Fanless power supply?!

[yuppicide]

Has anyone ever tried those new fanless power supplies?! I'm getting a new case and am installing some 120mm fans, as well as some 80mm fans. I'm gonna get all the Vantec Stealth series most likely (unless you can find me one with as much or higher CFM with less dB). The case holds 10 fans total, so you can imagine why I'd want to cut noise wherever I can.

If I can't find any good reviews online I'll just stick with the power supply I have now. A Raidmax 500 watt. I love it. I had researched awhile to find it. It's one of their older models apparantly, because the ones on their website don't look like this anymore. The whole power supply looks like a heatsink.

 

[jihiggs]

if you have 10 fans and your looking to cut noise by getting a fanless psu you need your head examined.

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[Crashman]

Are you sure it's even a decent power supply? Is your "500W" unit even capable of outputing 250W for more than a few months at a time?

I've seen PowMax power supplies with the same type of housing, and PowMax is the worst maker out there. And many cheap brands use their power supplies and relable them.

I'm not familiar with RaidMax, but I can tell you this much: Most of today's high end systems are using around 200W continously, and only need "huge" power supplies for short burst of power, such as when the unit is turned on.

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[poly4life]

If you need 10 case fans, as opposed to having a case that can hold 10 case fans, then noise shouldn't be a concern. The Server Farm room at my job is LOUD, but this is necessary with all the high-end equipment. Unless your running a high-end server or something like that, I don't recommend powering 10 case fans if your concern is minimial noise first, maximum performance second.

At one time, I tried this blue RAIDMAX 500W PSU out. It was decent, since many consumer systems don't even approach the power requirements that a quality 500W PSU would provide. But it wasn't tight as, say, a Fortron or Enermax PSU. Personally, I don't recommend the PSU but that's your business.

 

[jammydodger]

How much did your power supply cost? Because the only passivly cooled power supply I have found is 300w and costs £129!
Just get a zalman power supply for gods sake, if you have got 10fans already 1more 18db will make no difference in sound!

 

[yuppicide]

Well, first of all.. the case comes stock with cutouts for 10 fans. 6 of them are 120mm and 4 of them are 80mm I think. I'm going to put all Vantec Stealth series in there.. they're quiet. Here's the case I am getting if you want to see:

http://www.xoxide.com/ufo.html

Second, the power supply with no fans is the "CoolMaxx". It comes in 480 watt and 410 watt that I see. It got decent reviews when I looked around the net and only added 1-3 degrees of extra heat. It has holes all around it and I forget heatsinks all over inside. I forget what else it said.

Third, here's a picture of the Raidmax power supply I own: http://www.thetechlounge.com/image.php?img_url=http://www.thetechlounge.com/reviews/raidmax/images/05.jpg -- might not be my exact model, but that's what it looks like. It's 500 watts. I used to have Vantec Tornado fans installed.. one on the CPU and two or three in the case. Also had fans on all the hard drives.. in total I had about 10 fans. Along with the DVD burner, floppy drive, video card, etc. My old 300 watt power supply couldn't handle everything, so I upgraded to 350 watt.. still couldn't handle it all so I just went for 500.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by yuppicide on 07/20/04 00:03 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Obtuse]

Thermaltake apparently now makes a fanless psu also. Although I have to second the rest of the board when I say if you are running that many fans, no matter how quiet, making the psu fanless is not going to make a whole lot of difference.

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