Dead silent psu opinions

yagga

I am looking ideally for a fanless psu (h2o isn't out of the question either, but I'm leary) that can power a system with LOTS of harddrives/memory/cddrives, but that is only a Northwood P4 with a fairly high end (still looking now) video card. I originally thought I'd try the thermaltake 350w psu and figured if it wasn't enough I'd use that somewhere else on an old system, but then I read some bad stuff about it and found the Antec 500 "hybrid" Phantom. Although the reviews I saw weren't absolutely applauding the Antec in everyway I am still thinking I could use it. I am trying to go for silence here, and water cooling is my next step if need be for any components that need it.

Any opinions, thoughts, ideas, about the Antec Phantom or anything else?

Case air flow is not a problem, and the cpu/video card/hard drives may begin to get water cooled if need be.

tmh88

I'd be scared of watercooling a psu. Lots of voltage/amperage mixed with water generally isnt a good thing.

entropy

The Phantom is pretty good, from what I've read.

If you want silencing tips, SPCR is the place to be. I've gotten addicted to making my computer quieter. Look into the Antec P180 case as well. For the record, I've got a Seasonic S12 500w (which is overkill, but oh well), and it's super quiet. Like, inaudible from any distance other than "Oh sh*t my ear just hit the fanblades." Nice bonus: it puts out very little heat, since it's so efficient.

madmat

There's also the XG Magnum 600 EX. It's external, has 500W continuous and even though it runs a fan it's exceptionally quiet.

Yes it's a good PSU too, it's based on the SevenTeam ST500EAZ although XG claims it's a 600W PSU it's only 500.

muddocktor

I think entropy and madmat have both given you good advice on the psu issue, D00D. Now as far as watercooling goes though, that will still be a bit of a challenge to do extremely quietly. I'm thinking that you will need a big radiator such as a Thermochill PA 120.2 or PA 160 so that you can use a quiet 120mm fan for ventilating the radiator. As far as a Northwood waterblock is concerned, you don't have to go with a Storm for great performance. I bought a DD RBX used from the O/C forums several months ago for watercooling a Northwood 2.6 and it performs great plus I got a great deal for it. So you could save a bit of money on the waterblock by looking in various forums Trading Posts/Classified sections for your waterblock.

mmaturen

speaking form my personal experience, my thermaltake pure power is rather silente, I sleep with the pc next to my bed and is completly silent....