PSU for high end silent build?

[weaslefluff]

Every 5 or 6 years I do a pretty high end build and with Haswell-E coming out in a few weeks, I'm picking parts now but I haven't kept up with Power Supplies.

The basic idea of the system is high end but silent as possible - some gaming from time to time (Diablo, CIV) but mostly just a fun high end build. Possible overclocking but simple/automatic at most.

The build will include an i7-5930K (6 core Haswell-E), $500 Nvidia GPU (just more silent than AMD) to be determined at purchase time, solid state storage (hopefully PCI). I figure 600 watts is probably enough but I could stretch that. I will be using a Deep Silence 1 case. I'll stick with all air cooling to keep noise down as well (still have to figure out the CPU cooler, but that belongs in another forum).

So what are the best low noise gold/platinum PSs in the 600-800 watt range?

 

[Freddy1765]

I think the EVGA Supernova G2 range of PSUs is the most popular at the moment. Modular, gold rated and with an "eco mode" where the fan turns off at lower loads.
Jonnyguru wrote some very nice reviews of some of them..

 

[TemjinGold]

Seasonic is the best.

 

[Deders]

I'm using a Be Quiet e9 straight power 500W in my Deep silence 1, I've never heard a peep out of it even when powering my 780 (which is also quiet compared to most other options). I believe they are releasing the e10's soon:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/08/20/the-hardware-of-gamescom-2014/6

I'd consider these or possibly one of the Corsair HX series. I'd avoid the Be Quiet Power Zone range as they seem to be a bit nosier.

 

[Leyawiin]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CoolerMaster/V550S/10.html Scroll down to the bottom chart.

The Coolermaster V gold rated semi-modular series is very, very quiet. I have the V650 and I can't hear it over my my Scythe S-Flex fans (@ about 700 RPM) or my Noctua CPU cooler. No capacitor squeal, no coil whine, no fan noise. I used a paper towel tube to check it while gaming when I first got it and its nearly silent even with that.

 

[uclabachelor]

Any one of the 80 plus platinum would work well... I have the Corsair AX760 and it's super quiet. Fans are off most of the time except on high loads.

 

[Meghan54]

Seasonic is the best.

I wouldn't go quite that far.

Sure, some Seasonics do perform very, very well, amongst the top of their respective class. But unfortunately, some Seasonics do suffer from higher than normal problems with coil whine, among other things.

When someone intimately involved with Seasonic built power supplies for one particular brand, along with at least two other OEM's producing ps's for this same brand, says:

So if 99% of the mindset in forums is "Seasonic is the best", clearly this doesn't reflect the reality that in the "real world" there is an RMA rates that are higher than normal.

I'm not saying that Seasonic is bad. They're certainly a hell of a lot better than many manufacturers. But when someone says Seasonic is the best, I do a serious head tilt.

it sort of makes me wonder if the higher than "normal" complaints of sudden death, DOAs and coil whine loud enough to drown out an AMD R9 290X in uber mode are really true and Seasonic's QC is suspect, as well as some parts/design choice decisions.


From my reading, the best out there is a toss-up between some Delta produced power supplies, like the Antec HCP line (High Current Pro) and Corsair's AXi line (Flextronics). Seasonic is an almost there compared to those two. Of course, we're talking upper crust here, not value or mainstream units.

 

[Meghan54]

$500 Nvidia GPU (just more silent than AMD) to be determined at purchase time

I'd honestly rethink that "belief". AT tested the Sapphire 290 Tri-X OC and it was vastly quieter than comparable Nvidia cards (GTX 780). Of course, if you're only thinking of the R9 290(x) with the reference coolers, sure, Nvidia is much quieter. But with the better coolers now available, esp. from Sapphire, the quietness game has been changed.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7601/sapphire-radeon-r9-290-review-our-first-custom-cooled-290/4

At 41.1dB the 290 Tri-X OC beats a number of Tahiti based cards, including our 7970GE and Sapphire’s own 280X Toxic, and it even edges out Asus’s impressive 280X DirectCU II. This not only makes Sapphire’s 290 the quietest high-end card we have, but it also means we’re seeing Sapphire dissipate an estimated 250W of heat while only generating a very, very limited amount of noise while doing so. Or to put this another way, Sapphire’s 290 is 16dB quieter than the reference 290, nullifying our earlier noise concerns and then some.

Under FurMark Sapphire’s extremely impressive cooling performance continues unabated. Even with the additional thermal load imposed by FurMark our noise levels only rise to 43dB, which by our standards would still be considered very quiet under even Crysis 3, never mind a pathological program like FurMark. With FurMark being the worst case scenario for a card’s cooler, this is clear evidence that the Tri-X cooler is capable of handling everything that Hawaii can throw at it, and that it can be handled with ease. (The GTX 780 produced 52dB under Furmark, 47.5dB under Crysis 3.)

 

[weaslefluff]

Update - after reading a bunch of stuff I'm down to three - two really high end and one very high end but a lot less expensive.

I'm going to be getting the i7-5930K (6 core Haswell-E).

From stuff I've learned on the video card board, I think I will be going with a 780 Ti. Something like the ASUS DirectCU II GTX780TI-DC2OC-3GD5 GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB.

At some point, I want to be able to add a second 780 Ti card.

I'll be running on a 3440x1440 monitor.

My questions - can all/any of these power supplies power the 5930k Haswell, and two 780 Ti cards and if they all can, is it worth the extra $100 plus worth it (quiet being a major concept).

Supplies I'm considering:
Antec HCP-850 Platinum @ $214
Corsair AX860i @ $201
EVGA SuperNova 850 G2 850W Gold Plus @ $110

So best card from the above to run quiet (no overclocking) with 5930K, and 2 780 Ti.

Obviously at this cost, $100 doesn't make a big difference either way but if the extra $100 doesn't buy anything, I see no reason to spend it.

Which is going to be able to drive those cards at the least amount of noise?
#firstworldproblems

 

[colorblind]

I'd give the SeaSonic X-850 a try. I've found SeaSonic to be the most reliable.

 

[colorblind]

With your current update I would then go with the EVGA SuperNova 850 G2 850W Gold Plus. On both Newegg and Amazon it gets very good reviews.

 

[Deders]

With your current update I would then go with the EVGA SuperNova 850 G2 850W Gold Plus. On both Newegg and Amazon it gets very good reviews.

Isn't it the loudest out of the 3?

 

[colorblind]

Look up the manual for the EVGA you will find it has a button for low noise use. My EVGA is basically silent.

 

[MandrakeAU]

I just got the very same EVGA PSU that you're considering. I'm running a single heavily OC'd GTX 780 and it has no issues. It's very, very quiet too. When my system is at idle the fan doesn't even spin. When I put a sustained load on the GPU the fan kicks in, though I find it unobtrusive.