Introduction

In today's review we continue our search for the whole grail of complete silence. We have looked at some very efficient CPU coolers in the past, and today we extend our horizon to include another noisy part of every PC: the Power supply.

Most power supplies have one or more fans inside which contribute to making your PC experience a noisy one. There are several ways manufactures can tackle these issues, one is to include thermally controlled fans in your unit, but with the high heat generation CPU's of today it doesn’t take long for these fans to run at full speed. A second approach is by increasing the fan size, thereby cutting down on noise and increasing airflow at the same time. A simple yet effective solution, but it's not entirely silent either.

Skipping water cooling as a possible solution we end up with passively cooled Power Supply Units.

We have 2 products in our labs today which fit into this category, each ones uses a slightly different approach to dissipate the heat generated. But both share 2 characteristics: completely silent and quite expensive, as both are priced over €150.

Silverstone provided us with their EFN-300, this 300 Watt power supplies is quite heavy and compact at the same time. Its silver colour matches Silverstone's case line-up perfectly.



David from ITC MultiMedia sent us a Yesico FL-350 unit, 350 Watt of power housed in a black case with an external heatsink at the back.



We tested the power supplies on 2 different test setups at 2 different times. The voltage tests were done back in August in our 14-Way PSU round. For your convenience we have included those results today here also. Then we went and installed the power supplies in our second test setup to evaluate the heat dissipation of each unit.