FSP Debuting Liquid Cooled PSU at Computex

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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FSP is giving us a sneak peek at its liquid cooled PSU line. There have been liquid cooled PSUs before this from Koolance a couple of times (here and here), both about 10 years ago. It will be interesting to see what interest the market has today.

FSP introduces the new Hydro PTM+ liquid cooled PSU. - The Hydro PTM+ is a unique, and patented liquid cooled PSU created in cooperation with Bitspower, a renowned creator of liquid cooling solutions for PCs, to meet the highest security and safety standards. The Hydro PTM+ is the world's first mass produced liquid cooled PSU with 80 Plus Platinum certificated, with gorgeous LED lighting it combines great looks with amazing performance. The unique liquid cooling system, once enabled, increases the power rating from 1200W to 1400W. But, with an array of integrated sensors, the Hydro PTM+ also excels at efficiency, when running in silent mode (below 50% load) it still delivers 600W without the use of a fan for cooling, and thus it remains in complete silence.
 
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Liquid cooling for a piddly 1400W power supply in such a huge casing is an impressive level of over complication.
 
Liquid cooling for a piddly 1400W power supply in such a huge casing is an impressive level of over complication.
You of course realize that Computex is, and has been, a place to showcase halo and one-off tech products for a couple of decades now, right?
 
  1. Your typical gaming computer/desktop computer uses less than 350 Watts at load and less than 150 Watts at idle. Unless you're running $1000 video card(s), a lot of power/money is just wasted on a really overkill PSU.
  2. Your typical household electrical outlet is limited to about 1800 Watts in the USA. It's probably a little more in 220V countries.
  3. With high efficiency power supplies like the Seasonic Prime Titanium, the fan won't even turn on under light load. So, it's not about noise or heat.
So, it's purely for novelty or bragging rights. I doubt most people would brag on a FSP power supply of any kind. That leaves novelty.

I hereby take this opportunity to brag on my Seasonic Prime Titanium. :p
 
1. Is there any real reson to get a 1400w power supply anymore? I have a 1000w and never felt i needed it, even running 2 r9 390s, and with video cards becoming more efficient and nvidia starting to kill off sli (which they brought back years ago) what's the point?

2. Water inside my power supply just makes me feel odd. I don't think I would want that.
 
This seems flawed in so many ways:
* Water cooling AND a fan!?! (Should be watercooling only.)
* 80 Plus Platinum? No need to go very high efficiency with watercooling, a Bronze rating should be sufficient!
* Way more power than ever needed.
 
This was great when your intel i7 cpu model started with a 2 or lower and your nvidia gpu started with a 7 or lower. Anything made in the last 3 years sucks half the power or less of those dynos. On top of that amd stopped making space heaters this year for cpus.

I can remember the good old days when the gpu would idle at 150 watts or more, and then shoot up to 400 watts to heat up the room.
 
So, it's purely for novelty or bragging rights

Well, considering how many here will rush to buy Titans for less than 4K gaming, I see your point and yes, they will also buy this PSU for that one Titan..:D
 
People running water cooled, heavy OC dual GPU+ and heavy OC CPU high end set ups, would love this as it means even less noise. I would!
200-300W for CPU e.g. 4GHz 16Core and 2x Titans/Vega heavily OCd at 320W+ each.... You're already knocking on 800-900W peak without counting board/storage/additional load. So yes, a 1400W PSU is great for that scenario. Or say you want to run 3-4x cards for 'insert insane reason here'.
Running temps would also be low which means a long lifetime.
 
This seems flawed in so many ways:
* Water cooling AND a fan!?! (Should be watercooling only.)
* 80 Plus Platinum? No need to go very high efficiency with watercooling, a Bronze rating should be sufficient!
* Way more power than ever needed.

You don't understand power supplies, water cooling, or what efficiency is.
 
People running water cooled, heavy OC dual GPU+ and heavy OC CPU high end set ups, would love this as it means even less noise. I would!
200-300W for CPU e.g. 4GHz 16Core and 2x Titans/Vega heavily OCd at 320W+ each.... You're already knocking on 800-900W peak without counting board/storage/additional load. So yes, a 1400W PSU is great for that scenario. Or say you want to run 3-4x cards for 'insert insane reason here'.
Running temps would also be low which means a long lifetime.

I've never once heard people complaining about power supply noise in those systems. If you're running a custom loop big enough to support multiple GPUs & CPUs at high OC, the noise produced by the PSU fan is the LEAST of your concerns. Your pump and rad fans are always, always going to drown the PSU fan noise out. And lets not forget this particular model STILL has a fan which kicks in on >50% load.

PSUs also aren't known to overheat with any half-decent fan to begin with, so much so that most high-end PSUs already have >7year warranty.
 
I've never once heard people complaining about power supply noise in those systems. If you're running a custom loop big enough to support multiple GPUs & CPUs at high OC, the noise produced by the PSU fan is the LEAST of your concerns. Your pump and rad fans are always, always going to drown the PSU fan noise out. And lets not forget this particular model STILL has a fan which kicks in on >50% load.

PSUs also aren't known to overheat with any half-decent fan to begin with, so much so that most high-end PSUs already have >7year warranty.

Noise all depends how you build it. Sure with off shelf stuff and size limitations of a normal case, yes. You can also do a similar set up with big passive custom air and two passive psus...
I just prefer a PSU to be loaded well but not taxed to the limits.. best buy it a hundred or two hundred watts extra. Plus transient loads, e.g. HDD arrays spinning up etc. It's the lifeblood of your PC and especially if you're OCing, you want clean power.
 
Noise all depends how you build it. Sure with off shelf stuff and size limitations of a normal case, yes. You can also do a similar set up with big passive custom air and two passive psus...
I just prefer a PSU to be loaded well but not taxed to the limits.. best buy it a hundred or two hundred watts extra. Plus transient loads, e.g. HDD arrays spinning up etc. It's the lifeblood of your PC and especially if you're OCing, you want clean power.

The point is that the big high-end PSUs (>1000W) almost all use very quiet 140mm fans as well, and some even include "silent" modes where the fan is off at low loads. Operating in a large case, you'd have even more passive cooling of the PSU (cooler air, more metal to conduct to, etc), so the fan would be either off or at very low speeds.

I fully agree with having clean power and buying the proper ratings. You can go TOO big though, depending on the efficiency curve of your PSU. You typically want your steady-state full load to be around 70% of the PSU rating to ensure you're near the peak of the efficiency curve.

I think the current generation of PSUs are pretty damn good though, both in power quality and temp/noise limits. A water-cooled PSU is a solution looking for a problem.
 
Why not make a completely enclosed PS filled with mineral water and nice big copper heatsink on the back?
 
Why not make a completely enclosed PS filled with mineral water and nice big copper heatsink on the back?

Mineral water? That is probably the most electrically conductive form of water there is.

I think you meant mineral oil. Mineral oil and capacitors don't mix the greatest. Anyway, you've simply created hot spots. The cooling by convection on such a setup is terrible. Think about a water loop with a dead pump, but assume no possible phase change. Just doesn't work out.
 
People running water cooled, heavy OC dual GPU+ and heavy OC CPU high end set ups, would love this as it means even less noise. I would!
200-300W for CPU e.g. 4GHz 16Core and 2x Titans/Vega heavily OCd at 320W+ each.... You're already knocking on 800-900W peak without counting board/storage/additional load. So yes, a 1400W PSU is great for that scenario. Or say you want to run 3-4x cards for 'insert insane reason here'.
Running temps would also be low which means a long lifetime.

Most titanium rated power supplies already don't generate noise at <50% load because they are so efficient and the fan doesn't need to spin. This is probably louder cause it has water and a fan.
 
Mineral water? That is probably the most electrically conductive form of water there is.

I think you meant mineral oil. Mineral oil and capacitors don't mix the greatest. Anyway, you've simply created hot spots. The cooling by convection on such a setup is terrible. Think about a water loop with a dead pump, but assume no possible phase change. Just doesn't work out.

I think he meant distilled water.
 
Why? We already have PSUs with hybrid passive mode = dead silent at idle.

Your speakers will make more noise at load than a quality PSU fan will. OR you're gaming with headphones on,and couldn't care less what the noise level is.

Platinum PSUs have pretty-much reduced the waste heat to tiny amount. This is a solution in search of a problem.

Unless that solution is to give the water-cooing nutheads something else to waste money on?
 
Platinum, Gold, unobtainum, whatever makes no fucking difference, all that is is efficiency, 500 watts to the components, 550 watts from the wall = 90% efficiency, you're still dumping 50 watts of heat into the room.

90-94% efficient is Titanium, 89-92 is platinum.. at most you're talking 3% on a 1kw psu. so 30 watts. woo.
 
Why not make a completely enclosed PS filled with mineral water and nice big copper heatsink on the back?

Because that would be a train wreck. Fluorocarbon-based materials (like fluorinert) is what has been used before with things like this https://www.hardocp.com/article/2007/05/15/koolance_1200w_liquid_cooled_psu/ and this https://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/07/21/koolance_psu1300atx12n_liquid_cooled_power_supply/ and you still want something moving air over the radiator.
 
Platinum, Gold, unobtainum, whatever makes no fucking difference, all that is is efficiency, 500 watts to the components, 550 watts from the wall = 90% efficiency, you're still dumping 50 watts of heat into the room.

90-94% efficient is Titanium, 89-92 is platinum.. at most you're talking 3% on a 1kw psu. so 30 watts. woo.

If you're pulling 550W from the wall, you're dumping 550W of heat into the room. If your PSU is 90% efficient, that means the PSU is dumping 50W of heat into the room, and the other 500W is being dumped into the room by the CPU and GPU.
 
Think the water cooling on the PSU is a bit over kill. My Corsair HX1200i is pretty much dead silent. My system at idle is dead silent. Until I get over 550-650watts of heat dumped in my loop my fans don't become audible from around 3-4 feet away. I went with a 1200watt PSU because with folding I wanted a psu that could handle a 24/7 load when I wasn't gaming and for the load to stay in the sweet spot on the psu for best efficiency. Full load gaming with dual 1080's and 5820k @ 4.4ghz I hit around 725watts. Also running 7 x 120mm fans, d5 pump. I wouldn't want to run anything under 1000watts for my setup. I do think that a water cooled psu is a waist for pretty much any one in this day and age.
 
  1. Your typical gaming computer/desktop computer uses less than 350 Watts at load and less than 150 Watts at idle. Unless you're running $1000 video card(s), a lot of power/money is just wasted on a really overkill PSU.
  2. Your typical household electrical outlet is limited to about 1800 Watts in the USA. It's probably a little more in 220V countries.
  3. With high efficiency power supplies like the Seasonic Prime Titanium, the fan won't even turn on under light load. So, it's not about noise or heat.
So, it's purely for novelty or bragging rights. I doubt most people would brag on a FSP power supply of any kind. That leaves novelty.

I hereby take this opportunity to brag on my Seasonic Prime Titanium. :p

Add to the fact in the USA most outlets are rated at or above the load carrying capability of the breaker switch. So maxing out one outlet max's out the entire room in most cases. So it's utterly pointless to have such things most of the time.
 
Add to the fact in the USA most outlets are rated at or above the load carrying capability of the breaker switch. So maxing out one outlet max's out the entire room in most cases. So it's utterly pointless to have such things most of the time.


This is the case just about everywhere. Overload devices are typically rated at 125% of Inom. There is this fancy thing called in-rush current.
 
How about warranty on that thing ? Seasonic has 12 years and Corsair has 10 years on their high end PSU's. Those also dont spin a fan till 50% load. In addition, it's very hard to consume that much energy with modern computers and the number of rigs with a heavy overclocked 8+ core CPU and dual or tripple GPU is so small, I dare to say this is a niche market already. I myself have this AXi-1200 from Corsair cause it was on sale for like 280€ back then, WAY OVERDONE. Never ever consumed more than 612w in overkill stresstest. A 850w AXi is actually allo I need. During gaming I am at 350-400W.
 
You don't understand power supplies, water cooling, or what efficiency is.
I do understand them quite well:
1. If I were to use watercooling for a PSU it would be because I wanted to get rid of the fan. With a special design such as this the waterblock(s) could easily be designed to cater for all cooling where convection isn't enough.
2. Watercooling allows the user to dump off as much heat as desired, using a sufficiently large radiator. Venting 1,000W or 1,150W due to (in)efficiency doesn't make much difference. (But sure, if making the PSU meet "Platinum" cost no more than making it "Bronze", I have no objection...)
3. To make a 1200W (or more) PSU look like a sensible option you need to run something like a pair of Vega FE (@ ~350W each) combined with a heavily overclocked top end CPU. Not very likely...
 
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