Fan Speed and Acoustic Noise
Looking at our figure and comparing it to Corsair's graphs on their website tells us something is up. Yate Loon states a maximum acoustic noise of 48.5dB(A) with 2800RPM spindle speed. Since this unit never reaches 2800RPM - we measured a maximum of up to 2070RPM at any temperature - the acoustic noise doesn't get as loud as stated. Corsair shows 44dB(A) on their website, which we could never reach under any scenario during our testing.
We appreciate the open and frank figure from Corsair, since other manufacturers would have probably shown much lower results. The fact that we have better results than the manufacturer states is a good thing and we are glad we didn't reach 44dB(A). Normally we see lower noise levels up to around 50% load (500W on this unit), but the fan already starts to turn faster at 250W, which is unnecessary. The unit does not really need any more cooling at such a low load, but Corsair wanted to have superb cooling in all situations so the temperature controlled fan starts spinning faster at a lower RPM. Maximum fan speed is unfortunately reached at 80% of load, bringing with it a noisy working environment, but if you imagine three high-end graphics cards connected to this power supply the additional 35dB(A) will not make any real difference to the overall sound levels.
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Gholam - Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - link
I set up a pair of Dell PowerEdge 2950 III servers last week, each one running a pair of Xeon 5410 CPUs (2.33GHz quad-core), 8x2GB FB-DIMMs, and a pair of 15k rpm SAS drives hooked up to a PERC6 - peak power draw registered by BMC has been 293W so far on one box, and 276W on the other.HOOfan 1 - Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - link
and how many graphics cards are you running?Gholam - Thursday, May 1, 2008 - link
None, but desktop systems aren't large banks of FB-DIMMs either, nor multiple quad-core CPUs or rows of 15k rpm fans. The most power-hungry graphics card today is well under 200W power draw. You really, really have to work to exceed 500-600W power draw on a modern computer.Powervano - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
I like most of your reviews very much guys and I have a suggestion/wish for the future reviews.Can you test (if possible, of course) Inter-Tech CobaNitrox IT-7750SG PSU?
I would also like to see the tests of FSP Epsilon series PSU.
Christoph Katzer - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
Epsilon has already arrived and will come soon. CobaNitrox might not be interesting for most readers since (I think) they're only available in Germany.Powervano - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
Nice to hear about Epsilon. I have seen about 87-89% efficiency about Epsilon series on several web-sites and I would like to see professional tests about that PSU.Yes, CobaNitrox is only available in germany, but it comes relatively cheap compared to other high quality PSUs and it is very interesting does it offer same functionality as other PSUs in the same class do?
Christoph Katzer - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
http://www.planet3dnow.de/artikel/hardware/netztei...">http://www.planet3dnow.de/artikel/hardw...etzteile...HOOfan 1 - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
Another CWT....Powervano - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
Good review, but not the same high quality one as I see here, at AnandTech...JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - link
Note the author. ;) But of course, that's about a year and a half old.