Quite PSU Upgrade

[Rhyth]

The noisiest thing in my pc currently is the psu, a 2004 model 425W Hiper with four settings High, Med, Low and Auto. On Auto it's basicly High and I don't feel leaving it on the Med or Low settins safe. I'm going to replace this with a quiter one as my pc is the media heart of my "family" living room. It will also need to support my next high end gfx upgrade. I do have a windowed case although you wouldn't see much of the PSU and funky lights would be cool but makes me wonder if thats just another thing to go wrong?

What should I consider before I make this purchase, value is of course paramount.

Cheers Rhyth.

[MSIC]

Well i'd advise you to think about why you'd be worried about your PSU fan speed on a lower setting...
I just did a rough calculation of your power usage, based on your specs and guessed at a few additional USB devices etc, came out with 282 W. Assuming that your PSU is half-way ok at 75% efficient, it will cope with over 300W load (not examining issues of rails etc).
I reckon you'd probably be ok to keep your current PSU and run the fan at medium speed.
Try for yourself here

Failing that, Xbit Labs have today published an article reviewing 9 PSUs, summing up that the top 3 of those were from Zalman, FSP group and Enermax. See here.

[Rhyth]

Thats great advice thankyou mate. It was through lack of knowledge that I didnt lower the setting from Auto. To be honest the Med setting is not much quieter, however if my currect PSU's noise levels are going to be of little differance compared to other fan cooled ones, fair enough, I'll save a bit of money? Thanks for the useful link too
I got 362W with all the gubbins inc.
Monitoring PSU Temps possable? Pointless?

Regards Rhyth.