Small Form Factor Best small form factor PSU/LP GPU

I am doing a case mod that requires small form factor parts so mitx board, lp ram etc

I am struggling to find a good low profile graphics card and either sfx or tfx psu that gets consistently good reviews. For example I have looked at the sapphire 7750 low profile and every 3rd review said the card died within the first year.

Does anyone have any experience of using small form factor power supplies or graphics or could reccomend any anyway.

Also ideally i need the power supply to be 400w or 350w with no extra headroom, and the graphics card to be able to play most things on medium - high settings at 30fps.

Cheers

 

I can't reccomend any PSU's, but surely if it fails within the first year, and you've not done something silly, then it's still under manufacturers warranty?

 

try a right angle raiser card and a small GPU. Best SFF PSUs are OEM built into casses as far as I know.

 

This any good?

http://www.fspgroupusa.com/fsp500701uh/p/718.html

 

http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=253

That ok for size?
Good PSU, can power a fair amount

 

i am assuming the wires come out at the opposite end to the mains lead in which case it is too long the space i have is 220mm by up to 100mm by 60mm although the 100mm is an absolute maximum as i have 275mm and need room for a mini itx motherboard, although i could probably make it 285mm with a bit of work

 

this is one of the ones I have shortlisted for now but as i mentioned in previous post, 100mm in width is a bit of a squeeze in my case mod. Would 450w be able to power a 77xx or 78xx card? Or a nvidia one if they release a low profile gtx 600 soon?

 

http://www.seasonicusa.com/PDF/Catalog/NEW/Bulk/PC/TFX/SS-300-350TGx-APFC.pdf

Seasonic, 80 Plus Gold, L175 x W85 x H63.5mm, what else can you ask for ? Well, maybe the 63.5mm will be an issue, but then all TFX PSU will be too big.

Reviews :
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/seasonic_ss350tgm_power_supply_review/
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Seasonic_SS-350TGM_Gold_TFX

 

Fair enough on the size issue.
Power wise that gpu could run an i5 quad and 5870, or a dual core and GTX480.

It's a great quality PSU.

 

I think that is the best so far. I think the silverstone would just be a bit of a squeeze once you include all the cables, 350w can still deal with say an i3 3220 and an radeon hd 7770 right? the thermaltake power calculator puts it at just over 300w once you add a few fans but i guess that leaves more than 10% headroom

 

Unless HD7770 is superhungry, you will have lots of headroom - P8Z77-I Deluxe + i7-2600K + GTX670 hits 240W at Furmark+OCCT full load.

With HD7770 having TDP of 80W and HD7750 having TDP of 55W, i3-3220 and motherboard adding something around 100-130W max, you can safely assume power consumption bellow 200W for the CPU, board and graphics card.

Your biggest issue will be the need to use molex->PCIe adaptor if the card requires extra power.

 

These are the 4 cards that are on amazon, i.e. widely available. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=radeon+hd+7750+low+profile&sprefix=radeon+hd+7750%2Caps%2C157

At the moment I am thinking that either the vtx3d or club3d would work, as I had £100 in mind as the budget for the gpu.

Also, sorry to be a pain, but does anyone know a good cpu cooler (liquid or air) that is under 65mm in height including a fan like the scythe slip stream 120x120x12mm?

 

Well, Noctua NH-L12 is 66mm without the top fan, that is with one 92mm fan.
Then you got the super-low profile option of NH-L9i (or NH-L9 if your setup is using AMD).

I wouldn't recommend Scythe Kozuti, while it is only 44m high, the fan is not ideal and you cannot replace it with something else.

Coolermaster GeminII M4 is 59mm, which i had no chance to try out really, as it didn't fit in my case (about 2mm difference), but could be a good option.

 

the geminII looks quite good but with the noctua l12, would it be possible to move the 120mm fan into the bottom position as the review i looked at suggested it was possible depending on your clearance with ram and motherboard. If so that would be a fairly effective cooler and i could use the 92mm as a case fan without buying another one

 

On ITX board no, you simply don't have enough space there on any ITX board. On mATX possibly, but you would have to measure it.

In case of GeminII M4 the supplied fan is 15mm (59-44). That means if you could accept a 69mm height, you could just use GeminII M4 with any 12mm fan, as it would add only 10mm to the height of the cooler, making it 69mm tall. The question is if that 4mm is manageable/acceptable for you, and if you could make holes above the cooler if you would have the top cover above it, as every fan needs some free space (or holes) above it to get fresh air.

 

I saw yesterday the prolimatech samuel and xigmatech praeton coolers that would both fit, would they be better or worse at cooling compared to the cm geminII or the noctua l12 with bottom fan only?

 

Not sure, never seen them, but looking at it, Samuel is pretty much the same thing as NH-L9i.

Depending on what you want to cool and what will be the load, it could be irrelevant or very relevant. If you are looking at dual core Celerons or Pentiums, then pretty much everything will be fine unless you are going to load it most of the time. In case of Core i3/i5/i7 it is not that simple, and in that case i would suggest you to look around for benchmarks. Like this :
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1317-page5.html

 

At the moment I think I am going to get the coolermaster geminII m4, thanks for the reccomendation, I was doing a bit more research into tfx power supplies and I came across this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/EZCool-Power-Supply-Small-Factor/dp/B0056G8L4K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354998051&sr=8-1

Have you heard of Ezcool as the price alone makes me question it?

 

I avoid cheap noname brand PSU for one simple reason - is your 400-1000 euro computer setup worth the 20-40 saved euros on PSU ? Because once these noname PSU blow up, they usually take the rest of the setup with it.

And by googling around, it seems Ezcool belongs to this category of cheap, slap a 400W sticker on 250W PSU kind of thing.

 

Thanks for the warning, I was a bit sceptical that it costs half the price of most other tfx power supplies.

The current parts are:

i3 3220
asrock z77e itx
seasonic 350w tfx psu
radeon hd 7750 lp (either vtx3d or club3d)
coolermaster geminII m4 or watercooling setup if it will fit
2x 60mm exhaust fans
60gb msata ssd + 500gb scorpio blue/black hdd

and a dremel

now I just have to wait until I have time and more importantly money to build it
Thanks for the help so far, I will make a project log when the time comes.