News - Arctic Cooling enters the bulging power supply market, gives it a twist

[HEXUS]

Arctic Cooling is the latest manufacturer to think "we may as well make power supplies," but its definition of PSU isn't what you'd think.

Read more.

[MadduckUK]

No sir, the Fusion 550R is a "Payment Saving Unit"

that's terrible

[funke_munke]

Terrible name, the cooling looks interesting though, wonder why they opted for the fan on the outside?

[Lee H]

Terrible name, the cooling looks interesting though, wonder why they opted for the fan on the outside?

Well... it appears to be in the same rubberised fan mounts like the CPU Cooler and as such this should dampen down the noise from the fan and the vibrations to boot

I like it It's different and Arctic Cooling are well known for providing good cooling at a reasonable price.

I would like to see higher rated versions become available for rigs that need a bit more oomph.

[Cozwin]

if its anything like the psu in there cases you get free it will be really efficeint, quiet and move quiet alot of air

[Kodbel]

"Payment Saving Unit" - very un-swiss term from a swiss company,,,

[Hicks12]

Looks different tbh, if only this came out before i bought this 700W Xclio because i need silence >.<, its the only issue ive found with this psu because they didnt design it correctly, they shoved a pladtic sheet under half the side of the fan so it just bounces air back to it(causing alot of noise). Volts are stable though so i cant really complain as it was &#163;20+ cheaper than the rest of its competition.

Good efficiency but i wouldnt keep my pc on 200days a year, so that 100 euro saving is probably around 20

[xexus]

This has to be good news. We need more competition in the quality PSU market. A really good PSU should be silent and stable and we're not there yet.

[Saracen]

If it's a good, efficient, high-quality and quiet unit, then I wish it every success.

But I have two reservations. I'm getting a bit cynical about everyone jumping on the 'environmentally friendly' bandwagon, with stuff like "effective energy-use preserves nature" because it's becoming little more than the latest puke-inducing mandatory marketing buzzword. Also, from the picture, it looks a bit like it was designed by someone that used to work for Mattel making those gaudy toys .... or some of the God-Awful plasticky stereo faceplates that Pioneer (among others) used to do so ....erm .... "well".

[xexus]

Saracen
I see what you’re saying but I think we should ignore the ad-babble and the attempt to make the unit look different. The important point is that a respected manufacturer has entered the quality PSU market. Hopefully this will move us one step closer to the point where we can buy stable, silent power supply units at a reasonable price. By the way, when I say silent, I mean silent not quiet, whatever that means.

[TAKTAK]

A really good PSU should be silent and stable and we're not there yet.

*cough**cough*

Corsair HX520, Corsair HX620, Enermax Modu 82+.... etc, etc...

practically silent (in an echoy, thin aluminium case) and very, very stable...

[Saracen]

Saracen
I see what you’re saying but I think we should ignore the ad-babble and the attempt to make the unit look different. The important point is that a respected manufacturer has entered the quality PSU market. Hopefully this will move us one step closer to the point where we can buy stable, silent power supply units at a reasonable price. By the way, when I say silent, I mean silent not quiet, whatever that means.

I welcome any high quality, stable and reasonably priced PSU, but I'm fed up with companies trying to exploit the global warming situation for their own commercial advantage. That alone is nauseating enough to mean I'm not interested in this unit.

As for silent and quiet, well, I guess silent mean absolutely no noise whatsoever. A complete absence of any noise. Quiet, I would suggest, is a rather vague term meaning little perceptible noise. But is "silent" any form of an advantage? It rather depends how little or much difference there is between silent and quiet, and on the environment you're using it in. After all, the effect of PSU noise if you're working on the floor of a boiler-making factory will be perceived differently to the effect of noise in a cloisters of a nunnery or a pew in a Cathedral at vespers.

Even my very "quiet" home office has some ambient noise. So if a "quiet" PSU makes about the same noise as a moth snoring, will I hear it, even if it isn't "silent"? Would I pay more, or choose a different brand, to avoid being influenced by a moth's snore .... or the virtually silent hum of a quiet fan? Nope, because I'd barely notice if the difference, or not notice it at all.

As for a respected manufacturer, well, I'm a bit sceptical about that, too. PSUs require some very specialised expertise to do really well, and experience helps. So have Arctic Cooling actually designed and built this PSU themselves? If so, how good is it? Or have they done a Corsair and bought it a respected unit from Seasonic, or whomever. If so, have they just badged it and stuck it on sale, or have they modified it? Or had it modified to their specs by whoever actually built it? Or is it a vamilla unit with a quiet fan and a AC case?

We have history and experience, good or bad, to inform us of performance from Seasonic, Corsair, Enermax and many others, but with a company that's new to the field .... well, Ford might make good cars but I'm not sure I'd be too impressed by that if they manufactured a plane.

As I said, I wish them luck if it's a good unit, but the marketing has a nauseating element to it.



Oh, and is a silent PSU actually totally noiseless? I'd venture to suggest that if it has a fan, the answer is "no", and even if it doesn't, it's probably "no" .... though you may need very sensitive equipment to detect and measure any noise. But if it's not actually completely and utterly lacking any noise whatsoever, then "silent" really boils down to "very quiet", which is just as vague as "quiet" and, actually, is again just marketing flannel. It's a bit like trying to determine what a car manufacturer means by "fast" or "economical" - fast or economical compared to what?

[Saracen]

*cough**cough*

Corsair HX520, Corsair HX620, Enermax Modu 82+.... etc, etc...

practically silent (in an echoy, thin aluminium case) and very, very stable...

Yes, precisely. And they're known, well-respected (by most) quantities, in this field, too.

[moogle]

This has to be good news. We need more competition in the quality PSU market. A really good PSU should be silent and stable and we're not there yet.

http://www.koolance.com/water-coolin...product_id=665

Not sure about the stable bit. Like others have said there are already silent and highly efficient. This one above is silent but not sure about the stability

By the way, when I say silent, I mean silent not quiet, whatever that means.

Why? If it's as quiet as the background noise it doesn't need to be any more quieter. Couldn't care less about the noise as long as it isn't rattling.

[xexus]

I accept that some people are content with PSU’s that make a noise, just as some aren’t bothered by voltage variations or the fact that some power supplies generate far more heat than they should. The point is that an efficient, well made PSU should generate very little heat under a moderate load, the voltage should remain stable through the load range and the fan should only cut in when the load is well above normal. This would benefit the whole PC. There are some good units available but we need better and we need more competition. To develop superb processors, motherboards, memory etcetera and not develop the PSU to a similar degree is illogical.

[moogle]

Won't the PSU yield low efficiency if the fan is off at low load because the temps will rise and increase the resistance?

We're not saying they should stop making better and better PSU's but we were just saying there are stable and silent PSU's out there.

Check out http://www.silentpcreview.com/section10.html
Mainly http://www.silentpcreview.com/article806-page1.html and http://www.silentpcreview.com/article692-page1.html
and I'd like to know which part of those PSU's (in those reviews) makes them not silent

Not being sarcastic I'm just trying to understand why they wouldn't satisfy your criteria. They're the most silent we have now so thats a good thing right?