Quiet SFX PSU Advice

chrisloudon

Hi all,

I don't suppose anyone can recommend a VERY quiet SFX (non-L sized) PSU that's in or just over the 400w range?

I purchased a Silverstone Strider 600w SFX unit a month or so ago thinking the extra power headroom would keep it quiet but even at idle, the PSU fans want to ramp up to 100% and it makes a racket.

thanks in advance

Chris

EndlessWaves

Which case are you using? It sounds as if the PSU is either being heated up a lot by other components or there's a lot of extra turbulence being generated around the fan (typically because it's being pressed up against a fan grille on the case).

Although it must be at least some of the former for it to be turning on at idle. On an open bench Anandtech's review found the SX600-G fan didn't come on until 200W load.

I believe the Corsair SFX 450W is supposed to be fairly quiet, anandtech reckoned it was comfortable up to 250W in their hot case tests. I don't know if it's still using the stiff cables the initial corsair SFX models came with though, which aren't ideal for small cases.

chrisloudon

Hi mate, thanks for the reply.

Its in a Lian-Li PCO5x which is a pretty small case and stuffed with 5 x 3.5" HDDs plus a 2.5" SSD but even with the tempered glass top off, the PSU wants to start its fan pretty sharpish after booting up (< 5mins).

I even have the PSU mounted upside down to allow the PSU to breath because for some reason Lian Li didn't provide any exhaust / intake perforations on the PSU mounting surface leaving it flat up against a surface if left in its default position.

I checked what wattage requirements the build should draw using various websites with the maximum 438 watts on full load and since its just an HTPC playing back movies, the only thing under any stress is the GPU and while its only a GT1030 it seems to handle 4K HEVC 10bit HDR content just fine.

EndlessWaves

438W for 5 drives (3 or less 3.5") and a GT 1030? What sort of 38 core monster Xeon processor have you got in there? That estimate seems rather too high assuming the rest of the system is the sort of thing you'd typically use for an HTPC.

The Lian-li website shows the PSU mounted with the fan facing the glass, so I think you may have it the intended way up as it is.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like there should be a good couple of centimetres of clearance above the PSU fan so it's probably not generating extra turbulence. It's potentially sucking in some of the hot air from the exhaust though as there don't seem to be any vents above the PSU, which isn't helping with the temperature.

I think it's just a case of looking at those reviews that test models under hot conditions and seeing what they say about fan noise.

Video playback is done using the CPU and dedicated decoding circuits on the GPU (Quicksync/Purevideo/UVD & VCN) so the computing power of the main GPU isn't influential unless you want to do additional post-processing (MadVR etc.). Age rather than power is generally the important factor as to how capable a card is for video playback.