Silent 500W Power Supply

NightRyder writes "To cope with the increased power demands of today's processors and video cards a 500W silent power supply has been released by Antec. The topic of silent power production has been an important one to the computer community recently, especially concerning the increased hardware demands by new game and operating systems. Considering the processing demands of something like, *cough* Windows Vista, its important to be able to keep your computer cool without it getting loud."

Comments

There was a story about power supplies earlier

[ReformedExCon]

I remember that the story was discussing how the advertised wattages of these power supplies were pretty much lies or gross exaggerations. So we're talking about 500W of power without cooling, but how much power can be drawn until the thing dies from heat exhaustion? And can the 500W output be sustained for extended lengths of time?

Also, does anyone find really strange that slashdot would put the CSS definition files in the images.slashdot.org domain? One computer I use shows Slashdot completely stripped down. This one shows it "normally". Any way to get rid of advertisements and images without losing the formatting as well?

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus this one from antec is just the 300W version with a Plastic-encased fan on the front and re-badged to 500W... although it's a damned good power supply.

These XYZ reviews should be stopped,they are getting to a page for one paragraph almost, it's rediculous. Besides there are a million and one sites that have already reviewed these PSUs. There is some troll (no doubt from XYZ) who keeps submitting their stories to slashdot to get traffic.

Re:"silent"

[Cave_Monster]

This fan is off most of the time but when the insides heat up it will be turned on until the temperature is below the set limit. When running, the fan's speed will vary automatically based on how hot the PSU is, so even it is running it may barely be audible because the fan is spinning slowly.

So they have mostly eliminated the need for a fan by using some good heat dissipation methods. Though if you are running your PC for extended periods of time or your PC is tucked away under a desk somewhere where it doesn't get much air flow, I would expect the fan to be humming away as normal.

Going in my next PC

[goodbadorugly]

Having just discovered this power supply a few days ago, I can definitely say its going in my next PC. Although my primary machine thus far has been an Apple Powerbook, I can definite say that I miss a decent windows computer in my life (I switched to mac just this April). A friend asked me to troubleshoot his PC just a few days ago and scarily enough it took a few seconds to get into the groove of things in his windows environment.

Having said that, the value of a good power supply in your computer is second to none and the power supplies from Antec have never disappointed.

What intrigues me about this particular model is that unlike its less powerful brothers it actually does have a fan. Though under light loads the fan stays off or does very little spinning. For a computer I am building that is doubling as both a light gaming machine and a PVR the large rated output and silent properties make for one killer combination.

And thats what I tell myself every single dang day so I can justify its 200 dollar price tag!

Overrated subject?

[markass530]

I understand how the proliferation of the p4 and its space heater specs created a bit of a backlash against the modern computer and its exponential power requirements & noise generation, but I think it's gone overboard. Who doesn't have some kind of background noise on the computer be it, a movie, or mp3 playing. How really big is the market for absolute silence, beyond media pc's, where high power requirements shouldn't exist.

Thank Joe Betts

[Markus Registrada]

It was Joe Betts, working at IBM Almaden Research Lab, who designed the first 90%+ efficient switching power-brick, for the Thinkpad. Before that, bricks were all twice as big, and ran hot-hot-hot. After that, all the other guys had to clean up their acts too. He didn't study electrical engineering in school, but he didn't let that slow him down; he learned what he needed when he needed it.

Nowadays he's at Oqo.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[LarsWestergren]

Well, you are unusual then. Noise affects people differently, but experiements show that for many people, a lot of ambient noise disturbs sleep, causing fewer REM periods. It can also damage your hearing over time.