Hi all I am building a HTPC and I need advice on a silent or at least very very quite PSU. The system will be; Asus M4A89GTD PRO AMD Athlon II X2 245e Energy Efficient Dual Core, S AM3, 2.9GHz, 2MB Cache, 45W 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 PC3-10666 LG CH10LS20.AUAU 10x Blu-Ray Reader, 16x DVD±R, 8x +RW, 6x -RW, 12x RAM 3 x 2TB Samsung HD204UI/Z4, SpinPoint EcoGreen 60GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2E, 2.5 I was thinking that a 500w - 600w PSU would do to power this but I'm not sure which one modular would be ideal but it has to silent. Thanks
400w will be fine for that: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/400w-seasonic-ss-400fl-x-series-80-plus-gold-90-eff-fanless-inc-modular-cable-perfect-for-htpc Or go bigger and don't stress it. For the same money the 650 probably won't spin it's fan at all in that system. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-seasonic-x-650-modular-80-plus-gold-90-eff-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-fan-cooling **stands back and waits for loads of people to recommend cheaper stuff**
Thanks for that okenobi I should have put in my original post I'm looking at £80 max this computer will only be used for three months a year max. Fan less would be ideal but they seem excessively expensive
Cool. If that's your budget, fanless will be difficult. Go for an older design, but still efficient and very quiet: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/620w-seasonic-m12ii-620-bronze-modular-80-plus-bronze-85-eff-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-120mm-fan
I agree that 400 W is plenty for that config. I have recently put this Nexus 430 in my living room PC. I probably only 60% load it, but I can testify that it's virtually silent - you need to put your ear within a few inches to hear it. The fan is quiter than the 120mm Silent Eagle case fans I have in this machine, and they are quiet! It's not modular though, but only £61. Review of the PSU here. I started off with the Seasonic X-400 in mind, which is of course the bee's knees. No moving parts mmmmm.... But I couldn't justify the price premium when there are one's with fans half the price which are virtually silent.
THe antec basiq range are pretty much silent. I've got a 400w job in my media server (running 6 HDD's) and it's inaudible
Is it worth getting a slightly more powerful PSU for future upgrades or is just not really needed it will never be used for gaming but I might try and squeeze another hard drive in there in the future.
With 3 x 2TB drives, the HD's will be the loudest part of the system so a good case may be more important.
I have a Zalman HTC160 case already, all the drives are going to be used for is storage and they are 5400rpm so fingers crossed they won't be to loud
Current 5400 RPM drives draw less than 10 W even in seek and idle at somewhere around 4 W. No problems whatsoever with a 400 W PSU even if you do decide to add a drive or two.
my coolermaster Silent M 600 is really quiet, prolly a bit overkill for what your doing, but perhaps the others in the range are worth looking at
seasonic x-400 is best you can get as it has no moving parts on a more realistic budget xfx750 is under£ 80 on some deals of the day and is silent
i cant here it in my own pc and i have the 850 edition. Sound is really to each there own i guess. I sleep with my pc on every night of the week and from were I sleep bed is about 3 meters from the computer the pc is silent with that psu in the system. and i turn off most of the fans at night on the case CPU goes into idle mode at 0.9volts or sumit crazy. temps are around 32 cpu 29-30 mainboard using asus probe readings which id guess arnt 100% accurate but do for my needs. might install coretemp and see what they say
Quite and I'm not disputing your reality. But in a HTPC, silence means actual silence. Not "very quiet". Whilst the XFX PSUs are based on a really solid Seasonic design, the fans used are cheaper and louder than the original Seasonic spec. Of course it's all relative.
Also vouching for Antec Earthwatts, it was cheap within your budget and quiet without entering the fanless territory.
