As the owner of a SeaSonic Prime Ultra Titanium 650W (albeit with a fan), I'm not surprised by the performance covered in this review. It matches up with the reviews of SeaSonic's models I read prior to buying this PSU.
The question does indeed seem to be why someone would buy this PSU in preference to SeaSonic's. The lesser warranty doesn't help that equation, and the SilverStone seems to be a little more expensive. Perhaps SilverStone has wider distribution channels and that's their plan? I'd be curious if there's any other reason to prefer the SilverStone.
Not that it really matters to me - my SeaSonic is under warranty until 2030, so I probably won't be in the PSU market for a few years.
This is like reading hybrid SUV reviews that confirms industry-leading fuel mileage, and commenting “as an owner of a pickup truck, why would someone buy one of these?”
If you don’t need a silent PSU, you don’t need a silent PSU. There’s also the advantage of not having a fan built inside a PSU (which laypeople should NEVER open up, for safety reasons) as a potential point of failure. It’s easier and cheaper to manage the airflow in your HTPC, including replacing noisy or failing fans, if they aren’t built into your PSU…
Seasonic makes a completely fanless competitor, the SeaSonic Prime Fanless TX-700 so your analogy is a little off base IMO. In fact it is the same exact PSU for $26 less and it has a 12 year warranty instead of the 5 year warranty on the Silverstone. If I needed a fanless 700 watt PSU I know where my money is going to go. I tend to only buy PSU's made by Seasonic as IMO there are is nothing better so either way a great PSU.
Actually Seasonic as an OEM does not offer warranty longer than 3 years no matter how much anyone is willing to pay. So its own retail division offering 12 year warranty is more or less a marketing cost, it doesn't mean the PSU will last any longer.
I don't have 12 years experience with seasonic yet, but the 5 years of using them in gaming-rigs and servers without any issues, make me suspect that they probably will endure. Also - knowing that a key factor to semiconductor (and Cap's) lifespan is heat - Less heat = longer life, it make sense that they can last longer in platinum series. And finally - what company would offer 12 years of warrenty on a product expected to die within say 7 years. I trust that seasonic engineers know what they are doing, and apparently company exec's do so too. ;)
All PSU manufacturers we work with including ourselves engineer power supplies to last the life of typical PCs. Other than design / production or bad batch from key components, most PSUs will be able to achieve that goal. With that said, even the best PSUs will not be 100% defect-free so that's what the warranty will hopefully cover. We are not saying that Seasonic or any other brands' PSU will not last up to 10 or 12 years. What we are trying to convey is that warranty length is not an indication of a PSU's service life or quality over models with shorter warranty. It is simply a marketing add-on by the brand's retail department when warranty offered is longer than industry standard 2-3 years. We have asked Seasonic to provide more than 3 year warranty to us and offered to pay more, but they refused.
You are talking about commercial equipment not consumer stuff. Sure commercial stuff is made to last as money spent up front will keep costs down later down the road. No need for a long warranty on such products as the people involved know a warranty in itself does not make a product better. Now on consumer grade PSU's its a different story. A long warranty from a long standing company tells the consumer the manufacture more than likely did not cut corners and are selling a quality product. Yes as you say quality PSU's can last 10 years or more but for a consumer what is the measure of a quality PSU? Low end PSU's tend to fail sooner than later as most if not all a made by crap OEM's. Many crap PSU's are sold for high dollar even though they are crap. I have replaced a pile of them over the years for friends and relatives. PSU's are the number one failure point in consumer PC's or close to it. It used to be about equal between PSU's, optical drives and mother board caps back in the day. Even some big names sell crap PSU's. Look at the Gigabyte GP-P750GM fiasco. Many PSU failures wipe out other parts. When this happens the only safe thing to do is start from scratch which costs money. Nope I'd rather spend the money on the front end and buy Seasonic or made by Seasonic PSU's. My main rig is over 7 years old and the Seasonic built Corsair AX750 is still solid as a rock. It's too bad Corsair no longer uses Seasonic as a OEM as far as I know. I'm in the process of building a new PC and you can bet it's going to be Seasonic powered. The old PC will be handed down to replace the Q6600 rig I built in 2008 that is also Seasonic powered, so 13 years and counting.
What dubya said. I already knew about SeaSonic's direct competitor, and the conclusion of the article mentions it as well, so if you'd read the article you would have also been aware of it. Just because I decided to buy the less expensive fan model doesn't mean I hadn't done research on the fanless one.
It's possible this is an optimization of the Seasonic design. I don't remember the Seasonic fanless ever being more efficient at 115V? Or hitting 96% at 115V - that might be a record for ATX.
The choice seems fairly black and white to me too, unless you want SeaSonic's black and red 850W model; with advanced fan control - no harm in having a slow fan in the power supply to create a draft in a clearly useful direction, rather than relying on faster case fan speeds to guarantee that the flow through the power supply is above the minimum requirements.
Looks like the tuning we did to improve standby efficiency and reduced electrical noise/whine helped to make it perform a little better overall according to latest test result by TechPowerUp: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/seasonic-prime-...
Somewhat surprised Seasonic didn't bother to implement the changes made to our Nightjar NJ700 into their own retail version.
Quieter is better, and a passive design admirable - but the PSU adds little to the overall noise of my system. The fact that it can even be managed passively should tell you something. Case fans and CPU / GPU cooling contribute much more and I think always will.
‘the PSU adds little to the overall noise of my system’
That’s one data point and we don’t know about all the variables. Your system could use Delta industrial fans at full tilt to cool its components or a recent Atom motherboard.
Impressive. I have a media center computer that has plenty of airflow around it that I'm trying to quiet down. It uses ~250-300W at "full power", I've always been using a 350-450W PSU in it, but this thing being most efficient at right around that power range seems very tempting.
‘This typically is not a concern for gamers, as the noise generated by the PC is often overshadowed by the speakers or headphones.’
Strongly disagree.
I’ve read this headphones claim many times but even the kind of noise-blockers sold in hardware stores let some noise through.
A game that is designed to use subtle environmental sounds to create ambiance is generally going to be undermined by fan noise, especially if it uses PWM.
Trying to bury noise with speakers makes even less sense.
One of the things I especially disliked about the CD-ROM era of consoles was all the noise the machine outputted. As someone who started with fanless cartridge-based gaming the idea of it not being important to have a quiet unit — even with bleep/bloop arcade stuff, is one experience doesn’t support.
Young people are getting hearing damage from using headphones in noisy environments. Blasting music can mask noise but there’s a price to pay.
Active noise cancelation fixes this, though there are times when being environmentally unaware is a liability.
Practically, I just find it quite hard to build a 700w system under 25db. Even water pumps and most radiator fans break that if loaded. Most those top PSUs with fans sit around low 20s dB at full load, and the noise is low frequency so very easy for ANC to deal with.
Citation please for the noise cancellation claim. If that’s true then the LRAD can be easily defeated by people wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
I also think the claim that the total system noise is determined solely by whatever component produces the most noise is false. One 25 decibel fan is quiet. Five of them is louder. So, PSU noise can add to the sum.
Which claim? The low frequency knack is common knowledge and I figure anyone who's tried ANC would discover it. Wiki ANC and search for "active vs. passive."
I use ANC and barely hear the drone of 1500 rpm fans when my fully air cooled open case rig is loaded to >700 watts at the wall. Forget about hearing anything <1000 rpm with the -30 dB attenuation typical of low frequency ANC.
We're talking quiet office level sound of course. Idk if ANC can even be designed against an LRAD, where it's not even so much hearing damage as tissue injury from shock and cavitation.
If noise cancellation is as good as you claim then it’s going to save a lot of people’s hearing. A recent journal article I read about subway commuters developing hearing loss from too much ambient noise didn’t mention such headphones. Curious that the pro researchers would miss something if it’s that effective. The only time I’ve seem headphone use discussed in an ambient noise hearing loss context is in terms of headphones making the problem worse via people simply turning up the volume.
The pair of ‘noise-blocking’ headphones I tried had terrible hiss. PC Mag claims that that’s only seen in low-quality models but those were expensive Beats.
As someone who gets serious tinnitus flareups from computer fans (and possibly coil whine) I am certainly hopeful that this tech is the panacea you say it is.
Noise cancelation is already used in aviation headsets - realize it does cost something and sometimes a cheap pair of earplugs is more than sufficient. Those subway researchers didn't miss anything, they just wanted to point out the amount of noise. It's on subway riders to get earplugs or cheap passive headphones if they can't afford ANC, or learn to steady eardrums with a reverse valsalva. Typically 75dB is regarded as starting to cause hearing loss. That's 1000 times as intense as a somewhat noisy 45dB machine.
Decibels are simply a log base 10 scale. If you raise the intensity by 5x, that's a 7dB gain. So 5 35dB fans that don't attenuate each other, 42dB. Every 2x is 3dB, 4x is 6dB, hope you get the picture.
Sorry about your experience with Beats. Ive never tried them but wouldn't associate them with good value. Bose is generally the ANC standard. Apple's Airpods Pro and Max are also well regarded. I use a Max and though a hiss is impossible to negate entirely its kind of hard for me to even notice it. Unfortunately I do not know how the experience differs for someone with significant tinnitus (everyone has that ringing, it just varies to what degree).
So the comments about PSU sometimes adding insignificant noise are practically true. If the rest of system is already at 40dB when the PSU tops out at 29dB, they're not moving to 41dB. And all of this is nowhere close to causing hearing loss.
I can't find a Snow Silent review from AT, but I did find a rather competent one done in 2015 by Tom's, where it was found relatively quiet to 50% but measured 52dB 1m away at 80%+ load, which I suppose is audible from rooms away (it depends on the frequency distribution). Perhaps half the name was a misnomer.
Then in 2016 the same author reviewed a Prime Titanium 850W that stayed under 30dB until almost 800W. That's two orders of magnitude less sound energy.
The last PSU that I owned, that was audible at all under load, was an old diablotek power suppyl with two 80 MM fans. Most moderen 120mm PSUs run cool enough and quiet enough that absent a totally silent system will be inaudible.
Both the TX-700 (which the NJ700 is based on) and the NJ700 had problems with audible coil whine even while idling, which were much worse than higher wattage Seasonic semi-fanless units while running fanlessly. The issue with these 700W models appears to be the fact that the coil whine is very high pitched, so its quite audible from several feet away.
On higher wattage Seasonic units like the 850W or 1000W RMx series, there is coil whine but its much lower in frequency. Due to the Fletcher Munson effect, it sounds nearly inaudible, while the TX-700 and NJ700, as well as lower end 520W and 420W Nightjar models sound to me quite unbearably loud due to the high frequency nature of the whine.
I find it much cheaper to simply get a Corsair RMx unit and just mod the fan with a low noise Noctua fan.
Im only missing 2x EPS cable for some dual socket builds, 700W is enough for them.
I had fanless Seasonic and Silverstones, in the past.. My expecience is than Silverstone have better cooling, it worked in machine, where Seasonic with same Wattage was overheating.
You have this backwards, in most cases. In order to not draw in dust through the passively cooled PSU, the case must have positive pressurization, placing more audible (per same amount of noise) intake fans forward (and on top) in the case, assuming typical rear-out airflow pattern.
If someone cares about dust, they minimize its entry into the case instead, using filter media. You could strap a filter onto the PSU too, but this is someone already committed to using filters so would certainly filter other intake areas as well, so there would be minimum dust getting into the PC to enter the PSU, in the situation of a fan cooled PSU.
Further, not having to rely on the case intake fans to passively cool the PSU, means they can run at lower RPM so these more audible fans (per amount of noise created) are creating less noise.
I don't even understand your post. If cleaning is so complex because you didn't design with cleaning in mind, then why on earth would you go with a passive PSU, which is all the more subject to needing minimum dust for good cooling, instead of using appropriate case filtration? Seems like multiple design mistakes in a row if you are placing priority on system longevity, but I concede some will just chase the ghost of quiet, so they can make their own noise instead from other things, which is kind of strange that the user can be the only entity making noise but whatever.
In an otherwise silent room, you'd be amazed at what you can hear. After building a silent PC, I started picking up on some barely audible whine from my monitor. Never noticed it before, even with very quiet PCs prior.
Some people live in noisy cities, in buildings that aren’t great at blocking noise. Research has also found that regular long-term subway commuting (i.e. NYC) causes serious hearing damage. That many claim things are quieter than they are can be partially explained by differences in the state of their hearing and the ambient level beyond what the equipment produces.
Certainly possible, but ambient noise levels in a home environment are unlikely to be related to hearing damage. (I've been in thousands of homes. The vacuum and blender and occasional kid's scream are probably the loudest things but those aren't chronic.) It's more that comparable electronic parts can make orders of magnitude more or less perceptual noise. This goes for both fans and coil whine because of differing human sensitivity toward different frequencies. We're about 1000x more sensitive to 3000 Hz than to 200 Hz. Pretty much when you see hearing damage around 3000 Hz it's listening to loud music or long-term exposure to city traffic or a loud workplace. Then there's of course wax buildup - the removal of which increases sensitivity and lowers the threshold for hearing damage.
So yeah, fanless PSUs can be way louder than fanned ones if they're not hardened against coil whine. But unless you're using server fans no computer component ought to be in the same sentence as hearing damage.
Why is hearing damage the point here? The main point is being able to enjoy one's environment. Noise pollution impedes that.
Also, people with tinnitus can find that sound levels well below damaging can aggravate tinnitus. I am very sensitive to computing equipment. Enough exposure to a gaming machine and hiss tinnitus transforms into a warble that's extremely problematic when it comes to getting a decent night's sleep. Therefore, the damage from aggravated hearing can come from lack of high-quality sleep and the stress of irritating phantom noise.
@Oxford Guy because you keep bringing up hearing damage, from subways or headphones. I do not know what subways have to do with computing equipment, but I do understand if computing equipment is loud enough, then using open headphones to drown them out can lead to hearing damage. I'm just saying most modern fanned consumer PSUs are magnitudes away from loud enough to cause that. I'll of course make exception for defective, or poorly designed, or server PSUs.
Hey, I appreciate you bringing up concerns of those suffering significant tinnitus, which I can't comment on as have no experience or training. But let's not blanket project those concerns to buying advice for all users, as around 95% don't have it (depends on how severe the cutoff).
And then with this clogs-with-dust comment -- do you have something personal against PSU fans? As I understand the radiator in an open loop is far denser and thus clogs with dust much sooner than tower fins or a PSU fan which is essentially a downdraft cooler with an intake grille, one of the easier things to clean in a modern case as you can just vacuum the intake from the exterior.
Apparently potential buyers can't enjoy their environment and are always chasing the ghost of zero noise. I enjoy my environment equally well from the very subtle sound of air from low RPM fans. If I were engaged in an activity that produces a lot of heat like gaming, then my focus would be on the game, certainly not distracted by low RPM fans, but if I were distracted it would be from the more powerful intake fans needed to keep a passive PSU cool enough.
I'd love to see highly efficient quiet power supplies like this in the flex ATX form factor. I replaced the stock PSU in my mini ITX case with a fanless 12V DC-DC PSU fed by a 216W laptop brick. It is silent, but it took some soldering and drilling to make everything work.
I tracked down a review of Seasonic PSUs (SS-1050XP3 & SS-1200XP3) from this site for those claiming fans are no problem in PSUs. The first red flag is the lifespan of the fan:
'Seasonic went with a San Ace 9S1212H403 120mm fan in both of their newest models.
The life expectancy of this fan is 40,000 hours, a rather mediocre rating for similar devices, translating to about 4.5 years of 24/7 use at 60°C, albeit this rating also is for a free, unobstructed air path (zero static pressure, max airflow).'
4.5 years is a lot less than infinite, since a fanless PSU doesn't have a fan lifespan issue.
Then, we get to the noise, which is a far far cry from 'silent', even in the cold tests:
SS-1050XP3 results, cold test (decibels at the specified wattage):
'The 120mm fan can be clearly heard at just 40% load and its speed climbs rapidly as the load increases, surpassing even 50dB(A) at very high loads. At such noise levels, the Platinum SS-1050XP3 can be clearly heard from rooms away.'
I guess I was being too kind by talking about the concern being a PSU that's loud enough to be heard from rooms away. Ear-splitting is apparently another tier here:
'The behavior of the cooling system remains similar with the PSU inside our hot box, with the exception that the fan is even more aggressive, starting at just 20% load and with its speed climbing rapidly as the load increases. At 50% load, under such conditions, the Seasonic Platinum SS-1050XP3 already is a loud PSU, with the sound pressure reaching ear-splitting levels at >80% load.'
This is silly. Not only are these 5 year old designs, but can you explain how someone worried about noise would be drawing 1000W? The PSU has a fan to cool ~120W, but what's cooling the 1000W? If I were super worried about noise, like using a PC in a broadcast studio without mic noise cancellation, I would probably get a system of no more than 250W typical, with a 650W+ hybrid PSU where the fan doesn't even spin at 250W. Effectively fanless in production, turns on during emergency/off hour loads to save the PSU.
I'm not worried one bit about fan life expectancy these days. It's trivial to find a start-stop fan PSU. Mine from 11.5 years ago is ball bearing and fully start-stop, though that was rare back then. These days mainstream FDB is used with hysteresis. Remember there's capacitor life expectancy in a PSU and mobo. For every 10C delta, expect a doubling or halving of life. A PSU intake is not going to be 60C, which is scalding hot. A modern case has the PSU draw air straight from ambient
Side note. Human speech typically runs 50dB at home, 60dB in public. I'd hope neither is ear-splitting!
Here's a PSU that measures 20dB at 1300W. The review is almost 4 years old, but the unit was well ahead of its time, close to the pinnacle of efficient design, you could say. Uses technologies still not commonplace, especially GaN FETS. https://www.techpowerup.com/review/corsair-ax1600i...
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IBM760XL - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
As the owner of a SeaSonic Prime Ultra Titanium 650W (albeit with a fan), I'm not surprised by the performance covered in this review. It matches up with the reviews of SeaSonic's models I read prior to buying this PSU.The question does indeed seem to be why someone would buy this PSU in preference to SeaSonic's. The lesser warranty doesn't help that equation, and the SilverStone seems to be a little more expensive. Perhaps SilverStone has wider distribution channels and that's their plan? I'd be curious if there's any other reason to prefer the SilverStone.
Not that it really matters to me - my SeaSonic is under warranty until 2030, so I probably won't be in the PSU market for a few years.
shelbystripes - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
This is like reading hybrid SUV reviews that confirms industry-leading fuel mileage, and commenting “as an owner of a pickup truck, why would someone buy one of these?”If you don’t need a silent PSU, you don’t need a silent PSU. There’s also the advantage of not having a fan built inside a PSU (which laypeople should NEVER open up, for safety reasons) as a potential point of failure. It’s easier and cheaper to manage the airflow in your HTPC, including replacing noisy or failing fans, if they aren’t built into your PSU…
dubyadubya - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
Seasonic makes a completely fanless competitor, the SeaSonic Prime Fanless TX-700 so your analogy is a little off base IMO. In fact it is the same exact PSU for $26 less and it has a 12 year warranty instead of the 5 year warranty on the Silverstone. If I needed a fanless 700 watt PSU I know where my money is going to go. I tend to only buy PSU's made by Seasonic as IMO there are is nothing better so either way a great PSU.Oxford Guy - Sunday, December 5, 2021 - link
Silverstone is a middle man so it cut the warranty in order to find some place for margin.tonyou - Monday, December 6, 2021 - link
Actually Seasonic as an OEM does not offer warranty longer than 3 years no matter how much anyone is willing to pay. So its own retail division offering 12 year warranty is more or less a marketing cost, it doesn't mean the PSU will last any longer.jak0b-DK - Friday, December 10, 2021 - link
I don't have 12 years experience with seasonic yet, but the 5 years of using them in gaming-rigs and servers without any issues, make me suspect that they probably will endure.Also - knowing that a key factor to semiconductor (and Cap's) lifespan is heat - Less heat = longer life, it make sense that they can last longer in platinum series.
And finally - what company would offer 12 years of warrenty on a product expected to die within say 7 years. I trust that seasonic engineers know what they are doing, and apparently company exec's do so too. ;)
tonyou - Sunday, December 12, 2021 - link
All PSU manufacturers we work with including ourselves engineer power supplies to last the life of typical PCs. Other than design / production or bad batch from key components, most PSUs will be able to achieve that goal. With that said, even the best PSUs will not be 100% defect-free so that's what the warranty will hopefully cover. We are not saying that Seasonic or any other brands' PSU will not last up to 10 or 12 years. What we are trying to convey is that warranty length is not an indication of a PSU's service life or quality over models with shorter warranty. It is simply a marketing add-on by the brand's retail department when warranty offered is longer than industry standard 2-3 years. We have asked Seasonic to provide more than 3 year warranty to us and offered to pay more, but they refused.dubyadubya - Monday, December 13, 2021 - link
You are talking about commercial equipment not consumer stuff. Sure commercial stuff is made to last as money spent up front will keep costs down later down the road. No need for a long warranty on such products as the people involved know a warranty in itself does not make a product better. Now on consumer grade PSU's its a different story. A long warranty from a long standing company tells the consumer the manufacture more than likely did not cut corners and are selling a quality product. Yes as you say quality PSU's can last 10 years or more but for a consumer what is the measure of a quality PSU? Low end PSU's tend to fail sooner than later as most if not all a made by crap OEM's. Many crap PSU's are sold for high dollar even though they are crap. I have replaced a pile of them over the years for friends and relatives. PSU's are the number one failure point in consumer PC's or close to it. It used to be about equal between PSU's, optical drives and mother board caps back in the day. Even some big names sell crap PSU's. Look at the Gigabyte GP-P750GM fiasco. Many PSU failures wipe out other parts. When this happens the only safe thing to do is start from scratch which costs money. Nope I'd rather spend the money on the front end and buy Seasonic or made by Seasonic PSU's. My main rig is over 7 years old and the Seasonic built Corsair AX750 is still solid as a rock. It's too bad Corsair no longer uses Seasonic as a OEM as far as I know. I'm in the process of building a new PC and you can bet it's going to be Seasonic powered. The old PC will be handed down to replace the Q6600 rig I built in 2008 that is also Seasonic powered, so 13 years and counting.IBM760XL - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
What dubya said. I already knew about SeaSonic's direct competitor, and the conclusion of the article mentions it as well, so if you'd read the article you would have also been aware of it. Just because I decided to buy the less expensive fan model doesn't mean I hadn't done research on the fanless one.Wrs - Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - link
It's possible this is an optimization of the Seasonic design. I don't remember the Seasonic fanless ever being more efficient at 115V? Or hitting 96% at 115V - that might be a record for ATX.Rοb - Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - link
The only reason I see is that it's silver colored and says SilverStone on it, which might fit better with a SilverStone case build.SeaSonic's closest choices are black and white: https://seasonic.com/prime-fanless-tx or https://seasonic.com/prime-snow-silent
The choice seems fairly black and white to me too, unless you want SeaSonic's black and red 850W model; with advanced fan control - no harm in having a slow fan in the power supply to create a draft in a clearly useful direction, rather than relying on faster case fan speeds to guarantee that the flow through the power supply is above the minimum requirements.
tonyou - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link
Looks like the tuning we did to improve standby efficiency and reduced electrical noise/whine helped to make it perform a little better overall according to latest test result by TechPowerUp:https://www.techpowerup.com/review/seasonic-prime-...
Somewhat surprised Seasonic didn't bother to implement the changes made to our Nightjar NJ700 into their own retail version.
Arbie - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
Quieter is better, and a passive design admirable - but the PSU adds little to the overall noise of my system. The fact that it can even be managed passively should tell you something. Case fans and CPU / GPU cooling contribute much more and I think always will.Oxford Guy - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
‘the PSU adds little to the overall noise of my system’That’s one data point and we don’t know about all the variables. Your system could use Delta industrial fans at full tilt to cool its components or a recent Atom motherboard.
CharonPDX - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
Impressive. I have a media center computer that has plenty of airflow around it that I'm trying to quiet down. It uses ~250-300W at "full power", I've always been using a 350-450W PSU in it, but this thing being most efficient at right around that power range seems very tempting.Oxford Guy - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
‘This typically is not a concern for gamers, as the noise generated by the PC is often overshadowed by the speakers or headphones.’Strongly disagree.
I’ve read this headphones claim many times but even the kind of noise-blockers sold in hardware stores let some noise through.
A game that is designed to use subtle environmental sounds to create ambiance is generally going to be undermined by fan noise, especially if it uses PWM.
Trying to bury noise with speakers makes even less sense.
One of the things I especially disliked about the CD-ROM era of consoles was all the noise the machine outputted. As someone who started with fanless cartridge-based gaming the idea of it not being important to have a quiet unit — even with bleep/bloop arcade stuff, is one experience doesn’t support.
Young people are getting hearing damage from using headphones in noisy environments. Blasting music can mask noise but there’s a price to pay.
Wrs - Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - link
Active noise cancelation fixes this, though there are times when being environmentally unaware is a liability.Practically, I just find it quite hard to build a 700w system under 25db. Even water pumps and most radiator fans break that if loaded. Most those top PSUs with fans sit around low 20s dB at full load, and the noise is low frequency so very easy for ANC to deal with.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, December 2, 2021 - link
Citation please for the noise cancellation claim. If that’s true then the LRAD can be easily defeated by people wearing noise-cancelling headphones.I also think the claim that the total system noise is determined solely by whatever component produces the most noise is false. One 25 decibel fan is quiet. Five of them is louder. So, PSU noise can add to the sum.
Wrs - Saturday, December 4, 2021 - link
Which claim? The low frequency knack is common knowledge and I figure anyone who's tried ANC would discover it. Wiki ANC and search for "active vs. passive."I use ANC and barely hear the drone of 1500 rpm fans when my fully air cooled open case rig is loaded to >700 watts at the wall. Forget about hearing anything <1000 rpm with the -30 dB attenuation typical of low frequency ANC.
We're talking quiet office level sound of course. Idk if ANC can even be designed against an LRAD, where it's not even so much hearing damage as tissue injury from shock and cavitation.
Oxford Guy - Friday, December 10, 2021 - link
If noise cancellation is as good as you claim then it’s going to save a lot of people’s hearing. A recent journal article I read about subway commuters developing hearing loss from too much ambient noise didn’t mention such headphones. Curious that the pro researchers would miss something if it’s that effective. The only time I’ve seem headphone use discussed in an ambient noise hearing loss context is in terms of headphones making the problem worse via people simply turning up the volume.The pair of ‘noise-blocking’ headphones I tried had terrible hiss. PC Mag claims that that’s only seen in low-quality models but those were expensive Beats.
As someone who gets serious tinnitus flareups from computer fans (and possibly coil whine) I am certainly hopeful that this tech is the panacea you say it is.
Wrs - Saturday, December 11, 2021 - link
Noise cancelation is already used in aviation headsets - realize it does cost something and sometimes a cheap pair of earplugs is more than sufficient. Those subway researchers didn't miss anything, they just wanted to point out the amount of noise. It's on subway riders to get earplugs or cheap passive headphones if they can't afford ANC, or learn to steady eardrums with a reverse valsalva. Typically 75dB is regarded as starting to cause hearing loss. That's 1000 times as intense as a somewhat noisy 45dB machine.Decibels are simply a log base 10 scale. If you raise the intensity by 5x, that's a 7dB gain. So 5 35dB fans that don't attenuate each other, 42dB. Every 2x is 3dB, 4x is 6dB, hope you get the picture.
Sorry about your experience with Beats. Ive never tried them but wouldn't associate them with good value. Bose is generally the ANC standard. Apple's Airpods Pro and Max are also well regarded. I use a Max and though a hiss is impossible to negate entirely its kind of hard for me to even notice it. Unfortunately I do not know how the experience differs for someone with significant tinnitus (everyone has that ringing, it just varies to what degree).
Wrs - Saturday, December 11, 2021 - link
So the comments about PSU sometimes adding insignificant noise are practically true. If the rest of system is already at 40dB when the PSU tops out at 29dB, they're not moving to 41dB. And all of this is nowhere close to causing hearing loss.Oxford Guy - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
And the Seasonic ‘Snow Silent’ PSU that ‘could be heard from rooms away’?That’s a quote from the review here.
Wrs - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link
I can't find a Snow Silent review from AT, but I did find a rather competent one done in 2015 by Tom's, where it was found relatively quiet to 50% but measured 52dB 1m away at 80%+ load, which I suppose is audible from rooms away (it depends on the frequency distribution). Perhaps half the name was a misnomer.Then in 2016 the same author reviewed a Prime Titanium 850W that stayed under 30dB until almost 800W. That's two orders of magnitude less sound energy.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - link
The last PSU that I owned, that was audible at all under load, was an old diablotek power suppyl with two 80 MM fans. Most moderen 120mm PSUs run cool enough and quiet enough that absent a totally silent system will be inaudible.Oxford Guy - Thursday, December 2, 2021 - link
Many modern PSUs are audible. One of them, a Seasonic ‘Snow Silent’ model could be ‘heard from rooms away.’That is a direct quote from the Anandtech review.
alcoholbob - Saturday, December 4, 2021 - link
Both the TX-700 (which the NJ700 is based on) and the NJ700 had problems with audible coil whine even while idling, which were much worse than higher wattage Seasonic semi-fanless units while running fanlessly. The issue with these 700W models appears to be the fact that the coil whine is very high pitched, so its quite audible from several feet away.On higher wattage Seasonic units like the 850W or 1000W RMx series, there is coil whine but its much lower in frequency. Due to the Fletcher Munson effect, it sounds nearly inaudible, while the TX-700 and NJ700, as well as lower end 520W and 420W Nightjar models sound to me quite unbearably loud due to the high frequency nature of the whine.
I find it much cheaper to simply get a Corsair RMx unit and just mod the fan with a low noise Noctua fan.
Oxford Guy - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
I recall that it was fan noise not coil whine that made that PSU audible, according to the reviewer.ruthan - Thursday, December 2, 2021 - link
Im only missing 2x EPS cable for some dual socket builds, 700W is enough for them.I had fanless Seasonic and Silverstones, in the past.. My expecience is than Silverstone have better cooling, it worked in machine, where Seasonic with same Wattage was overheating.
But we need some head to head review.
albaikinindia - Monday, December 6, 2021 - link
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Passive PSU is just pointless. A 12cm fan with 800rpm is easy enough to let the unit stay much cooler without any noise.Oxford Guy - Thursday, December 9, 2021 - link
Until it clogs with dust. Cleaning a PSU is a pain, especially with a complex water loop.mindless1 - Monday, January 17, 2022 - link
You have this backwards, in most cases. In order to not draw in dust through the passively cooled PSU, the case must have positive pressurization, placing more audible (per same amount of noise) intake fans forward (and on top) in the case, assuming typical rear-out airflow pattern.If someone cares about dust, they minimize its entry into the case instead, using filter media. You could strap a filter onto the PSU too, but this is someone already committed to using filters so would certainly filter other intake areas as well, so there would be minimum dust getting into the PC to enter the PSU, in the situation of a fan cooled PSU.
Further, not having to rely on the case intake fans to passively cool the PSU, means they can run at lower RPM so these more audible fans (per amount of noise created) are creating less noise.
I don't even understand your post. If cleaning is so complex because you didn't design with cleaning in mind, then why on earth would you go with a passive PSU, which is all the more subject to needing minimum dust for good cooling, instead of using appropriate case filtration? Seems like multiple design mistakes in a row if you are placing priority on system longevity, but I concede some will just chase the ghost of quiet, so they can make their own noise instead from other things, which is kind of strange that the user can be the only entity making noise but whatever.
Lucky Stripes 99 - Saturday, December 11, 2021 - link
In an otherwise silent room, you'd be amazed at what you can hear. After building a silent PC, I started picking up on some barely audible whine from my monitor. Never noticed it before, even with very quiet PCs prior.Oxford Guy - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link
Some people live in noisy cities, in buildings that aren’t great at blocking noise. Research has also found that regular long-term subway commuting (i.e. NYC) causes serious hearing damage. That many claim things are quieter than they are can be partially explained by differences in the state of their hearing and the ambient level beyond what the equipment produces.Wrs - Sunday, December 26, 2021 - link
Certainly possible, but ambient noise levels in a home environment are unlikely to be related to hearing damage. (I've been in thousands of homes. The vacuum and blender and occasional kid's scream are probably the loudest things but those aren't chronic.) It's more that comparable electronic parts can make orders of magnitude more or less perceptual noise. This goes for both fans and coil whine because of differing human sensitivity toward different frequencies. We're about 1000x more sensitive to 3000 Hz than to 200 Hz. Pretty much when you see hearing damage around 3000 Hz it's listening to loud music or long-term exposure to city traffic or a loud workplace. Then there's of course wax buildup - the removal of which increases sensitivity and lowers the threshold for hearing damage.So yeah, fanless PSUs can be way louder than fanned ones if they're not hardened against coil whine. But unless you're using server fans no computer component ought to be in the same sentence as hearing damage.
Oxford Guy - Monday, December 27, 2021 - link
Why is hearing damage the point here? The main point is being able to enjoy one's environment. Noise pollution impedes that.Also, people with tinnitus can find that sound levels well below damaging can aggravate tinnitus. I am very sensitive to computing equipment. Enough exposure to a gaming machine and hiss tinnitus transforms into a warble that's extremely problematic when it comes to getting a decent night's sleep. Therefore, the damage from aggravated hearing can come from lack of high-quality sleep and the stress of irritating phantom noise.
Wrs - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
@Oxford Guy because you keep bringing up hearing damage, from subways or headphones. I do not know what subways have to do with computing equipment, but I do understand if computing equipment is loud enough, then using open headphones to drown them out can lead to hearing damage. I'm just saying most modern fanned consumer PSUs are magnitudes away from loud enough to cause that. I'll of course make exception for defective, or poorly designed, or server PSUs.Hey, I appreciate you bringing up concerns of those suffering significant tinnitus, which I can't comment on as have no experience or training. But let's not blanket project those concerns to buying advice for all users, as around 95% don't have it (depends on how severe the cutoff).
And then with this clogs-with-dust comment -- do you have something personal against PSU fans? As I understand the radiator in an open loop is far denser and thus clogs with dust much sooner than tower fins or a PSU fan which is essentially a downdraft cooler with an intake grille, one of the easier things to clean in a modern case as you can just vacuum the intake from the exterior.
mindless1 - Monday, January 17, 2022 - link
Apparently potential buyers can't enjoy their environment and are always chasing the ghost of zero noise. I enjoy my environment equally well from the very subtle sound of air from low RPM fans. If I were engaged in an activity that produces a lot of heat like gaming, then my focus would be on the game, certainly not distracted by low RPM fans, but if I were distracted it would be from the more powerful intake fans needed to keep a passive PSU cool enough.Lucky Stripes 99 - Saturday, December 11, 2021 - link
I'd love to see highly efficient quiet power supplies like this in the flex ATX form factor. I replaced the stock PSU in my mini ITX case with a fanless 12V DC-DC PSU fed by a 216W laptop brick. It is silent, but it took some soldering and drilling to make everything work.Oxford Guy - Monday, December 27, 2021 - link
I tracked down a review of Seasonic PSUs (SS-1050XP3 & SS-1200XP3) from this site for those claiming fans are no problem in PSUs. The first red flag is the lifespan of the fan:'Seasonic went with a San Ace 9S1212H403 120mm fan in both of their newest models.
The life expectancy of this fan is 40,000 hours, a rather mediocre rating for similar devices, translating to about 4.5 years of 24/7 use at 60°C, albeit this rating also is for a free, unobstructed air path (zero static pressure, max airflow).'
4.5 years is a lot less than infinite, since a fanless PSU doesn't have a fan lifespan issue.
Then, we get to the noise, which is a far far cry from 'silent', even in the cold tests:
SS-1050XP3 results, cold test (decibels at the specified wattage):
'The 120mm fan can be clearly heard at just 40% load and its speed climbs rapidly as the load increases, surpassing even 50dB(A) at very high loads. At such noise levels, the Platinum SS-1050XP3 can be clearly heard from rooms away.'
400 — 32
500 — 36
600 — 38
700 — 42
800 — 46
900 — 48
1000 — 50
1050 — 51
SS-1050XP3 results, hot test:
200 — 34
300 — 37
400 — 39
500 — 44
600 — 46
700 — 49
800 — 51
900 — 53
1000 — 55
1050 — 55.5
I guess I was being too kind by talking about the concern being a PSU that's loud enough to be heard from rooms away. Ear-splitting is apparently another tier here:
'The behavior of the cooling system remains similar with the PSU inside our hot box, with the exception that the fan is even more aggressive, starting at just 20% load and with its speed climbing rapidly as the load increases. At 50% load, under such conditions, the Seasonic Platinum SS-1050XP3 already is a loud PSU, with the sound pressure reaching ear-splitting levels at >80% load.'
SS-1200XP3 cold test:
600 — 39
700 — 41
800 — 44
900 — 47
1000 — 49
1100 — 52
1200 — 52
SS-1200XP3 hot test:
300 — 37
350 — 39
400 — 40
500 — 43
600 — 46
700 — 48
800 — 51
900 — 52
1000 — 54
1100 — 56
1200 — 56
PSUs like those sell fanless units to people like me.
Oxford Guy - Monday, December 27, 2021 - link
Sound levels are from 1 metre away. Forgot to mention that.Wrs - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
This is silly. Not only are these 5 year old designs, but can you explain how someone worried about noise would be drawing 1000W? The PSU has a fan to cool ~120W, but what's cooling the 1000W? If I were super worried about noise, like using a PC in a broadcast studio without mic noise cancellation, I would probably get a system of no more than 250W typical, with a 650W+ hybrid PSU where the fan doesn't even spin at 250W. Effectively fanless in production, turns on during emergency/off hour loads to save the PSU.I'm not worried one bit about fan life expectancy these days. It's trivial to find a start-stop fan PSU. Mine from 11.5 years ago is ball bearing and fully start-stop, though that was rare back then. These days mainstream FDB is used with hysteresis. Remember there's capacitor life expectancy in a PSU and mobo. For every 10C delta, expect a doubling or halving of life. A PSU intake is not going to be 60C, which is scalding hot. A modern case has the PSU draw air straight from ambient
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
'This is silly.'I'm amazed you're still at it.
Wrs - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
Side note. Human speech typically runs 50dB at home, 60dB in public. I'd hope neither is ear-splitting!Here's a PSU that measures 20dB at 1300W. The review is almost 4 years old, but the unit was well ahead of its time, close to the pinnacle of efficient design, you could say. Uses technologies still not commonplace, especially GaN FETS. https://www.techpowerup.com/review/corsair-ax1600i...
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
Even quieter is a fanless unit.