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

Direct link to Froogle with Price Sorted Low to Hi

[Work Account]

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Antec+Phantom+ 500+(PHANTOM+500)+500-Watt+Power+Supply&btnG=Searc h+Froogle&scoring=p

Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[hvatum]

The topic of silent power production has been an important one to the computer community recently.

Yes, the topic of silent power production has been an important one to the computer community recently. Right alongside in-home cold fusion and perpetual motion machines. Oh wait, did you mean silent power conversion?

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

[nametaken]

This newest incarnation of the Antec Phantom line has an 80mm variable speed fan. Its in the article.

Buy the highest efficiency p/s with a 120mm fan

[Brian Stretch]

You're better off buying a high-efficiency power supply that has a 120mm thermistor-controlled fan. Seasonic's S12 500W is my current favorite. The 120mm fan is virtually silent at moderate loads and not too bad at higher loads. High efficiency means less waste heat for the fan to need to cool and lower electric bills.

I WANT a loud power supply

[dirtsurfer]

I live in an old apartment building with thin walls and I have very loud neighbors who work the late shift.

I want my power supply to be loud. I need as much white noise as I can get.

Slashvertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

This powersupply looks nice but what is the news? The article even mentions that this is not antecs first silent power supply. There are also completely silent PSUs made by other companies with better efficiency than this.

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.

Seasonic S12

[clarkie.mg]

Fully agree. The excellent (french) hardware site http://www.matbe.com/ has just tested yesterday the 600W version and it squashes the competition :

http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/250/seasonic-s1 2-600-watts-l--alim-parfaite/

Even if you can't read french, look at the figures especially the one concening the silence, it's almost as silent as a fanless yesico!

A better review

[alexo]

here

It is not silent

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a fan.

If that fan is moving, noise is generated.

Ergo it is not silent.

QED.

Hmmm

[yum]

Do you really need that much power?

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.

Re:And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[Moraelin]

Geeze, dude, even skipping over the fact that MS never said 256 MB would be required, do you even understand what Windows uses a video card for?

_How_ is that card going to stay in use while you run a full-screen 3D game? No, really, what UI animations do you think Windows runs in the background while a game has the full screen? Why would it need to keep that RAM allocated? No, seriously.

For that matter, what do you think it uses it for when you're outside a game? Well, 99% of the time for nothing whatsoever, and the other 1% of the time for some fancy UI animation. And that's if it's a REALLY fancy UI.

So a slower graphics card would do... what? Animate those occasional fancy effects at 10 frames per second instead of 60? (And then go back to sitting idle.) Even skipping over the fact that you can turn that fancy stuff off completely, how's that going to force you to get a top graphics card and a 500W PSU?

So, please.