Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
It's not hard to develop a fanless 300W PSU (or even more, if you're
so inclined). I started my career in Silicon Valley working for a
company that made small lots of custom power supplies for "the
government": everything from teeny low power jobbies to big HV
monstrosities in the KW range that drove TWT's. In the 5 years I
spent there, we probably designed over 125 power supplies and nont
one had a fan and all had very high MTBFs. The key is using
high-grade, mil-spec components that can run hot (what were called
JAN, JANTXV, and JANS back in the day), and using monster heat
sinks. They are, however, not cheap. If you want to run at 105
deg C, you pay accordingly.
~
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
>> "It doesn't come cheap, ringing in at close to $150..."
Wow. Those $200 WalMart PC's have got everyone's value systems really fucked up.
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.
Is this even applicable with high end systems today? I personally run a CPU at 3.5GHZ, have an ATI 9800XT, a DVD burner, a DVD player, multiple HDDs, etc. I just can't see a 300W power supply working for that type of application. Maybe for a low end system, but at that point you're not going to pay 150 bucks for a PSU in a low end system.
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.
What's wrong with this one?
3 30
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Seasonic+S12+
Got mine for $50 and the 120mm fan doesn't contribute any more noise than my CPU cooler or old noisy hard drives.
Needless to say the Silverstone ST30NF 300W PSU got the job done efficiently and quietly...
Needless to say? Then why did you write a review about it? Or were you just padding your remarks with random babble to bring the word count up and to try to make yourself sound smart and competent?
Please, leave the verbiage to people who know how to do it, and just get right to the point.
I have a Seasonic PSU, and it seems better in almost every way. The Seasonic's fan is very quiet, its construction is excellent, the efficiency is very high, it provides more peak power, and it costs less than this silly thing. I assume that it's also lighter, due to having a sanely-sized heat sink.
Now, while this PSU is "totally silent", the power supply is assumed to have at least a minimal fan by just about every ATX system designer. As another poster mentioned, if yours doesn't have a fan, you're going to have to either choose very low-power components, or put in/ramp up other fans to compensate. So unless you're going to put this on some teeny underpowered VIA or Pentium-M-based system, you're going to make up in noise anyway.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
SPCR generally does rather high-quality reviews against consistent baseline, which allows to do the comparison. It also covers all aspects of "silent computing" (and is essentially dedicated to it - including forums). For this particular PSU, just go here.