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Silverstone ST30NF 300W Silent PSU reviewed
VL writes "Silence is golden as they say, but in Silverstone's case, it's, uh, silver. Will this silent PSU bring it, or will enthusiasts continue to be plagued with noisy PSUs? 'Initially I had some reservations of how a 300W PSU would handle our test system in real-world testing. Needless to say the Silverstone ST30NF 300W PSU got the job done efficiently and quietly, or should I say silently. It doesn't come cheap, ringing in at close to $150, but that's the price you pay for a high quality PSU that does not make any noise at all.'"
I'd be a bit more comfortable with the unit having a fan when it does reach load temperatures. I have a similar power supply of fanless design that has a "backup" fan. It is 0rpm idling and when playing games it spins up. Makes me feel just a wee bit safer. Especially during the summer.
I have a Taurus fanless PS, and have had it for probably around a year. It's a 350W, and seems to be working fine - doesn't even heat the top of the case up. Unfortunantly I still have 4 other fans in the box to move air around. But the fanless PS really helps. So what's so great about this one?
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
I have a 500 watt antec phantom in my newest computer, the thing is silent. It does have a fan in the case that the PSU does get too hot, it can cool it off. I have played some pretty high end games, done some 3d rendering and what not, still haven't had the fan turn on, and the PSU hasn't gotten hot. It is nice to know that it's there though. I don't think I would ever buy a powersupply that didn't function like this, as I due value the quiet. I hope they continue to improve on this technology to provide even more powerful PSUs than currently available. (And at a lower cost, because I seem to remember this supply costing a bit more than most other 500w PSUs)
That's all irrelevant to this discussion.
A PC PSU must coexist with other components that can't be re-specified. Also, the PC PSU is generally assumed to suck air out of the case and blow it out the back, cooling the other PC components. (I'm aware that the one in this article doesn't.)
-Peter
$150 for 300W? You gotta be kidding me. I spent less than that for a 650 and a 350 on my main machine; a kilowatt of power and the main PSU even glows. For $150 I expect silent, cool, >650W, and modular. I've blogged about this.
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Did you RTFA? They tested the PSU on a system that has MSI P4N Diamond, Intel Pentium 4 560, 2GB Corsair DDR2 8000UL, 2 x Seagate 400GB, Seagate 120GB, 2 x MSI 7800GTX, MSI 16X DL, AOpen CDRW 52X, Koolance PC3-720SL, and it worked fine. That's pretty "hi-end", don't you think?
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Cheap power supplies are the major cause of problems I have encountered when I build systems for friends and myself. In the old 486-66/Pentium 500 days, A supposed 450 Watt supply that weighed as much as a dried birds nest would actually puke out enough watts and the same amount of heat to run a K5-500 with 512K and a couple PCI cards. These Mfg scums, and the retailers are now pushing this crap for systems targed at A64 and P4 processors that require so much power you can see the traces throb when underway.
If you can hold it in one hand at arms length for a min, It's probably crap.
JimD.
0 dBA is extremely quiet, and fanless PSUs may be extremely quiet, but using '0 dBA' to mean 'practically silent' just perpetuates confusion over the dB scale.
Apple doesn't make PCs, they make Macs. You know - single-source, limited configuration, with custom cases?
Blah blah blah flamebait.
Why is it that none of your wonderful customizable computer makers seem to make a case that dosn't require a built in power supply.
None but Apple, anyway.
(ok, there are probably a few, but doesn't it seem like there should be more?)
Right. And this power supply is actually designed to be used in a case with a case fan to help move the air. So while the PSU itself is silent, it is not really designed to be a part of a silent computer.
But it can be done. I own a Silvestone PSU, and I use it in a fanless case. I have connected the PSU to a Zalman Reserator, which is a fanless watercooling solution. I'm also using the Reserator to cool my GPU, CPU and Northbridge. In order to silence my HDD I built a really sturdy noise-proof box, and put the HDD in it, together with a water block connected to the Reserator.
The result? I've been running a nearly 100% silent system with reasonable performance (Athlon64 3000+, dual videocards, fast HDD) for about one year. The biggest downside is the maintainability. Changing a system component can take well over an hour, what with emptying the system of water, removing the tubing, etc..
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What I'd like to know is the room temperature while they were testing, since I could just easily "cool" my computer at this very moment by opening the window, and letting -6c air flow into the room, and engulf the machine.
It would be very interesting to know what the termal probe's read-out would be when doing a full-load test during the Summer, when the room temperature is around 30c.
We don't need no stinking control room....
I've had issues when doing PC recording with the fan noise bleeding into sensitive condensor mics. Silent power supplies are great because they will allow more flexible design on home recording studios with the ability to keep the system in the room with you. A longtime issue fo DIY bands.
Right now I use a FW800 MDD Mac Dual 1.0 G4 which still has a siginicifant amount of fan noise. But much quieter than my first recording box which was a cobbled Frankenstien PC in a old Gateway case.
Right now our "control room" is in the studio with us. I can turn around and set up takes and start the recording...The Mac is quiet enough that the negligable and the seperation of the keys, guitar and drums is far enough so as not to be picked up. Vocals and acyustic guitar tracks will still be an issue. But I have panels to isolate the mic from the computer fan noise....
We've been tossing around the idea of putting together a PC for recording as well (keyboard player has been a PC user for recording and has a load of software we could use)
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>> "That's a pretty idiotic comment."
No, it's deep. I think that your reasoning is idiotic.
I stand by what I wrote. People (like you, apparently) have become accustomed to getting great stuff for almost free -- in fact, EXPECTING it to be almost free.
You have become confused and believe that because something is common that is then somehow good or right.
I do believe you are correct when you say, "Value isn't some absolute..." but I think you don't really understand what you mean. You just stumbled across that truism without understanding it.
You are young, grasshopper.