Power Supply is a TFX psu worth is?

[darksidecookie]

So,


I'm working on a new case and i was planning to use a flex atx psu, but that seems like a compromise in terms of noise under load and the pricetag that comes with a 500w one defenitly isn't an encouragement.


As a solution to the sound problem i wanted to mod a flex atx unit to fit an 80mm to lower the noise, until I saw @CircleTect 's first case on instagram an learned about the existence of the tfx formfactor.

So intrigued, I began looking around for the highest wattage unit i could find, which turned out to be a 500w unit. But on these units there where no pcie connectors, so that's problem number one.

the second problem is the size as it is quite a bit bigger than flex atx (about 2.5cm higher,0.5cm wider and 2.5cm longer) so the case also has to be bigger, and there can't be anything directly ontop of the psu(because of the fan opening being there).

A plus point as the sound which this manufacturer claims to be 20db (i'm sceptical).
Does anyone have any expierince with tfx psu's regarding the sound?

another plus is the price, a 500w psu costs around 20-30€!

To summarize; is there a significant enough decrease in noise to justify it being bigger and not having the right connectors?
Or is the flex atx not audiable over the gigabyte 1070/1080 mini and it would not make a difference anyway?

thanks!

 

[cleveland]

I do own a TFX psu.

About the noise, it's 100% true. My case sits 60cm from me and i literally can't say if its turned on or not, unless i look at the fans spinning.

About the PCI-e connectors, you can use molex to PCI-e connectors. The secundary 12v rail is strong enough to hold most "lightweight" GPUs (i.e.: GTX 1060 and such).

 

[cleveland]

Also, Seasonic builds the best ones around. Stay away from "unbranded" TFX psus.

 

[darksidecookie]

My case sits 60cm from me and i literally can't say if its turned on or not,

is this under full load? if so what hardware do you use ?

Also, Seasonic builds the best ones around. Stay away from "unbranded" TFX psus.

do psu's from the likes of 3GO and b-move fall into this categry by your defenition or do you mean alibaba oem psu's?
and any particular reason? if you didn't mean the alibaba ones?

 

[cleveland]

PSU: TFX-350
CPU i5-6600k
GPU MSI GTX 1060 6GB
1 m.2 SSD, 1 7200 rpm HDD
16GB of RAM (2x8GB)

Never got power hickups, never throttles. I can't be happier with this PSU.

 

[cleveland]

is this under full load? if so what hardware do you use ?


do psu's from the likes of 3GO and b-move fall into this categry by your defenition or do you mean alibaba oem psu's?
and any particular reason? if you didn't mean the alibaba ones?

i don't wanna sound harsh, nor "fanboy", but i don't trust my hardware to any other PSU fabricant, other than Seasonic. They make the best ones around, specially when we're talkint about TFX form factor.

 

[CircleTect]

I am using the Seasonic TFX-350 for my first design. Have never heard it, is dead silent. The main downside for me has been the cable loom that sticks out the back of it. It's difficult to manage. I would consider making a custom loom if I was going to use it for further projects.

Unless your project specifically needs the form factor TFX provides, I would recommend the SFX form factor over TFX. The Corsair SFX is virtually silent, the fan doesn't spin at all until fairly significant load. Plus, you have full modular connectivity, and a greater choice of products on the market.

Avoid the Silverstone SFX units, the fan is way too loud. I have no idea how they managed to mess up the fan noise so much when Corsair are able to smash it out of the park. Fans aren't a good component to save cost on, IMO.

 

[Overtek]

I've also seen online one of these supposedly 500W TFX PSU's. Let me just say, in China with low tier PSU manufacturers, its their norm to talk about labelled power and rated power. No prizes for guessing the 'labelled power is always significantly higher than the rated power. You'll never find any of these power supplies on plugloadsolutions website with 80plus certification.
Some that do go for 80plus Cert don't bother to hide the fact that labelled power is higher than rated.

Just 1 example, not pushing it to much but you'll see some model names the top with a number 150 higher than the wattage
https://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDetail.aspx?id=281&type=2

The other simple give away I noticed when I last looked at one of these online was a switched mains input. This signifies Passive PFC at best. You simply can't achieve 80plus certification without having Active PFC at the front end.
So perhaps being generous maybe it can achieve 75% efficiency. That's 167W at full load of heat that would need to be dissipated. Maybe it hits only 70% efficiency, 214W of waste at full load. Getting warm yet. Imagine if it only made 60%. 333W of heat. A little 50W hallogen bulbs warms the hands nicely and 300W ones make lovely BBQ'd skin. (At full load a platinum rated 500W PSU would need to dissipate approx 55W of heat)

A manufacturer that could provide a 500W TFX now if they wished would be FSP. The guts of FSP500-50FSPT would drop into the TFX form factor. A little tweaking could then be made to the fan controller enabling slower fan speeds due to increased available CFM from an 80mm used in TFX rather than 40mm. Doing that all depends if FSP feel the cost of approvals etc is worth doing, but who knows it could happen. I don't have a roadmap from FSP to be able to say any more on that.

A quick example of where this has been done already is by Seasonic. Seasonic's SSP-300SUG's internals are also the same internals used on the short depth SSP-300TGS TFX PSU.

 

[Overtek]

500W TFX

If you are interest and your pockets are a somewhat deeper than 20-30€. It looks feasible that we could port the internals of FSP500-60FSPT in to the housing of SSP-300TGS. As it happens I had a small project for a customer that was under way till they suddenly changed their mind. This was to put the internals of SSP-300TGS (which is also SSP-300SUG) into a slightly non standard PSU produced by FSP for Lennovo, like TFX but a bit thiner. The plan was to take the customers housing, internals and fan from SSP-300TGS and port it in to this non standard 210W units case, used in an SFF Lenovo. Was all ready to go, having made some custom heatpads and also got in some small sized standoffs and was expecting customers unit to arrive only to end up with a message that they had changed their mind and were going to use a different graphics card etc. Negating the need for the additional power. They had also already bought one fo the interesting.

Still have an SSP-300TGS in bits and noticed that that 2 off the stand off's align with just 1 that would need to be added as FSP500-50FSPT sits on 3 stand offs in a tripod position type config.

Anyhow there it is, a true 500W option. We'd just have to source in a a suitable 80mm fan that delivers the same level of CFM or a little more as the 40mm in the FSP500-50FSPT. That would of course mean a lower rpm to achieve the same cfm due to the greater surface area of the 80mm V 40mm and hence less noise than FSP500-50FSPT.

Just another avenue for us to investigate here and, once we have our FLIR camera, to anaylse the heat signature side of things at full load compared and compare it to FSP500-50FSPT at full load.

 

[darksidecookie]

Unless your project specifically needs the form factor TFX provides, I would recommend the SFX form factor over TFX.

the problem with sfx is that is is almost square and would not really fit into the case without a complete redesign.
so sfx will unfortunately not work.

China with low tier PSU manufacturers, its their norm to talk about labelled power and rated power.

o, i thought this was an error (i've worked in online retail, after 20.000 products a day you tend to be a bit less caring about the specifics)

300W ones make lovely BBQ'd skin.

hhhm let's steer clear of those

If you are interest and your pockets are a somewhat deeper than 20-30€. It looks feasible that we could port the internals of FSP500-60FSPT in to the housing of SSP-300TGS. As it happens I had a small project for a customer that was under way till they suddenly changed their mind. This was to put the internals of SSP-300TGS (which is also SSP-300SUG) into a slightly non standard PSU produced by FSP for Lennovo, like TFX but a bit thiner. The plan was to take the customers housing, internals and fan from SSP-300TGS and port it in to this non standard 210W units case, used in an SFF Lenovo. Was all ready to go, having made some custom heatpads and also got in some small sized standoffs and was expecting customers unit to arrive only to end up with a message that they had changed their mind and were going to use a different graphics card etc. Negating the need for the additional power. They had also already bought one fo the interesting.

Still have an SSP-300TGS in bits and noticed that that 2 off the stand off's align with just 1 that would need to be added as FSP500-50FSPT sits on 3 stand offs in a tripod position type config.

Anyhow there it is, a true 500W option. We'd just have to source in a a suitable 80mm fan that delivers the same level of CFM or a little more as the 40mm in the FSP500-50FSPT. That would of course mean a lower rpm to achieve the same cfm due to the greater surface area of the 80mm V 40mm and hence less noise than FSP500-50FSPT.

Just another avenue for us to investigate here and, once we have our FLIR camera, to anaylse the heat signature side of things at full load compared and compare it to FSP500-50FSPT at full load.

i can't say i'm not interested but at this point in the project i'm not ready to invest into a psu i'm not sure i'll end up using.
that being said, how much deeper pockets are we talking and what dimensions does this formfactor have?



on a different note:

I saw the fsp 500 on your website and there it mentioned an 12v adapter to 2 6+2 pin connectors, how does this work? as i didn't find any pictures of it on your website? and would this work for an sff sli setup, if so would a double 1070 or even 1080 mini setup be possibe in this psu?





bottom line;
the only real problems i have with the fsp 500 are the noise and its looks(color and the non modular cables)
(and also the price)

so what i would like is to just have the mounting holes for an 80mm fan on the outside and an accesible pwm fan header to plug this fan into.
could this be done (without having to custom order from fsp directly wit a moq of 300 units?)

also if this where to be possible would it need to be certified again (ce, fcc and such) or would this mod not affect that?


thanks!

 

[Overtek]

the problem with sfx is that is is almost square and would not really fit into the case without a complete redesign.
so sfx will unfortunately not work.


o, i thought this was an error (i've worked in online retail, after 20.000 products a day you tend to be a bit less caring about the specifics)



hhhm let's steer clear of those



i can't say i'm not interested but at this point in the project i'm not ready to invest into a psu i'm not sure i'll end up using.
that being said, how much deeper pockets are we talking and what dimensions does this formfactor have?



on a different note:

I saw the fsp 500 on your website and there it mentioned an 12v adapter to 2 6+2 pin connectors, how does this work? as i didn't find any pictures of it on your website? and would this work for an sff sli setup, if so would a double 1070 or even 1080 mini setup be possibe in this psu?





bottom line;
the only real problems i have with the fsp 500 are the noise and its looks(color and the non modular cables)
(and also the price)

so what i would like is to just have the mounting holes for an 80mm fan on the outside and an accesible pwm fan header to plug this fan into.
could this be done (without having to custom order from fsp directly wit a moq of 300 units?)

also if this where to be possible would it need to be certified again (ce, fcc and such) or would this mod not affect that?


thanks!

With regards to the adapter, this is 8pin EPS12V (maybe you call this 8pin CPU) to dual 6+2pin PCI-E. FSP500-50FSPT has 2 x 8pin EPS12V connectors as some of the newer serverboards demand 2.

In respect of choosen graphicis cards, depends on what the maximum power consumption is for the given graphics card, bear in mind the max combined load of 40A on the 12V rails. I am trying to think if this PSU really has 2 x 12V rails and I can't remember if it does or not. For some reason 2 rails are often quoted on specs, but when you look inside, they all tie back to a single rail. it is possible though this has 2, I will need to take another look sometime.

Well if FSP made it black there would be another 10euros lol and it was modular, add some more euros on again lol.

Of course its possible to do all sorts to any given power supply. Compliance, well yes your going to change that. But if your looking at it another way. CE+CE doesn't equaly CE. That means to say you could buy a CE cert PSU, CE cert cases, components etc, but them together and it could fail CE as a whole. Taking reasonable steps its fair to say your can self certify with a technical file.

So if we take this notion, you would say then cut a hole in the top of the PSU for an 80mm fan with 4 holes for screwing from inside to outside to secure the fan. You'd want to depoly somthing like a honeycombe venting panel over the hole this of course reduces air flow but also is a very good EMI shielding pattern and doesn't act as a wave guide.

Accessable PWM header? No not really, you'd be looking to probably drop out the existing fan and rewire to the 80mm fan. Adding a head would mean running a fan in parellel this would maybe overload that part of the circuit and cause havoc with the fan speed control.

But again if an FSP500-50FSPT is to costly in standard form if you looking for someone to customise this for you then its going to be an additional cost on top. Afterall, you can't have something for nothing and bespoke tailoring has its price but if it is a better fit for you, then maybe its worth it.


On this point
'i can't say i'm not interested but at this point in the project i'm not ready to invest into a psu i'm not sure i'll end up using.
that being said, how much deeper pockets are we talking and what dimensions does this formfactor have?'

So here we are talking about porting the internals of FSP500-50FSPT into a TFX form factor case, In this case a short length one used in SSP-300TGS Dimensions: 140 x 85 x 65mm. If I could get the case on its own then that would save the issue of being left with the original internals a 300W Flex form factor PCB also used in SSP-300SUG. So as it stands your looking at a cost of 2 PSU's, before any labour cost has been added plus sourcing a suitable 80mm fan. You simply couldn't port over the one off the SSP-300TGS as its only 2 wire for starters.

But it has the potential to provide a true 500W continous platinum efficiency TFX PSU. I'll be looking at this anyway as its an interesting proposition. Just need FLIR to hurry up and realise the new version of their FLIR ONE 3rd gen for micro USB connection.

 

[BaK]

So,


I'm working on a new case and i was planning to use a flex atx psu, but that seems like a compromise in terms of noise under load and the pricetag that comes with a 500w one defenitly isn't an encouragement.

I am cooling a 250W Flex ATX PSU with a NB-BlackSilent Pro 60mm and a duct, more info here.
The fan is attached to a motherboard header, and is linked to CPU load.
The PSU stays cool even with a Noctua Low Noise Adapter for extra silence (BIOS doesn't let me run the fan under 50% speed).

For a 500W PSU I wouldn't recommend adding an LNA, but the fan will still be quieter than the stock one.
You could maybe do the same with a 80mm fan.

I am not sure though if you are looking for modding a single unit or for a more wide range as you talk about certification...

 

[Overtek]

NIce work. The nice thing about the FSP250-50FUB is the simplified design layout internally, (partly due to minimise weight to reduce global shipping costs as well as mimising BOM cost). I can tell you they are a hell of a lot easier to solder than an a Seasonic SS-250SU. Which is not a discredit to Seasonc at all its just they chuck in a bit more solder for through hole soldering which is one issue and the other is that its a complete cluster cramp. But the Seasonic is a little more 'industrial' inits build internally. 4 screws for the PCB + its own earth bond screw. Where as the FSP250-50GUB uses just 2 screws with one as a shared earth bond, all on one side of the PCB. The other side is held in place by the back pressure from the housing pushing on to heatpads to help dissipate heat through the metal housing off ther MosFETs, efficient design through and through by FSP.

My understanding was that a fan header was wanted on the actual power supply. I was also suggesting to used the exisiting fan connection in the PSU, but to an 80mm fan chucked in to a TFX housing. There are many different ways to do things. Yours resembles HP's slightly propritary PSU that was used in HP slimline s3000 Systems. Longer than most Flex ATX, but the thinner end is basically the same as flex dimensions.

What paint did you opt for using to spray the housing black?

 

[BaK]

Thanx, was a fun project!
A fan header, temp driven, on the PSU directly is certainly the best choice if available. I should have tried to connect my 60mm to the remaining cables of the stock fan but opted for the easy way with the mobo.
Nice find with that HP slimline, that reminds me this HP 240W DPS-240TB I stumbled upon the other day:

Must be a 80mm like the OP is mentionning, but overhall size is obviously much bigger than a regular Flex ATX.

What paint did you opt for using to spray the housing black?

I used too much of my plasti dip can on the duct and had to use black car spray for the housing. Not that good, even with a primer the paint doesn't resist even a tiny hit and scales off.

 

[darksidecookie]

I am cooling a 250W Flex ATX PSU with a NB-BlackSilent Pro 60mm and a duct, more info here.
The fan is attached to a motherboard header, and is linked to CPU load.
The PSU stays cool even with a Noctua Low Noise Adapter for extra silence (BIOS doesn't let me run the fan under 50% speed).

For a 500W PSU I wouldn't recommend adding an LNA, but the fan will still be quieter than the stock one.
You could maybe do the same with a 80mm fan.

I am not sure though if you are looking for modding a single unit or for a more wide range as you talk about certification...

My understanding was that a fan header was wanted on the actual power supply. I was also suggesting to used the exisiting fan connection in the PSU, but to an 80mm fan chucked in to a TFX housing. There are many different ways to do things. Yours resembles HP's slightly propritary PSU that was used in HP slimline s3000 Systems. Longer than most Flex ATX, but the thinner end is basically the same as flex dimensions.

the reason i wanted to add the fan to the psu as opposed to the cpu was that i want the psu to smartly engage both fans(not always same rpm) to keep noise as low as possible without overheating.

the case i'm working on only fits flex atx psu's so in the long run i would like to be able to offer the fsp500 "silent edition" without any overhead directly at massorder price to keep the price down and make no profit on it.
this with as goal to make the flex atx psu more appealing as people seem to strongly favor sfx psu's for their silence and support by big brands.(corsair etc.)
Any profits i hope to gain from this project will come solely from the case itself.

 

[Overtek]

I used too much of my plasti dip can on the duct and had to use black car spray for the housing. Not that good, even with a primer the paint doesn't resist even a tiny hit and scales off.

Hmm time to go check to see what shot blasting and powder coating comes in at near by.....Well relatively speaking is not cheap yet its not to expensive just for a 1 off and might be something you'd go for on a high end PSU. Probably with a small volume of say 10pcs we might be able to get to a price that's attractive enough to many.

Might have to test them out and put a housing in to paint, some edges and surfaces would need to be left bear to ensure good earth bond and also maintain the EMI/EMC performance. fun fun