Searching for new computer PSU (for audio)

[Patrick82]

My computer transport broke a couple weeks ago (overclocking) and I need to build a new one.

I was using Antec Phantom and it worked fine but it dumped back too much noise into my audio system. So I wonder which power supply is best for audio? I'm going to use 9800gtx, Q6600 G0, Corsair 2GB RAM, and maybe Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3. They are cheap so I can spend more money on the PSU.

I want a power supply that lasts my whole life, I don't want it to break when overclocking. I also want it to have cables that you can change because I will use my own cables (Valhalla, Vishnu and Valkyrja).

I don't know where to start looking, there are so many power supplies. I saw Ultra X3, it has a lifetime warranty and you can change the cables. But how does it sound? Which power supplies are made for audio use?

 

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

; i didn't know the power supply unit would affect audio....

I just think you need any good PSU that has enough juice to feed all your hardware components.

For me i am running a few power hungry stuff such as my 8800 GTS card among other things.... the suggested psu should be something 850 watt -1000 watt

 

[NKDietrich]

Uhm... well... realistically speaking the fans in a power supply are going to contribute more to noise than anything electrical. So look for a PSU that is built to run quietly.

If you are really picky about electrical noise in your sound, then stop pumping music through your PC, get a real audio system or deal with it.

The best solution would be to run an optical out from your PC to a half-way decent receiver then out into a decent set of real speakers. Again, the most noise interference would be coming from the mechanical portions of your PC, not the electrical parts. Fans are very distracting.

 

[Mister X]

Easy solution.... get an external sound card that does not run on the crappy switch mode power supply in your computer.

 

[Patrick82]

Uhm... well... realistically speaking the fans in a power supply are going to contribute more to noise than anything electrical. So look for a PSU that is built to run quietly.

I have my power supply inside my closet and I use Zalman Reserator for CPU and GPU.

I have tried 3 fanless PSU's and they all broke fast. I mounted a Papst fan on my 4th and it worked for only 2 years.

Maybe there are some good water cooled PSU's?

If you are really picky about electrical noise in your sound, then stop pumping music through your PC, get a real audio system or deal with it.

I already have a dedicated transport for my audio system. I will use the computer for movies.

The best solution would be to run an optical out from your PC to a half-way decent receiver then out into a decent set of real speakers. Again, the most noise interference would be coming from the mechanical portions of your PC, not the electrical parts. Fans are very distracting.

I use Toslink from computer to DAC to keep the noise away from my audio system.

 

[Patrick82]

Easy solution.... get an external sound card that does not run on the crappy switch mode power supply in your computer.

The EMU0404 soundcard I have now works fine. I'm not going extreme with my computer setup anyway, it's just for games and movies.

I'm going to use another PSU for my soundcard with a P300 Power Plant regenerator, I will use MWave4 multiwave manipulation to boost up the bass, also ERS Paper + Valhalla etc.
But I wonder about the other components, especially the RAM. I wonder if there is RAM that bypasses the mainboard and are externally powered directly through the PSU? (I'm going to use a 2nd P300 Power Plant just for the mainboard, and I don't want extra power to be run through the mainboard.)

In the future I will probably have Quad SLI and they will be powered from a dedicated PSU separated from everything else. So my PSU for the graphics cards doesn't need to be that high quality, but I don't want it to dump back noise into the AC line and circuit breaker box (Valhalla).
For my CPU and mainboard I will use a normal 300 watt PSU because the P300 Power Plant can't handle more anyway.

So I'm going to need a 800-1000 watt PSU with changeable cables. Is there something else than Ultra X3? I would hardwire my Valhallas into the PSU but then it ruins the lifetime warranty, so having connectors to plug in would be perfect.

 

[NKDietrich]

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as externally powered RAM, nor a motherboard with unpowered DIMM slots.

You seem to be very particular about your audio quality and setup, and unfortunately if you are set on doing things directly through your PC, there are going to be shortcomings and problems. PCs are multi-purpose devices, and due to their modular and complex nature, electronically speaking, they have all kinds of sources of electrical noise. The only way to remove the electric noise from your setup is to use some kind of digital output which is immune to it.

I'm not entirely certain why you don't want to simply pump everything through an external receiver.

A PC is never going to be an ideal A/V setup. No matter how much effort you are willing to put in, some of the hardware just isn't there. To be honest this whole thing seems a little bit.. crazy. So much effort for something that should be very simple. Dedicated A/V hardware that vastly outshines the PC is quite affordable these days.

 

[Patrick82]

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as externally powered RAM, nor a motherboard with unpowered DIMM slots.

Is it possible to build a connector for the RAM slot and put the RAM elsewhere? Then you could also connect separate DC wiring to the pins of the RAM?

You seem to be very particular about your audio quality and setup, and unfortunately if you are set on doing things directly through your PC, there are going to be shortcomings and problems. PCs are multi-purpose devices, and due to their modular and complex nature, electronically speaking, they have all kinds of sources of electrical noise. The only way to remove the electric noise from your setup is to use some kind of digital output which is immune to it.

I'm not entirely certain why you don't want to simply pump everything through an external receiver.

I already have an external DAC where I plug the computer into with optical connection. But I want to reduce the jitter of the computer now. I know it doesn't get better than the jitter limit of optical so I don't need to tweak extreme anyway. I just need to tweak the jitter to match the jitter of optical. I will also add my own flavor of jitter to the sound with Valhalla power cables and MWave4.

For my main CD transport (192kHz) I use the MWave1 flavor for crazy speed. But sometimes I want the dark MWave4 flavor, and computer has the best synergy for it because of the brighter 44.1kHz output.

A PC is never going to be an ideal A/V setup. No matter how much effort you are willing to put in, some of the hardware just isn't there. To be honest this whole thing seems a little bit.. crazy. So much effort for something that should be very simple. Dedicated A/V hardware that vastly outshines the PC is quite affordable these days.

I already have $$$$ of mutilated tweaks sitting in boxes doing nothing. It would be a waste not using them, that's why I want to use them for my computer.
I have tried those tweaks before so I know that's what my computer needs, it's not crazy.

I read some reviews of the Ultra X3 and it seems like I might be getting that one. But I can't find it in Sweden. How do I get the warranty now?
Maybe I will get a couple Corsair 520watt instead.

 

[NKDietrich]

Is it possible to build a connector for the RAM slot and put the RAM elsewhere? Then you could also connect separate DC wiring to the pins of the RAM?

Unfortunately when it comes to RAM you are basically stuck with where they've placed it. The bus between your chipset/CPU and your memory is very delicate. The only way to do it is via the traces on the motherboard which carry the data. Any sort of cabling/connectors beyond what there already is would destroy any ability to maintain data transmission between the memory and your CPU or chipset.

 

[Mister X]

But I want to reduce the jitter of the computer now.

Show me this "jitter".
And while you are at it can you do some benchmarking to validate the image you posted?
(http://poollogics.is-a-geek.net/pictures/forum4/blog/Power/MWave1.JPG)
Rightmark results are good enough.

You have excuse my skepticism but evey bit of it sounds like idiotphile nonsense to me.

 

[Patrick82]

Unfortunately when it comes to RAM you are basically stuck with where they've placed it. The bus between your chipset/CPU and your memory is very delicate. The only way to do it is via the traces on the motherboard which carry the data. Any sort of cabling/connectors beyond what there already is would destroy any ability to maintain data transmission between the memory and your CPU or chipset.

Does the signal get messed up from another solder joint or because of bad cables?
Maybe it works with my cables. I'm using 22awg wiring 96% speed of light.

 

[Patrick82]

I was reading a Corsair HX620W review and it said this:

I have tested many power supplies and there has always been a noticeable difference between the rails between idle and load states... until now. This is the first unit tested to date that allows only a .01v drop along the rails between the two states. What this means to you is that you can expect to receive a near perfect supply of power along all rails regardless of stress conditions.

Maybe this gives better audio?

 

[theystolemyname]

evey bit of it sounds like idiotphile nonsense to me

+1



The people here are only concerned with metrics that can be measured. That is, not completely made up nonsense such as labeling characteristics of audio as being 'black' or 'white' or 'darker' or any one of a million totally subjective adjectives idiotphiles use to describe their $10,000 strands of copper.

 

[phide]

You have excuse my skepticism but evey bit of it sounds like idiotphile nonsense to me.

I'm very concerned with some of his posts at AVSForum. I think this is a case of obsessive audiophiledom gone totally, disturbingly wrong.

That being said, PC Power & Cooling's supplies are favored by extreme overclockers and so on, and I'd imagine that the regularity and stability of the power output would be beneficial toward system stability, but would likely have absolutely zero effect on the introduction of clocking jitter from the S/PDIF output of any device that it would power. If there's evidence to suggest otherwise, I'd love to see it.

 

[Patrick82]

I'm very concerned with some of his posts at AVSForum. I think this is a case of obsessive audiophiledom gone totally, disturbingly wrong.

The only thing wrong is audiophiles who spend tens of thousands and getting worse sound than something for a fraction of the price. Tweaking to fix the problems gives a bigger improvement than upgrading the electronics. High-end gear remove detail in order to make it smoother and more "musical". But when you fix the problems the high-end gear end up sounding veiled and muddy.
I get better sound from a $975 Benchmark DAC1 than a high-end CD player costing many times more. When both are using tweaks for $10k, the DAC1 sounds better in every way!

Check this review, at least one person agrees with me. http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue27/benchmark.htm

 

[phide]

Well, I will say that review is interesting. There seems to be some emphasis on the "healing-powers" of the "Quantum Physics Noise Disruptor" in particular, so I followed up on that a bit. Interestingly, I found the following having been said about it:

We are told by the company that 3 components make up the Disruptor which are subject to extreme atmospheric pressures and then treated with a special gas-like treatment which enables the 3 components to do their job. However, if the components inside the Disruptor are exposed to outside air, they become ineffective and must be disposed of.

So, not only are the so-called "EMI absorption" characteristics of the device unquantified in any capacity, but there's also a warning that users not actually examine the internal construction of the "device" by opening it, stating that the components become "inneffective" when exposed to air. Would opening it reveal that the three secret internal components are actually a piece of lint, a small paper clip and a decayed rat femur?

In any case, I don't mean for this to turn into a "science vs. subjectivity" debate. To get back on topic, I have no reason to believe that the power supply will influence the digital output in any meaningful, observable capacity, so buy your power supply based upon its specifications. PCP&C's 1KW unit is probably the best in its class, but it doesn't have detachable cables (but you can mod it to do that if you're at all handy). Look at HardOCP's evaluations to get on the right track.

 

[Retronym]

Patrick, before this becomes anything like what you cause over at Headfi, do yourself a favor and get the Corsair 620. It does everything right and nothing wrong. And don't throw away your precious Valhalla to rewire the thing, egads man. Save any Nordost your not currently using to make a secondary audio system. I will personally cry if you ruin any more Nordost merchandise.

The 620 is reliable, clean and quiet. Read the review from [H]ard and see for yourself. Its basically the best power supply available. Sure there are 'bigger' ones, but hey, bigger isn't always better. I know you agree with that, otherwise you wouldn't have Valhalla to begin with.

 

[Odin75]

Well, I just don't know what is wrong with the OP. I mean, he has been opening threads all over the forum, and saying non-sense most of the time. Like the time he said he wanted to MELT the cpu with the hsf because he was getting high temperatures. LOL. And those pictures up there were hilarious.
So, is this guy playing around, or is he for real? Seriously. If he really needs help, then I apologize, and will try my best to help.

Changing topic, the Corsair 620HX is the best choice. I have one myself and it works perfectly. Looks nice, 120mm fan, quiet, stays clean, is modular so you can change the cables, and is very stable. I've only had it for about 3 months, and works like a charm so far. I will totally recommend it. The only bad thing about it is that it comes with an extra 8-pin(not sure if it's 8-pin) connector that you can't remove. I'm still not sure what it is for. But the good things is that all the cables are wrapped around this nice black cover, so it makes it easy to hide it, and makes it look better.

Good luck man.

 

[Gautama]

Seasonics use Panasonic FM and Rubycon caps, some of the best.

Most other stuff will be packed with Fuhhyju caps (sp?) *shudder*

 

[FLECOM]

i told you, the only power supply that would be worthy of your... upgrade-itis... would be a fully linear regulated powersupply... at the amount of current that your PC would need, it would probably be larger (and weigh more) than your pc, but, it would, in theory, be the best audiophole powersuply EVAR

 

[Liver]

get a totally modified squeezebox