Best SFX PSU for the Ncase M1 chassis...

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

In August I will start my new Mini-ITX form factor build...

NCase M1 chassis, Asus Z170I Pro Gaming MB, i7-6700k, Corsair AIO CPU cooler, nVidia 1080-FE, GSkill (2x8GB) DDR4, 1TB SSD, etc.

What other high-quality choices are there for a SFX (not SFX-L) power supply besides the Corsair SF600?

Thanks...

 

[jeshikat]

How important is low noise/semi-fanless functionality?

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

It would be nice, but not crucial.

I will probably OC the CPU, but not the 1080.

 

[jeshikat]

Not exhaustive, but here's most of the decent SFX units: https://sffwiki.net/parts/power-supplies/sfx/intro

The Corsair SF450 is enough wattage if the price of the SF600 is the problem.

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

Thanks.

Price is no issue, as I'm looking for the best PS for my new Mini-ITX build in that very small NCase M1 chassis.

Based on that chart, I will look into that Silverstone SX600G.... To this point, I can't find anything on a SX650G Silverstone, just the 600...

 

[jeshikat]

I'd recommend the SF600 over the SX600-G. I don't much care for the stock cables on the Corsair, but the electrical performance and semi-fanless functionality/noise is better.

The SX650-G looks to be a good alternative from SilverStone but it has not been released yet.

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

Thx for your input...

In terms of space-saving and ease of installation / cable management, should I consider getting some custom cables for the Corsair PS?

 

[jeshikat]

You should try the stock cables first and then decide. I've heard from users who think they're perfectly fine and others who hate them like I do.

I have a pretty low tolerance for them but that's because I'm constantly swapping parts so I have to deal with them much more often than most users.

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

Was investigating the Silverstone SX700-LPT w/ the 120mm quieter fan and 80+ Platinum rating for the M1 case.....

The problem is, as 'rfarmer' states in his post # 20510 (scroll down) in the M1 case thread at Hard Forums, that "The power connectors on a SFX-L PSU will push down on the larger graphics cards, causing them to sag." https://hardforum.com/threads/ncase...n-first-post.1717132/page-513#post-1042432952

 

[Phuncz]

For the Ncase, the better choice in PSU is indeed SFX instead of SFX-L. With regards to noise, the Corsair SF450 and SF600 are considered to be the quietest solutions. You can get by with SFX-L, if your GPU has no backplate and you can fold the PSU's cables flat, but it will still touch or slightly press down on the GPU.

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

Thanks for responses.

Phuncz, do you think, as others have mentioned, that on an Asus Z170I Pro Gaming MB and with the M1 case, that an M.2 NVMe SSD will tend to produce too much heat there on the underside of the MB and at the case bottom?

I'm just trying to anticipate possible components, their locations, and potential issues in my M1 upcoming build...

 

[Phuncz]

I've seen someone on [H]ardforum use a thermal pad to let the SSD interface with the sidepanel behind the motherboard, which would act as a giant heatsink. All you'd need to do is find out how much distance there is between the SSD and the panel, order a thermal pad of the appropriate thickness and stick it on there.

I have my 950 Pro sitting bare on my board, but it's on a seperate daughterboard just above the GPU. So it doesn't take in heat and gets cooled by my CPU cooler a little. I've never seen it go over 60°C, but I don't really stress it with anything for extended periods of time.

 

[K888D]

I've been doing some temperature testing on underboard mounted NVMe drives this evening, without a system fan I'm finding that the PM951 idles at 61°C! With system fan it idles at 40°C. I think the drive temperature is very much related to how much airflow it receives.

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

I've been doing some temperature testing on underboard mounted NVMe drives this evening, without a system fan I'm finding that the PM951 idles at 61°C! With system fan it idles at 40°C. I think the drive temperature is very much related to how much airflow it receives.

post #11, 2nd paragraph....

 

[K888D]

post #11, 2nd paragraph....

My post is trying to help answer your question in post #11.

An NVMe drive performance is linked to how well you can cool it.

 

[Phuncz]

Not really, since mine isn't cooled (with a heatsink) and it still performs at max spec. It matters if you keep bombarding it with benchmark loads for long periods of time. Most of the time, even during gaming, rendering, coding, browsing or image editing, a SATA SSD is doing something like 0,1% of load on average, rounded up. Stress-testing it with benchmarks just loads that up to 100% for minutes on end.

Even if I let Windows Defender check my C: volume for malware, it still doesn't load my SSD up to a 100%.

 

[Jury-Pool-Reject]

Thanks, guys.

 

[K888D]

Not really, since mine isn't cooled (with a heatsink) and it still performs at max spec. It matters if you keep bombarding it with benchmark loads for long periods of time. Most of the time, even during gaming, rendering, coding, browsing or image editing, a SATA SSD is doing something like 0,1% of load on average, rounded up. Stress-testing it with benchmarks just loads that up to 100% for minutes on end.

Even if I let Windows Defender check my C: volume for malware, it still doesn't load my SSD up to a 100%.

If your M.2 SSD is sat on top of your motherboard then I suspect that its receiving good airflow which is key to removing any heat built up on the drive.

When the drive is located under the motherboard it doesn't receive much (if any) airflow and the heat just builds up, like your CPU cooler would without a fan.

I agree with your point that normal usage conditions of the drive will not heat up the drive anywhere near as much as benchmarking does, from my testing that the biggest offender for causing temperature spikes is sequential reading type scenarios (large files), random read/write does not produce anywhere near as much heat.

But, what I have also found is that when your system temp gets up into the 50s during heavy sessions (which is highly likely in cases without active cooling), the M.2 drive rests in the 60s. This puts the drive very close to its throttle temp (70C) before its even started transferring data.

I guess more testing is needed to see what temperature these drives actually rest at in different systems, cases and scenarios, maybe the Samsung PM951 drive that I have is a bad sample and runs hotter than it should?

 

[Phuncz]

No, the SM951 and 950 Pro do run at 50-60°C when uncooled at idle, since it's a bare chip. But I'll continue this M.2 heat discussion in your topic as this isn't relevant about SFX PSUs in Ncase M1s anymore

 

[Revenant]

I've been running the Silverstone 600 watt SFX unit in my NCASE for about a year and half now. 4.6GHZ Skylake 6700k on Air with a 1.45GHZ 980TI. No issues.