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- Date:
- Thursday , October 22, 2009
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 PSU Review
Silence is golden and we have seen before where the sound signature does not fit the moniker in terms of PCP&C's "Silencer" line. Has it changed for the better? Silent or not, PCP&C has a great track record for building excellent computer PSUs.
Build Quality
The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 features a single 80mm fan design that is, according to PC Power & Cooling, the correct cooling solution. The truthfulness of this assertion is certainly open to interpretation as a number of high end and extremely well performing power supplies utilize different fan form. In addition, some time ago we had the opportunity to give a cursory glance to this topic when we reviewed the Antec NeoPower 650 and NeoPower 650 Blue. The major downside to this fan design is that to move a sufficient volume of air to cool a high output power supply, such as the OCZ ProXStream and PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR, it must spin very fast resulting in elevated noise levels. While these 80mm designs are not great for quiet computing environments the key criteria in our evaluation is whether or not the cooling solution is sufficient, not necessary its sound level or form factor and our comments on such later are not absolute decibel values.
External Build Quality
Like most PC Power & Cooling units before it, the Silencer 910 comes dressed in basic black. The finish is once more a very nice matte finish that is resistant to scratches which plays into its industrial class build quality and applications nicely. The unit is further trimmed out with a black and blue Silencer 910 logo on one side to punch it up just a notch. Beyond that the unit is fairly standard with no outstanding features as it is a single 80mm design with fixed cables. The only other feature is the continued placement of the power label on top of the unit as opposed to on the side, but this not the first nor the last time we will see this and really no one cares where the label is. Externally, this unit is very functional but it isn't going to win any beauty contests...then again for 99% of applications no one cares since they can't see the power supply.
The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 itself comes in at a lengthy 7 1/8 inches. The cables provide a serviceable length of ~16-21 inches to the first or only connector. Of note here is that the cables here are wildly different in overall length with the 6-pin PCI-Express connectors being much shorter than the modified 8-pin PCI-Express connectors. Moving on, the sheathing on the cables is a bit more gapped at the connectors than necessary at times but overall it is well done which is good to see.
Internal Build Quality
Once we open the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 we are left looking at a unit based off of the Seasonic M12D design, but with the heatsinks reworked to match the 80mm fan used here. The heatsinks here are ridged unlike the fingering and bent nature of the M12D-850 in order to better match the rear mounted fan design that this unit employs. The fan charged with cooling this unit is now an ADDA rated at 0.45A at 12v. Overall, from the top of the unit we don't see much here to differentiate this unit from the M12D-850 other than cooling scheme which hardly seems to fit the billing of "a unique ultra-quiet cooling design" (since loud 80mm fans with matching heatsinks and a small gap at the back of units have been around since time eternity) which will undoubtedly be louder than the M12D-850's. Lastly, we see that the primary capacitors and main transformer are once more situated in the center of the unit, which is something we have been seeing from Seasonic on their higher capacity units for some time now.
On the primary side we see the same layout as the M12D-850 again as there are two heat sinks with the APFC coil and some of the input filtering running between the two. The majority of the power components are on the large heatsink (APFC components are on the smaller heatsink) while the transformer is in the center of the unit with the main filtering capacitors. These main filtering capacitors differ from the M12D-850 slightly as they are a pair of Nippon Chemi-con rated at 400v 390uF 105c and 400v 470uF 105c as opposed to a pair of equally rated capacitors.
Over on the secondary side, we once more see part of the input filtering housed by the AC receptacle while the DC-DC VRM is tucked in behind the wiring. The secondary capacitors are all provided by Nippon Chemi-con for the normal capacitors just like the M12D-850. The solid capacitors on the DC-DC VRM on this unit appear to be provided by Nippon Chemi-con as well which is a bit different from the M12D-850 which had United Chemi-con. As we look at the PCB we see that unlike with the M12D-850, the PCB is silk screened with the name Silencer indicating that we have a PC Power & Cooling Silencer and not some other unit based on the M12D platform. Lastly, the wiring itself is sleeved all the way back into the housing and protected by a wire guard.
Build Quality Summary
The overall build quality of the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 is like that of the Seasonic M12D-850 and is very good. The two units do differ some, but overall they are very much comparable products built on the same platform. The exterior of the unit is trimmed out in a typical subdued black with a Silencer 910 logo emblazoned upon the side of the unit. The overall fit and finish of the unit is certainly high quality if a touch utilitarian as we have come to expect from both Seasonic and PC Power & Cooling. The cables on this unit are well sleeved which is good to see. The interior of the unit features a continued excellent build quality, but one that differs a bit from the M12D-850. Here we see that the M12D-850's overhead fan design has been replaced by PC Power & Cooling’s favored (and louder) 80mm fan design. Other than that, and the whole not-being-modular thing, the Silencer 910 is a carbon copy of the M12D-850 with only a slight bump to the capacitance of one of the primary capacitors. The component selection for the unit is good as it features all Nippon Chemi-con capacitors for the standard electrolytics and for the solid capacitors. Lastly, the unit also shares the M12D-850's overall neat construction and integration for an overall clean look. So let’s move on and see how this unit performs!