My 8 year old PC Power Cooling 750 Quad uses an ancient design with an 80mm fan and I don't think the fan has ever exceeded 1500RPM (~36db) so anything modern should exceed this, especially for $160. As said, Seasonic, Superflower, and one of my favorite budget PSU OEM's, FSP, are all considerably better options at this price.
Fortron (Sparkle) are pretty good PSU's but I wouldn't spend more than $40 on one as a low-watt office PC replacement.
My thoughts too. I have a 3-4 year old Silverstone that cost £80 (I guess about $130 back then), 650w and used for SLI, and you barely hear a peep out of it
Have you ever actually had your PSU at >90% load? Comparing your PSU at a load significantly below max to a second one at full load isn't a fair comparison.
What does surprise me is that the fan speed curve on this one appears to be linear. The last time I was shopping for PSUs (a few years ago); most of the ones I saw that showed a fan curve kept the fan at it's minimum speed (or completely off?) for the bottom part of the load curve and only started ramping the speed when it got within 250-300W of max power, mostly relying on passive cooling below that point. I've used that observation for sizing PSUs to a target size of MaxLoad+250W so the fan never spins up adding to system noise.
As a gamer who assembles their own systems, I make a conscious effort to never buy any component that's explicitly marketed "for gamers" - with the sole exception being the graphics card, of course.
This review just underlines once again why that practice is a good practice. Here we have a gamer-targeted product that's too highly powered for the average modern gamer PC, offers only mediocre efficiency and performance, errs on the side of unnecessarily hefty cooling and mounts an unreasonable price tag... and the biggest selling point is a different looking outer shell.
My own PSU is from be quiet!, too. But it's not from this gamer-targeted Power Zone series. No, I chose a Straight Power E9 series part with a wattage rating suitable for a single-GPU system. It is practically inaudible even under load, is rated 80PLUS Gold, was tested for excellent voltage regulation and, get this... cost only half the price of the unit tested in this review.
Seriously, people. Stay away from "for gamer" products. Especially if you're a gamer.
There are far too many reviews for these high-powered PSUs when most people are only running a single GPU. Too many neophyte gamers think they need 750W+ when most can easily get by on 400-550W.
We really need more reviews showing the practical power needs of a typical gaming system, and then focus on the PSUs to power them. Just because lower-output PSUs are lower in price doesn't mean we should spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing the higher-powered ones with the higher price tags. Sadly, the "quality" that may or may not be in a mfg's higher-powered PSU doesn't always trickle down to their lower-output models, so it would be good to highlight the ones that are or aren't quality choices at the lower to mid-range.
Do I qualify if I also have a i7-3960X? Probably. But if I'm re-encoding and streaming video in the background while I play a visually-intensive game, I'd rather not have my power supply be the bottleneck. 140 W from my video card and 200 W from my CPU don't really add up to 750W.
But maybe I want another card? Especially with AMD CPU buyers, that scenario is common: a desire for upgradeability encourages the $30 for a higher-wattage power supply, as opposed to paying $50 for the 500W then another $80 for the 750W.
Sidenote: given how low the power consumption of Intel CPUs has gotten I'm surprised more manufacturers haven't considered supporting 4x 6pin or even 2x 6pin + 2x 8pin configurations on 550W and 60W PSUs. Connector count, in many cases, can drive the new system builder to the higher-wattage power supplies.
I think they tend to err on the side of caution since they'd take the blame if someone did overload one; and they can't assume people will only use them with cards that barely need a 6+6 or barely need a 6+8 configuration.
4x 6 pin at 600W might be OK, since that'd be 2x 225W GPUs + 100W CPU/mobo + 50W drives/fans/etc = 600W total; but 4x6 GPU power connectors on a 550W PSU could go over the limit easily enough. 2x6 and 2x8 would on 600W would be even worse since that's promising enough power to run a pair of 300W GPUs.
A good 750W PSU is good enough for even a dual SLI 780Ti system. At 550W, even a demanding single GPU system should have more than an adequate supply of power.
However in practice, some people buy these larger PSUs for two reasons: 1) Possibility of future expansion. When I bought my PC last summer, I purchased a larger wattage PSU because I was still debating whether or not to get a second PSU. I haven't yet, but if I decide to, I already have enough power. 2) PSUs generally get their best efficiency while running at 50-60% load. So having a 750W PSU to power a 400W system provides the best efficiency. (Granted I realize for many this is a silly point, since the extra cost of the PSU itself generally will outweigh any cost savings, but maybe they like to be green, or just have the money)
> 2) PSUs generally get their best efficiency while running at 50-60% load. So having a 750W PSU to power a 400W system provides the best efficiency. (Granted I realize for many this is a silly point, since the extra cost of the PSU itself generally will outweigh any cost savings, but maybe they like to be green, or just have the money)
Your reasoning is flawed because a typical (even gamers) PC spends considerable amounts of time *way* below the maximum power rating where you'll immediately loose any advantage you would gain from having the maximum rating at the maximum efficiency point big time, especially if your system idles a lot and drops below the miraculous 20% mark.
But with a 400W system a few percent efficiency more or less really don't matter any more as there's definitely no greenness to be had anymore...
As a distributed computing (Boinc, primarily Einstein at home) participant, I suspect my system probably spends <95% of its operating time at full load; and my average load while gaming is probably below the non gaming average because the threshold where I have to GPU compute while playing to keep good FPS is lower than what's needed to heavily load the GPU. (Games and Compute are a lot worse at sharing GPU resources than their CPU equivalents.)
It looks like they spent a good potion of the budget on appearance. Middling electronics and a loud fan don't impress me for the price. Some low end units are built better than this and I personally don't care what power supplies look like, in most cases you don't even see it.
Sidenote on be Quiet's fans, is there some specific reason that they seem to use non-standard fan sizes? This unit uses a 135mm fan, and their HSFs are made for 130/135mm fans as well.
For the PSU, it's the biggest size that will fit. Meaning that all else equal, it gives the most air movement for the least noise. On the heat sinks I'm not sure why they wouldn't just edge up to 140mm unless it's to exploit volume discounts from their supplier by using the same fans for both products.
Actually, I'm going to correct myself, because I don't think it's Zalman. I posted the same thing in 2011, and someone said it was HEC that has the patent.
That's even more appalling than the "standard PC architecture feature on a smartphone" patents because I can't imagine any way that "use the biggest fan that will fit" could be obfuscated into something that a kindergartener, never mind a patent office reviewer, couldn't realize was trivial.
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blackmagnum - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Bean-counters ruining geeks' work once more.StrangerGuy - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Compared to a Seasonic OEMs this is pretty rubbish in comparison, let alone the better Superflower OEM designs.Samus - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Seriously...50db?My 8 year old PC Power Cooling 750 Quad uses an ancient design with an 80mm fan and I don't think the fan has ever exceeded 1500RPM (~36db) so anything modern should exceed this, especially for $160. As said, Seasonic, Superflower, and one of my favorite budget PSU OEM's, FSP, are all considerably better options at this price.
Fortron (Sparkle) are pretty good PSU's but I wouldn't spend more than $40 on one as a low-watt office PC replacement.
Tunnah - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
My thoughts too. I have a 3-4 year old Silverstone that cost £80 (I guess about $130 back then), 650w and used for SLI, and you barely hear a peep out of itDanNeely - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Have you ever actually had your PSU at >90% load? Comparing your PSU at a load significantly below max to a second one at full load isn't a fair comparison.What does surprise me is that the fan speed curve on this one appears to be linear. The last time I was shopping for PSUs (a few years ago); most of the ones I saw that showed a fan curve kept the fan at it's minimum speed (or completely off?) for the bottom part of the load curve and only started ramping the speed when it got within 250-300W of max power, mostly relying on passive cooling below that point. I've used that observation for sizing PSUs to a target size of MaxLoad+250W so the fan never spins up adding to system noise.
Streetwind - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
As a gamer who assembles their own systems, I make a conscious effort to never buy any component that's explicitly marketed "for gamers" - with the sole exception being the graphics card, of course.This review just underlines once again why that practice is a good practice. Here we have a gamer-targeted product that's too highly powered for the average modern gamer PC, offers only mediocre efficiency and performance, errs on the side of unnecessarily hefty cooling and mounts an unreasonable price tag... and the biggest selling point is a different looking outer shell.
My own PSU is from be quiet!, too. But it's not from this gamer-targeted Power Zone series. No, I chose a Straight Power E9 series part with a wattage rating suitable for a single-GPU system. It is practically inaudible even under load, is rated 80PLUS Gold, was tested for excellent voltage regulation and, get this... cost only half the price of the unit tested in this review.
Seriously, people. Stay away from "for gamer" products. Especially if you're a gamer.
romrunning - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
There are far too many reviews for these high-powered PSUs when most people are only running a single GPU. Too many neophyte gamers think they need 750W+ when most can easily get by on 400-550W.We really need more reviews showing the practical power needs of a typical gaming system, and then focus on the PSUs to power them. Just because lower-output PSUs are lower in price doesn't mean we should spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing the higher-powered ones with the higher price tags. Sadly, the "quality" that may or may not be in a mfg's higher-powered PSU doesn't always trickle down to their lower-output models, so it would be good to highlight the ones that are or aren't quality choices at the lower to mid-range.
lmcd - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Do I qualify if I also have a i7-3960X? Probably. But if I'm re-encoding and streaming video in the background while I play a visually-intensive game, I'd rather not have my power supply be the bottleneck. 140 W from my video card and 200 W from my CPU don't really add up to 750W.But maybe I want another card? Especially with AMD CPU buyers, that scenario is common: a desire for upgradeability encourages the $30 for a higher-wattage power supply, as opposed to paying $50 for the 500W then another $80 for the 750W.
Sidenote: given how low the power consumption of Intel CPUs has gotten I'm surprised more manufacturers haven't considered supporting 4x 6pin or even 2x 6pin + 2x 8pin configurations on 550W and 60W PSUs. Connector count, in many cases, can drive the new system builder to the higher-wattage power supplies.
DanNeely - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
I think they tend to err on the side of caution since they'd take the blame if someone did overload one; and they can't assume people will only use them with cards that barely need a 6+6 or barely need a 6+8 configuration.4x 6 pin at 600W might be OK, since that'd be 2x 225W GPUs + 100W CPU/mobo + 50W drives/fans/etc = 600W total; but 4x6 GPU power connectors on a 550W PSU could go over the limit easily enough. 2x6 and 2x8 would on 600W would be even worse since that's promising enough power to run a pair of 300W GPUs.
inighthawki - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
A good 750W PSU is good enough for even a dual SLI 780Ti system. At 550W, even a demanding single GPU system should have more than an adequate supply of power.However in practice, some people buy these larger PSUs for two reasons:
1) Possibility of future expansion. When I bought my PC last summer, I purchased a larger wattage PSU because I was still debating whether or not to get a second PSU. I haven't yet, but if I decide to, I already have enough power.
2) PSUs generally get their best efficiency while running at 50-60% load. So having a 750W PSU to power a 400W system provides the best efficiency. (Granted I realize for many this is a silly point, since the extra cost of the PSU itself generally will outweigh any cost savings, but maybe they like to be green, or just have the money)
inighthawki - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Sorry, that should read:"whether or not to get a second *GPU*"
Daniel Egger - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
> 2) PSUs generally get their best efficiency while running at 50-60% load. So having a 750W PSU to power a 400W system provides the best efficiency. (Granted I realize for many this is a silly point, since the extra cost of the PSU itself generally will outweigh any cost savings, but maybe they like to be green, or just have the money)Your reasoning is flawed because a typical (even gamers) PC spends considerable amounts of time *way* below the maximum power rating where you'll immediately loose any advantage you would gain from having the maximum rating at the maximum efficiency point big time, especially if your system idles a lot and drops below the miraculous 20% mark.
But with a 400W system a few percent efficiency more or less really don't matter any more as there's definitely no greenness to be had anymore...
DanNeely - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
As a distributed computing (Boinc, primarily Einstein at home) participant, I suspect my system probably spends <95% of its operating time at full load; and my average load while gaming is probably below the non gaming average because the threshold where I have to GPU compute while playing to keep good FPS is lower than what's needed to heavily load the GPU. (Games and Compute are a lot worse at sharing GPU resources than their CPU equivalents.)inighthawki - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Fair point.Flunk - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
It looks like they spent a good potion of the budget on appearance. Middling electronics and a loud fan don't impress me for the price. Some low end units are built better than this and I personally don't care what power supplies look like, in most cases you don't even see it.Essence_of_War - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Sidenote on be Quiet's fans, is there some specific reason that they seem to use non-standard fan sizes? This unit uses a 135mm fan, and their HSFs are made for 130/135mm fans as well.DanNeely - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
For the PSU, it's the biggest size that will fit. Meaning that all else equal, it gives the most air movement for the least noise. On the heat sinks I'm not sure why they wouldn't just edge up to 140mm unless it's to exploit volume discounts from their supplier by using the same fans for both products.piroroadkill - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
I thought the 135mm fan in PSU thing was because Zalman has a patent on 140mm fans in power supplies.piroroadkill - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Actually, I'm going to correct myself, because I don't think it's Zalman. I posted the same thing in 2011, and someone said it was HEC that has the patent.DanNeely - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
*BOGGLE*That's even more appalling than the "standard PC architecture feature on a smartphone" patents because I can't imagine any way that "use the biggest fan that will fit" could be obfuscated into something that a kindergartener, never mind a patent office reviewer, couldn't realize was trivial.