560 that was also a superb psu, but i believe it has been discontinued.

Now Seasonic does offer other series, like G series and S12, neither will be semi passive, these are psu that will have the fan on all the time and will increase depending on the load/temperature. Personally i have built a couple of setups for friends with Seasonic G550 and to me they were pretty good and quiet, but to some they are not, and do think there are better options for the that range, specially like the RM series. I also seen good comments about the Be Quiet Straight Power E9 600W PSU £85.97 & FREE Delivery in the UK, but its hard for me to consider bequiet as very few places that i buy sells them.
Last edited by Abula on Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:02 am, edited 2 times in total.

CA_Steve
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:57 am

One point about power measurements...are you measuring it with a Kill-a-Watt or similar on the AC side or something on the DC side?

If it's a Kill-a-Watt, then:
- I think it's an averaged reading over a short interval (less than the display refresh)..so the instantaneous power could be much higher than displayed.
- Your averaged DC power is also less than the reading by the efficiency of the PSU.

The 2A, 3A kind of numbers per drive represent the initial instantaneous current draw the PSU load cap(s) will see as the motor starts it's spin up. Unless you have a digital scope with storage (or similar) monitoring the 12V line current, then it's better to trust the recommendation.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:20 am

samuelmorris wrote:Definitely need to sort this at the start of next week though, could hardly sleep through the racket it was making last night :D

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but IMVHO there isn't that much to sort out: pick your priorities and just shelling out as much as you will (I mean, 60 pounds, 70 pounds, 80 pounds, 90 pounds, 100 pounds, not to mention 125/150Gbp: even if likely nearby, they are all different amounts, so pick your sum a go ahead).

samuelmorris wrote:Interestingly the CX430 in that case now does not suffer the same issue, and is to all intents and purposes inaudible

The latest iteration of the CX430 is very quiet, extremely quiet for the asking price. There are similar noise profile in their (low end) CS-M series.

samuelmorris wrote:It is a little spendy, I'm just thinking, is there not a 500-550W equivalent to either of those units?

AFAIK no, but the fanless 520W is 115@SCAN (you can spare slightly on its Silverstone Twin, the NJ520).

lodestar
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by lodestar » Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:24 am

samuelmorris wrote:It is a little spendy, I'm just thinking...
To keep down costs you could consider a deal currently available from Scan. This is the Corsair AX750 Gold 750W for £74, the price reflects that it is factory refurbished. It is closely based on the Seasonic Gold units. (I think it was manufactured by Seasonic to Corsair specs, the build quality is just as good but there are differences such as flat ribbon type cables).

quest_for_silence
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:32 am

lodestar wrote:
samuelmorris wrote:the price reflects that it is factory refurbished.

The price is great, the PSU was wonderful, but given the state, is it safe to buy it, according to you?

lodestar
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by lodestar » Sat Sep 06, 2014 8:41 am

It's an option to get a better PSU for less money. The risk is probably related to the quality of the unit concerned. Incidentally Scan seem to be something of a specialist in factory refurbished PC parts. Their current list includes AIO PSU coolers such as the Corsair H100i and a range of graphics cards from EVGA. The best seller seems to be the Corsair HX650 650W Gold Hybrid Modular Power Supply for £51. This normally sells for around £90.

samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:14 am

CA_Steve: Point well raised, yes it's basically the UK version of the Kill-a-Watt measuring AC draw.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but is it not the actual process of spooling up the disk platters to the 5400rpm speed that prompts the highest draw, instead of the buzz routine? If that is the case, the drives should take long enough to spin up to get an accurate reading.
Having tested switching high-current devices on the kil-a-watt it only takes a couple of seconds to stabilise a reading, and WD green drives (by spec, and also listening closely) take around 7 seconds to spin up. I was seeing several fairly consistent readings come out before the power usage dropped as the disks were up to speed.

I have considered the efficiency of the PSU into the equation with regard to the figures I posted.


quest_for_silence: It was a 'V2' unit purchased in late 2012, looks identical to the packaging CX units are sold with now, certainly not one of the original black/white CX units.
Looks like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139026

lodestar: Thanks for the list, but I'm not touching a factory refurbished PSU for a system that's going to be running 24/7, often when the house is empty :)

At the moment I'm still leaning towards the Corsair RM550. I'm just hoping that in practical use it will stay pretty quiet. Given the rest of the system it's unnecessary to attain the stellar 11dB noise level this Nexus had from new, but sub-20dB is a must, if I'm spending even £90, let alone more.

Thanks for the opinions.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:11 pm

samuelmorris wrote:sub-20dB is a must, if I'm spending even £90, let alone more

IMO the RM550 for £90 doesn't worth that much (well, even for 80: http://www.alternate.co.uk/Enermax/Plat ... ct/960124?).
Last edited by quest_for_silence on Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:12 pm

Sorry, can you clarify 'doesn't worth that much' for me? Is that good or bad? :)

quest_for_silence
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:15 pm

samuelmorris wrote:Sorry, can you clarify 'doesn't worth that much' for me? Is that good or bad? :)
It's too much expensive at 90.

samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:16 pm

OK, that's what I thought you meant, and that was my thought as well - but if I'm not going to find anything better for that money, or something equivalent for less money, then what of it?

lodestar
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by lodestar » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:24 pm

If you're happy with the Corsair RM series the current prices from Scan at Bolton are

550W £79.86
650W £79.98
750W £89.70

So at less than £10 more than the 550 the 750W is probably optimum value.

In terms of the spec quoted by Corsair the max combined 12V output figures are

550W 45.8A
650W 54A
750W 62.5A

samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:27 pm

Sorry, I meant £80 for the RM650 - not so bad I suppose, is £79.99 on there so I'll probably try and amazon locker it. Saves me having to use bybox, which is a little less convenient.

Abula
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by Abula » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:43 pm

The 550 cost the same as the 650, so i would go with 650, and the 750 is like 8 more in amazon, so either of those two seem decent options, whatever you like. As quest posted, this are made by different OEM, so up to you which is your preference.

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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by MikeC » Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:32 pm

samuelmorris wrote:CA_Steve: Point well raised, yes it's basically the UK version of the Kill-a-Watt measuring AC draw.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but is it not the actual process of spooling up the disk platters to the 5400rpm speed that prompts the highest draw, instead of the buzz routine? If that is the case, the drives should take long enough to spin up to get an accurate reading.
Having tested switching high-current devices on the kil-a-watt it only takes a couple of seconds to stabilise a reading, and WD green drives (by spec, and also listening closely) take around 7 seconds to spin up. I was seeing several fairly consistent readings come out before the power usage dropped as the disks were up to speed.
Yes, spin-up current can easily push power draw to 3x the typical/seek level, but only for well under a second. I think it's the initial torque required to accelerate the platters to full speed, so drives with more platters will pull more power. It's not clear how high peak power of this nature would impact PSU logevity; certainly good ones will easily handle more than rated power for such short durations, but what's the impact of thousands of such overloads? OTOH, yours will be a 24/7 machine, so fewer startups, which makes it a trivial issue.

Here's an older HDD article that's quite thorough -- though the drives are more efficient now, I doubt startup peak power has changed that much.
"the main load certainly falls on the +12 V line, where peak currents (average for tenths of a second) reach 1.5-2 A"

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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:48 pm

hrm...looks like my earlier reply didn't post. if you had a storage scope hooked up to an HDD's 12V line, you'd see a spike of current at initial turn-on, then a lower level as the drive spins up to speed, then a lower level after it gets to speed. The Kill-a-Watt's too slow to measure the first, but can measure the latter. In any case, going with a 500W+ class PSU should cover it.

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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Sep 06, 2014 2:06 pm

samuelmorris wrote:but if I'm not going to find anything better for that money, or something equivalent for less money, then what of it?
Please, don't get me wrong, the RM-series is a fine, no-hassle choice, and I've already gave you my input about it, for what it worths (either the RM550 or the RM750).

While, if you ask me which PSU I would personally pick, then (set aside any issue about HDD & staggered spin-up, or not) there are some:

a) expected quieter units:

b) expected better units: Some of the mentioned units overlap, and probably I'm missing some other else, but probably it doesn't matter as the above lists are just for the sake of talking.


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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Sep 07, 2014 6:13 am


The 750W is overpowered without being quiet (the 550 and above all the 450 are much quieter).

samuelmorris
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Re: Suitable replacement for NX-5000 R3

Post by samuelmorris » Sun Sep 07, 2014 5:06 pm

Understood, thanks for the insight. I did consider a Seasonic X-650 off Scan for £106, but as it's looking like this may not be my only expense this month, I think I'm going to go with the RM650 for £80. If it turns out too noisy I can always replace it with something else later down the line and stick this in something else, but I'm thinking it should probably be fine.
Will order tomorrow and hopefully get it installed by Tuesday night - the noise out of the Nexus is pretty horrendous now and I want it over and done with.

Thanks for the advice :)

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