PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Power Supply Review

[Apoptosis]

PC Power & Cooling has long been known for high-end quality power supplies that perform well and have the cost to prove it. Today we have a look at their Silencer 750 Power Supply to see if it is able to handle today's high-end equipment. With the single 12V rail design that can handle 60A, this power supply might just have what it takes to be in your system!



Article Title: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Power Supply Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/451/1/

[dicecca112]

Digg Link

http://digg.com/hardware/PC_Power_Cooli ... ply_Review

On a side note, I don't like the fact that an outfit like PCPC is perpetualing the Single rail vs Multiple 12V rail myth. Fact of the matter is it doesn't matter. Testing has been done, and yes single can help, but its all on what your system needs. It comes down to the fact that most users don't understand the power needs of there systems and run into issues, because they overload one of there 12V rails.

Also I wouldn't mind seeing how these PSUs are being tested, and the voltages being read

[HONkUS]

[Hybridesque]

Proper PSU Testing Rigs cost a heck of a lot of money, somewhere in the region of 10,000-20,000GBP. That would be the most ideal way of testing PSUs but that would be out of the reach of most or just not feasible.

[dicecca112]

Oh yeah I realize that, but I saw no hint of how the rail voltages were taken, I hope for the reviewers sake that he used a digital multimeter

[Apoptosis]

Oh yeah I realize that, but I saw no hint of how the rail voltages were taken, I hope for the reviewers sake that he used a digital multimeter

We always use a voltage meter to test the rails out on PSU's. I've talked to Jason and he's going to update the test setup page to reflect upon this!

[dicecca112]

I expected no less, but you know didn't see it.

[pastorjay]

My fault guys. I just totally forgot to add it! I added a little blurb, and will update that even further one I get home and look at the model number and all.

[dgood]

Nice review its interesting to read about the 1 +12 rail vs multiple. I'll check that site out more between classes today I think. Keep those reviews coming.

[kenc51]

Nice job Jason, but I found a typo!
on the last page it says

It has plenty of connections for all the gadgets in your box. It is SLi certified, and has a single 12v rail of 60w!!!

Shouldn't that be 60Amps? ;)

[SAMSAMHA]

man, it's nice to see some affordable nice beefy psu.

[cyberneticimplant]

A couple months ago one of my posts was edited to say PC Power & Cooling sucks and is overpriced.

[Apoptosis]

A couple months ago one of my posts was edited to say PC Power & Cooling sucks and is overpriced.

you are kidding right... one of the mods is about to be in hot water if that is true

[cyberneticimplant]

http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopi ... ght=#51764

Yeah, somebody added the second line.

[Apoptosis]

Nice job Jason, but I found a typo!
on the last page it says

It has plenty of connections for all the gadgets in your box. It is SLi certified, and has a single 12v rail of 60w!!!

Shouldn't that be 60Amps? ;)

Fixed

[C'DaleRider]

Nice review, but since the PCP&C Silencer series of power supplies are sourced from Seasonic, wouldn't it have made more sense to compare this Silencer to one of Seasonic's higher wattage power supplies rather than a lower grade Antec ps? Granted, the Neo HE is another OEM-sourced Seasonic, but certainly not up to the build quality of a true Seasonic....just open up the two and compare caps, rectifiers, and such...all a bit cheaper in the Antec vs. the Seasonic.

Why not test the same grade of power supplies against each other, esp. since Seasonic is the OEM supplier to PCP&C for their Silencer line? Maybe a Seasonic S12-700 would have been a better candidate seeing as how it is closer in power to the Silencer and would represent something closer to it in build quality and power output and reserves?

Second, why do you not purchase a true power supply tester like a SunMoon tester? A SunMoon SM8800 power supply ATE (automated test equipment) is essentially a machine made specifically for the testing of ATX12V power supplies. It has a number of ATX-type power connectors in the front (24-pin, 8-pin, PCI-e, Molex, etc.) and it can put up to 10 different static loads on up to 10 different rails at a time.

Also, why no ripple testing under load? A simple USB Instruments Stingray DS1M12 would be an ideal piece of equipment to use. You would use the Stingray as a medium between the data being spit out by the SunMoon load tester's Waveform Monitor output and something like a laptop or another pc for recording of that data. Ripple is what you call the small fluctuations in voltage that happens every ms or so that may not affect performance, but may kill your components in time.

One more point....PCP&C really harps on the "Modular is bad" in their myth page. So I wonder why an online reseller of PCP&C power supplies converts those power supplies to modular and PCP&C still honors their warranty on the modularized converted power supplies.

Honestly, if modular was so bad, it seems to me that PCP&C would instantly void their warranty status on any of their power supplies that were converted to being modular, considering their stated stance on the subject. Yet Performance PC's does just that and PCP&C honors their full 5-yr. warranty on Turbo Cool ps's with the modular conversion done to them.

Just curious........

[Apoptosis]

I only know of one site that uses a SunMoon SM8800 for PSU testing and that is jonnyguru. I guess you can say he got that because his full time job is for Ultra Products and he needs it for work. He runs his site for fun & profit on the side and is an all around good guy. His site should be more in-depth than others because a) he works for a power supply company b) he has a college degree in this stuff c) he has access to all the testing equipment.

Just curious have you ever priced up the SunMoon SM8800? If you think they are common type in "SunMoon SM8800" into Google and you'll get 2 results from all of the web on that product and they are both on Jon's site. The Stingray DS1M12 is $263.35, which is affordable, but not when you look into the five figure pricing on something like the SunMoon SM8800 if you can even find one.

As for why we didn't test this PSU against many others that is simple. This review was done by Jason Petermann, who is our motherboard tester. I supply hardware to all staff to keep their rigs updated. His Antec 550W PSU is lacking some connections and power he needed so I asked him to review this one and to keep it to upgrade the test rig he is using. While this might not have been ideal for an article at least he compared it to something and it was realistic. I am going to send him a DX10 card and he needed more power, so he went from a 550W to a 750W PSU. From my point of view this was realistic and something that our readers may end up doing.

Legit Reviews is 100% independent from any company. I have all 100% of the shares in the company and no startup money has ever been taken. All of the staff members have no connections with any of the companies we review products for and for that reason we are Legit Reviews... I can name off 20+ sites that are owned in full or part by employees of certain hardware companies or owned by the hardware companies themselves. I guess I feel this site makes up for the lack of an ATE by being independent.

That doesn't mean that we will never get an ATE as I'd love to have one. You sound like you know what you're talking about when it comes to power supply testing, so if you know where to get one at a nice price or want to donate to the ATE fund let me know.

[jonnyGURU]

I only know of one site that uses a SunMoon SM8800 for PSU testing and that is jonnyguru. I guess you can say he got that because his full time job is for Ultra Products and he needs it for work. He runs his site for fun & profit on the side and is an all around good guy. His site should be more in-depth than others because a) he works for a power supply company b) he has a college degree in this stuff c) he has access to all the testing equipment.

a) I had the tester WAY before working with Ultra. I used it for reviewing power supplies for SL Central because I got tired of writing the same reviews everyone else was writing. Actually obtaining all of the equipment to properly test power supplies made writing computer hardware review interesting again.

b) I actually never went to college. My wife did. And we hung out on campus a lot. I actually often used engineering's facilities to work on my car. But I never actually took any college classes.

c) Isn't "c" the same as "a"? I guess... sort of. I have the equipment because I BOUGHT the equipment. Nobody bought it for me. I actually got the job with Ultra BECAUSE I already had the equipment and because I seemed like I knew what I was talking about (guess I had them fooled!)

What had happened was Ultra had seen an increase in RMA's in the X-Connect and felt that someone in Asia wasn't doing their job. They sent random samples to me to test. Then they came out with the X2, I gave it a thums up, encouraged them to get it SLI certified, got that ball rolling, became unemployed... err "available" and the rest is history. :D

I do admit that I got the SM-8800 "handed down" to me when the lab in Taiwan upgraded to a Chroma, but that's about it. This replaced the SM-268, which I sent up to Madmat to use for reviews.

I don't mind you guys talking about me. But get the facts straight. They're not hard to document on the web as I've been around a while. Probably a lot longer than Ultra. Not that I think there's anything wrong with me continuing doing what I'm doing despite my current employment, but to say that I review power supplies BECAUSE I work for Ultra makes me sound like a shill.

[Apoptosis]

Thanks for clearing that up jonny... Wasn't trying to be rude by any means, but just trying to clairify what is going on to people. Your reviews have for sure changed the way that power supplies are reviewed and that is great. It's just hard for independent sites to catch up to where you are at. HardOCP's recent purchase for $10,000+ worth of testing gear shows that everyone is playing catchup to your standards!

I've meet you before and you're a good guy ;) As for talking about you it's only fair when people e-mail and post on my site asking me to use what you use. I personally feel people should know that you work for the company because by not putting it out in the open it looks like you're hiding something.

[jonnyGURU]

It's cool. I don't try to hide the fact who I work for. I'm just not going to throw it out there for no reason. If I had it in my "about us" page, nobody would send me power supplies! Well... except for maybe Silverstone because those guys have known me since before I worked for Ultra and know I'm a straight shooter.

I'll try to give you some time line....

Wayback machine has my website going back to May 17, 2001:

http://web.archive.org/web/200105170201 ... yguru.com/

John Aller was a tech that worked with me.

http://www.almostsmart.com/forums/showp ... stcount=13

Stark gave TCWO a thumbs-up because I did their tech support:

http://www.anandtech.com/ratings/vendor ... nt=y&vid=6

In 1998, I supplied a mirror to the PA-2007 BIOS to this guy:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/2162/

When TCWO went belly up in mid-2004, I had to look for another job:

http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/sto ... tory7.html

I got an Avaya CNE and began installing phone systems. The learning curve was big, so I got as much as help as possible from tek-tips. Yes.. I PAID to belong to a forum.

http://www.tek-tips.com/userinfo.cfm?member=jonnyGURU

Date on this PSU review: http://www.slcentral.com/raidmax-rx-520xp-psu/ ???

March 17th, 2005.

What's funny is I couldn't find anything that showed when I quit installing phone systems and started working with Ultra.

Best I could do on short notice. I actually think that's pretty impressive considering I just had to find all of that using Google! :D

I'll make sure to link this thread when anyone ever asks about it. ;)