Date:
Thursday , October 22, 2009
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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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.

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Load Testing

For those of you that are curious as to some of the reasoning and equipment behind our PSU testing program here at HardOCP, we have put together a living document that shares a lot of the behind the scenes of the program. The testing we are conducting today is exactly as described in that document and will begin with a range of loads tested at 120v input including our torture test and then move on to the same set of tests at 100v input but without the torture test.

120v Load Testing Results

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Test #1 is equal to approximately 25% of the rated capacity of the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 at 45C. This makes Test #1 equal to 247W by loading the 12v rail to 18a, the 5v rail to 2a, the 3.3v rail to 1a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. The results of Test #1 see all the positive DC output voltages starting off considerably above nominal values with the 12v rail being the highest. The efficiency is running right at 86.06% with an exhaust temperature of 47C.

Test #2 is equal to approximately 50% of the rated capacity of the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 at 45C. This makes Test #2 equal to 462W by loading the 12v rail to 36a, the 5v rail to 3a, the 3.3v rail to 2a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. Test #2 sees only slight across the board drops in the positive DC output voltages. The greatest change seen was on the 12v rail at 0.03v, interestingly the -12v rail is bouncing around wildly here as it is up all the way to 13.37v. The efficiency has moved up here as it hits 88.00%. Additionally, the exhaust temperature has moved up only very slightly to 48C as has the PF which is now 0.98.

Test #3 is equal to approximately 75% of the rated capacity of the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 at 45C. This makes Test #3 equal to 694W by loading the 12v rail to 52a, the 5v rail to 6a, the 3.3v rail to 4a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. Test #3, like Test #2, sees small across the board drops in DC output voltages once more lead by the 12v rail at 0.05v. The efficiency has dropped a bit off of Test #2’s high as it hits 86.64%. The exhaust temperature once more only moves up slightly as it is hitting 50C.

Test #4 is equal to approximately 100% of the rated capacity of the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 at 45C. This makes Test #4 equal to 918W by loading the 12v rail to 74a, the 5v rail to 0.5a, the 3.3v rail to 0.5a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. In the final regular test we see a drop of 0.06v on the 12v rail and slight increases on the minor rails. The efficiency has moved down again but is still coming in at 85.08% with an exhaust temperature of 53C.

120v Load Testing Summary

The 120v Load Testing results for the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910 were very good overall. The unit posted very good voltage regulation with the 12v rail dropping only 0.15v over its entire output range (though the 12v nominal reading was a fair bit over 12v at 12.28v to start with) while minor rails dropped even less over their much narrower load range. This excellent result was paired with excellent efficiency values that ranged from 85.08% to 88.00%, making 80Plus numbers if our load patterns and more harsh temperature parameters were used. This is most likely aided by the low exhaust temperatures we recorded that peaked at just 53C in Test #4. One interesting note was that the PF did start out testing at just 0.97 which is still within the range for APFC units, but a touch lower than we often see on non-Topower built units.