Interest in Seasonic modular, fanless/semi-fanless SFX PSU? are you buying NCASE y/n?

Interest in Seasonic modular, fanless/semi-fanless SFX PSU? are you buying NCASE y/n?

  • I intend to buy NCASE M1 and I would buy a high end Seasonic SFX

    Votes: 132 62.3%

  • I intend to buy NCASE M1, but I would NOT buy a Seasonic SFX

    Votes: 13 6.1%

  • I do not plan to buy NCASE M1, but I love SFF and would buy a high end Seasonic SFX

    Votes: 62 29.2%

  • I use SFF, but neither Seasonic SFX or NCASE M1 interest me

    Votes: 5 2.4%
  • Total voters
    212
The problem isn't headroom. What's strange is that everyone has their own drawn line of how much headroom they think they should have. I myself think most people overrate the amount they "need" by quite a bit. A good PSU is underrated in my experience as well. Where does this fear stem from that you need 200W headroom? Is there even solid evidence that there are tangible effects in doing so? Even if it reduced longevity per se, I'd bet it be negligible, especially considering most people here upgrade components so quickly lol.
 
pointfiveo said:
Most people don't want to run their PSUs at over 80% load. Just because 450W is enough to power a Titan, doesn't mean doing so is not ill-advised.
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Manufacturers rate a power supply for X amps at X volts for X number of hours... I don't know where you're getting this "ill-advised" bit from. If a PSU manufacturer's product cannot meet the ratings listed, then they become known as crap (ahem, OCZ)... by experimentation, the ST45SF-G has been shown to be a fairly burly unit and capable of achieving its claims.

pointfiveo said:
You can't really expect people to base their calculations on a belief that their PSUs have a higher wattage than stated on the box. Also, capacitor aging needs to be taken into consideration. Who said anything about 200 watts? At least I didn't. A high-end GPU is stressing the hell out of 450W and I wouldn't consider ~60W a comfortable headroom.
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Great, so you need more than 13% of a PSU's capacity to serve as unused insurance. That's you're personal take. See the previous comments about manufacturer reputation and the ability to conform to ratings.
 
Machupo said:
Great, so you need more than 13% of a PSU's capacity to serve as unused insurance. That's you're personal take. See the previous comments about manufacturer reputation and the ability to conform to ratings.
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The Silverstone SFX series definitely meet their claims based on reviews. But it appears even Silverstone themselves seem to recommend using a PSU that will be running at its peak efficiency if possible (which is 50% load on their SFX series). According to them, the benefits of having this extra headroom is quieter operation & lower heat output.. and according to Corsair, also avoids high ripple and voltage drops that occur when a PSU is operating at its upper limits (which can be damaging to other components in the system).

Dunno. I'm not a PSU guru in the least, but I see no problem having a little extra "unused insurance" :)

http://silverstonetek.com/techtalk_cont.php?area=&tid=wh10_005

http://www.corsair.com/blog/what-is-in-the-wattage/
 
AFD said:
According to them, the benefits of having this extra headroom is quieter operation & lower heat output..
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What neither article mentions is size of the box. In the Silverstone article, the ST1000P is being compared to the ST1500. The former is 160mm long and the latter is 220mm long - almost 40% more volume. Easier to keep cool, and more space to put extra components.

The proposed higher wattage SFX would not have this size advantage. The ST45SF-G is already full, there is no space for more components or more airflow. So we're left with designing it differently (which takes time to develop) and/or improving component quality (which will increase the price).
 
I really dislike the wording of the poll. Ended up settling for option 3 however.

As a current owner of the ST45SF-G(Newest revision) I am content with the current performance. I just feel that incremental improvements are warranted. Even if it were to come as a new model. I would have gladly paid an extra $30 dollars for a platinum model. A better 24-pin layout would be phenomenal however.
 
Ryleh said:
A better 24-pin layout would be phenomenal however.
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I agree and ranted about it on another forum. But eventually I realised they want to keep the pinout backwards compatible with original modular Strider series, and their cable set accessories PP05 and PP06 as well.
 
WiSK said:
The proposed higher wattage SFX would not have this size advantage.
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Yeah, I'm not saying it's possible to make an 800W PSU in SFX or anything like that.. was just trying to explain the rationale behind why some of us prefer more power than is actually needed.

So even though I would like to have over 500W in SFX, I'll take whatever I can get and understand the size constraints they're working with.

Ryleh said:
I would have gladly paid an extra $30 dollars for a platinum model.
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+1, I would also be willing to pay more for better efficiency, higher output or even quality improvements. I'm really surprised there's not more competition from other companies for high-output SFX power supplies.
 
80 plus Platinum is just for bragging rights, in the end it will just draw 4W less from the wall than Gold, when at 50% usage with a 450W PSU. That's about as much as an average 12V fan. 2-3% better efficiency isn't really that impressive when you pay 20-30% more.
 
With an SFX, efficiency is not so much about what it saves in energy bills, but rather what it saves in heat production.

A gold-rated PSU running at 400W produces over 44W of heat, while a platinum-rated PSU would produce less than 35W heat. Fan can run slower, components last longer, etc.
 
Phuncz said:
80 plus Platinum is just for bragging rights, in the end it will just draw 4W less from the wall than Gold, when at 50% usage with a 450W PSU. That's about as much as an average 12V fan. 2-3% better efficiency isn't really that impressive when you pay 20-30% more.
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Hmm.. 4W less? That's like saving 5¢ on electricity every year.. awesome! ;)

And what WiSK just said.
 
Yeah I know it will also save heat, but the difference is so low, you could just as easily buy more energy-efficient components and save MUCH more than a 2% more efficient PSU will ever leverage.

For instance, undervolt some components like the GPU and CPU a few procent will yield much more than the jump from 80+ Gold to 80+ Platinum.
 
Yeah, a $100 SFX Gold vs a $140 SFX Platinum may not be worth the added expense.

I'm just hoping it occurs as a naturally progression in development, replacing the Gold eventually.. same with any power increase. Unfortunately, there's not much competition in this area, so not a lot of reason for companies like Silverstone to push for any improvements too quickly.

I bet if another company like Corsair or Thermaltake jumped in and made a comparable SFX PSU, we'd start seeing a lot of small improvements in short order. Right now, there's not much incentive.
 
AFD said:
I bet if another company like Corsair or Thermaltake jumped in and made a comparable SFX PSU, we'd start seeing a lot of small improvements in short order. Right now, there's not much incentive.
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Competition doesn't always drive innovation, especially when a market is small or specialist. It might end up eventually cutting the amount of revenue that goes to the research department.

Anyway, both Corsair and Thermaltake would buy as OEM. As has been noted earlier in the thread High Power has a 500W+ SFX design on the table, ready for production, waiting for an order of only 1000 units. Why didn't anyone place an order yet? Because they don't have any cases which absolutely need an SFX unit. Silverstone does have cases that need SFX, but the High Power unit is too deep, it won't fit in an SG05 or ML05.

So what we actually need is more case designers to make cases that need SFX and would fit a deeper SFX unit too. That would expand the market and increase projected revenues for a new player.
 
We don't need fanless or platinum. Just a decent unit with a silent fan. At least in idle.
 
Third option here.
I don't understand the need for semi-fanless or fanless SFX, just don't make it louder than the Silverstone 450 V2, of which I'm a proud owner :cool:.
My caseless setup is sitting 1 foot away from me on my desk and the only noise that's heard is the Noctua Nh-L9i!
My ear literally has to be 2 inches from the psu to hear it's noise... and I have great hearing! With a case on I highly doubt it'd be audible at all.
Even though I live in a highly populated metropolitan area, with the windows closed and everything in the apartment turned off, random outside sounds still overpower the psu noise.
When I'm consumed in gaming or other pc activites the sound doesn't bother me even for a second.

Silverstone SFX stole my heart, and I have no problem paying $100-150 for a quiet 500/550/600?W SFF psu.
I feel like I'm pushing the limits on my 450 SFX and it's nice and quiet with no hiccups, so I'm more interested higher wattages for future builds over lower noise.
Also, it's about time we make SFF the new standard!
 
WiSK said:
Competition doesn't always drive innovation, especially when a market is small or specialist. It might end up eventually cutting the amount of revenue that goes to the research department.

Anyway, both Corsair and Thermaltake would buy as OEM. As has been noted earlier in the thread High Power has a 500W+ SFX design on the table, ready for production, waiting for an order of only 1000 units. Why didn't anyone place an order yet? Because they don't have any cases which absolutely need an SFX unit. Silverstone does have cases that need SFX, but the High Power unit is too deep, it won't fit in an SG05 or ML05.

So what we actually need is more case designers to make cases that need SFX and would fit a deeper SFX unit too. That would expand the market and increase projected revenues for a new player.
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An how much would it be per unit in such batch?
 
I'll be blunt. If Silverstone refuses to make a completely fanless SFX PSU, then I have no choice but to go with a Seasonic ATX Fanless. It's a matter of what I got to choose from.
 
Aibohphobia said:
You're such a tease :p
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lol

Considering all the emails, efforts by members in this forum and myself. Also, I'm pretty sure Corsair and SilverStone expressed interest.

The years that we have waited, it's hard not to be excited.

Some things are just too hard to give up on.
 
There must be a good reason you decided to resurrect this thread and with that 700W Dirac comment you made before Computex there's a good reason I should believe so :)... but wondering at the same time why no coverage of Seasonic's showcase at Computex that I've gone through had any hint at this.
 
veryrarium said:
There must be a good reason you decided to resurrect this thread and with that 700W Dirac comment you made before Computex there's a good reason I should believe so :)... but wondering at the same time why no coverage of Seasonic's showcase at Computex that I've gone through had any hint at this.
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I can't confirm or deny.

I just hope Seasonic makes something better...like very soon.

It's nice to have this forum thread for reference when emailing the right people.

It's what you have to do to get OEM to make new and or niche products - it certainly worked on Sirfa/High Power to create SFX-L, which you see now.

This forum thread shows demand, which helps to push things through.
 
Count me in on the SFX (outside Silverstone) units bandwagon anytime/anyday!
 
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