650TL fanless vs 650TR, which is the best on a silent case with damping foam?

[Stefan Payne]

a) the Difference between Platinum and Titanium are negligable on the bill but cost 30-50€ more for the same unit
b) Fanless in general isn't that great as it has no fan and can overheat if you do your case ventilation wrong
c) there are better options than the Seasonic, as the Prime is known to have a not great fan for example...
d) Other options: be quiet Dark Power PRO P11, Corsair HX or HXi for example. Maybe Fractal Design Ion, Silverstone Strider Platinum.
All are on the quiet side, especially Dark Power PRO and Corsair HX(i), Silverstoen Strider Platinum is also good.

And why make it run 24/7 with THAT setup?? IF you want a fileserver, build one seperately as the difference between a "Game PC" with a powerful GPU and a dedicated, low power system is bigger than the difference of Gold <-> Titanium.
My 2400G idles around 20W on the MSI B450I Board for example.
On the ASUS X370-F its around 35-40W, so about double of the MSI. And with GPU and the 3700X I'm at over 60W (especially since that Board consumes a good amount of power more than the MSI).

[arkantospt]

well if you render for hours, a 2% efficiency difference will show its value after the end of the year.
I had my calculations for a 8h daily run.
It will be around 5-10€ per year savings on 50% load. If titanium PSU comes with a 12y warranty, and if I use the PSU for 10-12 years at least, I will have the surplus invested money returned, and with titanium PSUs you end up with better components, less noise fans and higher watt threshold before a fan spins, most of the times.

[Stefan Payne]

Increasing the Efficiency of your components (ie reducing the Clockrates by 5-10% can reduce the power consumption of that part by up to 20%), if you want to save so much, has more of an effect than the efficiency of your PSU!
Especially since its not 2% but up to two percent.
Lets take these two for example:
https://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/test...r_1200/s03.php
https://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/test...ax1000/s03.php

At 100% load, the AX1000 has an efficiecny at 230VAC of around 93,3%
The ASUS (same plattform, less efficient) is "only" at 92,3% at 90% load (wich is 1080W, so somewhat similar load).

So that makes a difference of just 1% in reality!

Peak Efficiency is around 40% load at 95,4% efficiency, here the ASUS is not as good and only has an efficiency of 93,4% - here it is 2%...
But at lighter load, the effect is less. So the 1% at 90% equals the same savings as 2% at 45% load.

As for the Warranty:
It doesn't mean a better product, it means that you have to pay for the Warranty for all people that buy it. There are also some major exclusions for example that you have to have a receit or "wear and tear due to normal use". Or those "intended use" disclaimers that also exclude mining.

What do you think Seasonic will say when you use their PSU at high load, 24/7 and then it fails after 3, 4 years??? And one of the PCIe/CPU Connectors also has some burn/heat marks as well. In that case they are able to accuse you of using it for "mining" and reject your warranty.

The Wear and Tear paragraph from Seasonic is this:

The product was not damaged due to normal wear and tear or acts of nature, such as lightning, flood or fire.

You seem to overrate the Warranty by a mile. Its a bonus that should be considered as such but not be a deciding factor!
Especially since there are other things to consider.


As for fan noise:
Again, efficiency is irrelevant, the design of the PSU is what matters!
There are pretty quiet 80plus Gold certified units on the market that don't get loud, even at 100% load, but there are also Platinum and Titanium units that are loud.
For example:
https://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/test...ax1000/s09.php
https://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/test...wer_11/s09.php

The AX1000 at 750W load is around 856rpm, the be quiet is slightly lower at 827rpm. Not dramatically but slightly.


So in the end there is only a slightly higher efficiency, that's most likely not 2%, when comparing to 80plus Platinum units and that's it...
Warranty is not as big of an advantage as you might even have to pay for international shipping -> shipping to the Netherlands for example, wich leaves you with no PSU for some time and also can exclude many things so that you can't count on a replacement after 5-10 years. Especially since its possible that there is a new ATX Spec that makes use of different voltages that make your old PSU incompatible...

[SilverStone]

Nearly all fanless PSU designs rely on passive airflow to help with cooling so you need to make sure the PSU placement inside you case has sufficient space around it in the most optimal orientation for the particular PSU. If finding the correct orientation and space inside your slient case is problematic, then you can consider our NJ450-SXL as it is not orientation dependent.

[arkantospt]

Nearly all fanless PSU designs rely on passive airflow to help with cooling so you need to make sure the PSU placement inside you case has sufficient space around it in the most optimal orientation for the particular PSU. If finding the correct orientation and space inside your slient case is problematic, then you can consider our NJ450-SXL as it is not orientation dependent.

Thank you for your answer.
Let's say we use a recent ATX-sized case, with the PSU placed on the bottom.
Is there a better placement and orientation for such fanless PSU?
What is the case fan configuration you recommend?
Is it a must to have intake/out fans? if so, how many and what sizes?

Thank you.

[none77]

You should put the grill up so the hot air will go up above the PCB.
Check that if you got PSU shroud it have holes or better remove it.

[SilverStone]

Many retail ATX cases have PSU shroud nowadays to cover up the PSU on the bottom, so you will need to avoid those and get cases that lets you install PSU on the bottom with plenty of room above it like below:


Cases that mount PSUs to the top are OK too if they have venting above the PSU on the top panel like below:


If you plan on adding more fans to your case to compensate for fanless PSU installation, then you should be getting the quietest 120mm fans or larger that you can find on the market. Otherwise, you might as well just get a regular quiet PSU to begin with!

[Stefan Payne]

Attachments don't attach
The Cases with PSU Shroud are fine, if there is an option to mount a fan in front of the PSU and blow through it...

But then again: a PSU with a fan has the advantage that the PSU can control the fan and spin it higher when its needed.


The difference between 0rpm fan speed and lets say 250rpm is enormous! We are talking about at least 20K, but even more is also possible...

[SilverStone]

Attachments don't attach
The Cases with PSU Shroud are fine, if there is an option to mount a fan in front of the PSU and blow through it...

But then again: a PSU with a fan has the advantage that the PSU can control the fan and spin it higher when its needed.


The difference between 0rpm fan speed and lets say 250rpm is enormous! We are talking about at least 20K, but even more is also possible...

Not sure what happened there with the attachments, updated them now, thanks!

The case recommendation was assuming not adding more fans to the case. So yeah, if you need to add fans, you might as well just get a PSU that come with one!

[Jon Gerow]

The case recommendation was assuming not adding more fans to the case. So yeah, if you need to add fans, you might as well just get a PSU that come with one!

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