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cMP PSU Recommendations: Better, Best... and UNOBTAINIUM

Firstly, a big Thank You to everyone who's taken the time to reply in a thoughtful & helpful way.

Silent (fanless ?), low ripple-voltage, available power (300, 400, 600 watts - what's needed ?), and of course cost. It's not so easy to say - as I'm learning - cause there's a lot of "it depends..." involved.



UNOBTAINIUM: thanks abysstw for the Dream of a silent, outboard, snazzy-display powerplant. And curses to the distribution channels, for I cannot find anyone who sells this (...further challenge lays in my location - living in Canada means fewer sources and the spectre of cross-border commerce freezes the blood !)

I would LOVE to have that cool XG Magnum (or Seventeam ST-600 EAZ) sitting pretty on the shelf... but nobody brings this into Canada today. I envy your good timing.



BETTER: Thanks hanssatink for the word on Corsair's VX450. The hardwaresecrets guys make some good points about the larger fan size - and after all, "silent" is one of the goals.

...and then Bling notes "Fanless PSUs tend to come and go"... and suggests the Zalman HP line. Hmmm... sure like the modular cable management feature. But how much power does it really take to run a cMP machine ? The smallest HP model is 500w.



BEST: "The Best" (cost, quiet, ripple and availability) seems to be the Antec Earthworks EA430. It's salient feature is very low ripple, which I think it the single most important aspect of the bunch (clean power = great sound !). The fanless Zen 400 (at newegg.com) is $100 more than the Antec - and that's a lot to pay for greater ripple and no fan.

Question to EA430 users: is the noise of the fan "quiet enough" - or would you choose something else, based on your experience ?


Special thanks to Rick (and Alfred) for the "add some HQ capacitors" idea. Definitely on the Must-Do list (I'd appreciate a photo of that implementation, if somebody can oblige).

Pending strong advice to the contrary, I think EA430 (with additional caps) is the way to go... Thanks to all for replies.

Cheers,
Grant

That's not a Toy... IT'S A TOOL !!

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