Under full load, the efficiency of 87.3% is the same as the Fortron unit, while at medium and lower loads, it is a mere 1% worse than its competitor.
The direct comparison using our fictional 250 watt system showed marginal differences, with the 87% output of the Silverstone Nightjar is again on a par. The biggest differences could be seen with our low power system. Here, the Silverstone converter performed at 71.5%, almost 5% below the Zen 400 unit.
Even in standby mode, the Silverstone unit couldn’t do any better. Without load, the power supply uses 2.57 watts, probably due to the LEDs and their controller. Even with load on the standby cable, the result is pretty unimpressive. The power supply draws almost 6 watts of power in order to make 2.5 watts of output available. The result is a marginal efficiency of 42.7%.
The Silverstone power supply is a fair bit more expensive, priced online around $200.
Know of many HTPC boards that need an 8-pin CPU connection? :\ I sure don't.
If you have found a fanless PSU thats safe to touch -- thats great. but if these things get to 40, 50, 60c - then we need to know not to buy them.
I am quite interested in getting a capable (above 400watt) PSU that doesn't require a fan, but I really need to keep an eye on the temperatures.
I have a fanless mb and vid card (3850 radeon), and would wonder if adding a fanless psu into the mix would jeopardise the system by reducing the air flow through the case. (after all I wouldn't get a fanless PSU if my other components were noisy to begin with!?)
Perhaps an article focused more on configuring a quiet computer (for the purpose of gaming) could be in order?
this is not true you shouldn't have any equipment in recording area except for microphones and the band, so the recording occurs next door on whatever medium you use. also if you want to have silent recording station then it's probably cheaper just getting a silent laptop which will have enough power to record multiple channels easily
it's nice to have a silent PSU but at this price and low wattage eeek
Not everyone has the luxury of spare room to store noisy recording equipment in and reason for storing it in another room is due to noise so how is that not true? Yeah you'd need fan less psu, cpu, and video card plus a SSD or two ideally as well, but if you were getting a fan less psu chances are you'd want the other things as well anyway.
I use 120mm fans from Scythe, a Scythe CPU heatsink, a Thermalright GPU heatsink with a 92mm SilenX fan and a fanless PSU. The hard drives are in Logisys drive silencers. All fans are controlled by a manual Zalman fan controller (you certainly don't want to run them at max). Case rattle has been eliminated with a judicious application of duct tape.
Even though it is basically completely silent, the machine is certainly no slouch.
They claimed that the PSU had to shut down due to overheat. That never happens when it is touchable temperature so under full load it is a paws off.
Also the efficiency numbers should give a fair indication what the temperature will be considering the loss becomes heat. I wouldn't go so far to say it is a pointless review. Its easy to tell from the info they give whether its too warm or not. Its just to read between the lines.
It's for them SLI HTPC's. Don't you know???