Power Supply longevity of Realan W80 power supply

[Shahmatt]

I was thinking of buying the Realan W80 box with the included LR1204 and 120W 12V AC-DC adapter. The wattage seems enough for an APU build which I intend.

I have questions about these power supplies. Clearly they are cheap, but they must also be adequate to do the job compared to the more expensive stuff out there.

So my question is, what would be advantage of investing more, for example, in a 400W HDPlex?

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I was thinking of buying the Realan W80 box with the included LR1204 and 120W 12V AC-DC adapter. The wattage seems enough for an APU build which I intend.

No

I have questions about these power supplies. Clearly they are cheap, but they must also be adequate to do the job compared to the more expensive stuff out there.

No

So my question is, what would be advantage of investing more, for example, in a 400W HDPlex?

Yes

I would also recommend this case (Realan E-I7) over the E-W80
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/i-think-i-found-a-little-gem-realan-e-i7.6175/

The side fans on the E-I7 should help keep it cool because the thick aluminum frame gets really friggin hot on the E-W80 without exhaust/intake fans.

Respectfully Yours,
A former E-W80 + A8 7600 APU owner.

 

[Shahmatt]

No
No

Yes

I would also recommend this case (Realan E-I7) over the E-W80
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/i-think-i-found-a-little-gem-realan-e-i7.6175/

The side fans on the E-I7 should help keep it cool because the thick aluminum frame gets really friggin hot on the E-W80 without exhaust/intake fans.

Respectfully Yours,
A former E-W80 + A8 7600 APU owner.

You mean 120W is not enough for a APU build or that the quality of the unit itself is inadequate?

Is the W80 too small to fit fans inside of? The unnecessary ODD bay on the E-i7 bothers me. Also I don't need use of the PCIe slot.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I think the quality is bad. I dont think mine last 3 months before it gave out (on 45W TDP mode)

The E-W80 can fit i think a single 60x10mm fan, which usually means molex (no PWM) so it's loud. I went with the E-W80 because i didnt need a drive and didnt plan to use the PCIe slot, but I regretted it. I also used an E-W150 which is a larger case with support for SFX power supply and more drives, but it also had heat issues. It had a 80x10mm fan with vertical orientation (blow heat out the top).

If you are using an Atom/Celeron/PEntium Silver CPU system, i think they are ok in these cases. Anything over 25w is probably not a great idea.

https://smallformfactor.net/reviews/metal-fishs-metal-book-community-review

You can expect similar thermal performance to what I got in this case.

Test Results
The test consists of running Prime 95 for 15 minutes, with Crystal Mark 3.0.4 running in the last 5 minutes of that test. Ambient temperature is checked using a Fluke 59 Mini IR thermometer, and temperatures inside the case are checked using HW Monitor 1.30. CPU, RAM, mSATA and/or SSD, temperatures will be checked, with the highest recorded temp taken after the 15 minutes is up. Max fan speed will also be recorded. During these tests, ambient air temperature was monitored and stayed between 27 and 29C.

To start off with, none of the tested variants performed as well as the Control variant. Meaning the case has restrictive air flow regardless of what fans you use. It is possible that using a fan controller and an additional two high speed fans in the top exhaust position could have brought the temperatures down more, but the fan noise would be quite high and the difference in temperature is probably too great to have overcome this. In addition, all 3 variants failed the 4.2ghz test. The Open Air Control Variant passed it while only reaching 84C on the CPU.

Using Silent Cooling, (Variant C) – this case is best used for low power CPU’s (under 54W). That’s probably fairly obvious to most, but the test confirms it as well. The CPU reached 89C at stock 3.2ghz in this test, the RAM reached 56C, and the mSATA SSD reached 63C after the CrystalMark test began. Fan speed also ramped up on the CPU fan to the maximum 2900rpm even though fan control was set to Silent.

Adding back the stock/included fans and setting fan control to Normal in BIOS (Variant A) gives better temperatures. 80C for the CPU, 50C for the RAM and 57C for the mSATA drive, but again CPU Fan speed reached 2900rpm and 1650 RPM for the included fans. Both fans were exhausting out the top of the case in the original position from manufacturer.

Finally, the Maximum cooling version (Variant B) with two Gelid 60mm fans set to intake at the bottom provided the best results outside of the Control Variant. 75C on the CPU, 46C on the RAM, and 53C on the mSATA drive. Fan speed was set to maximum so they ran at 2900 rpm on the CPU fan and 3900 rpm on the two system fans the entire time.