Amacrox Calmer 560: Silence is Golden
by Christoph Katzer on April 2, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Package and Appearance
The power supply comes in a very uncommon large box with a metal handle on top. Once the paper shell is removed, we find a very nice steel case.
The power supply ships in this steel case for protection during shipping. After installation, the case can of course be used for other purposes. The quality of the case is decent and it shouldn't break under normal use. This is a great marketing idea: you can get a new PSU and give your wife a nice gift as well! (Ed: Perhaps some kitchen appliances for her birthday as well?)
Opening the case, we find finally the power supply itself with its accessories. There is not much to see: just the power cord, screws, and a manual.
The power supply is black and has a very thick heatsink as the top of the casing (or bottom after installation in most cases). The extruded fins are easily recognized. Antec was the first to use this kind of design with the legendary Phantom power supply a few years ago. A heatsink of this size in theory should be able to dissipate the heat from inside the PSU into the surrounding air. There is no fan installed, making this power supply totally silent. The sides are perforated but partially blocked with a transparent plastic cover to prevent the internal parts from coming into contact with the metallic casing.
The power switch on the back of the power supply is somewhat unusual, but it serves the standard purpose. You can also see heatsink and the openings above the inner heatsink and main capacitor.
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sprockkets - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
Their Zen 300w power supply costs around $75, although expect to have more issues with them than their 12cm fan ones.Every so often, I wish someone would review POS power supplies. Just to see what they would do, and how easy they can destroy motherboards.
piroroadkill - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
And so, your wish is granted: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...">http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...dkreviews - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
If you are building HTPC and pick right components you can get away with fanless setup. I did just that for my HTPC setup and it wasn't a rocket science.I got Antec NKS2480 case with FSP Zen Fanless 400 watt PSU, Ninja Mini for CPU cooler and that's it! throw in hard drive and optical drive and you are all set. Antec case does come with 2x120mm fans that you can use, but it's not necessary.
My HTPC is on 24x7 and temps are as reported by SmartFan during movie watching. (idle temps are even lower)
Temp 1 38
Temp 2 38
Core 15C
Power consumption as reported by Kill A Watt:
Boot up 60-88 watt
Idle 65 watt
Non HD Movie 67 watt
dkreviews - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
I guess I forgot to mention I use Gigabyte 780g mobo with AMD 2400 (45 watt)strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
Why are PSU makers still including more Molex connectors than SATA? Now that the optical drives have finally gotten their act together and moved to SATA, the need for Molex is primarily legacy devices. Would be nice if the PSU reflected this and flipped the ratio of connector types to support SATA.Zolcos - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
I have a lot of fans in my system, and exhausted my supply of fan mobo headers. Having a lot of molex connectors from the psu really helped out.Of course this situation doesn't mean a lot when we're talking about components designed for silence. But also consider that lots of people building a system just migrate optical drives from an old box. Not to mention that I needed to use pata optical drives in order to free up more sata ports, which are all in use now.
Molex is still king. In fact most people using sata just have a single sata hdd -- there isn't a huge market for having lots of sata power connectors. If you really have that many sata devices, you probably need a bigger psu than this one anyway.
Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
I agree... sometimes there are still even more Molex than Sata connectors. I bought my first Sata DVD drive just a week ago, maybe there are still too many people with old stuff like me.HOOfan 1 - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
The case it comes in appears to have better build quality than the PSU itselfSuper Nade - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
It is better built than the FSP Epsilon and seems to be based on a different platform. The OEM is FSP (both the UL and the SPI on the transformers point to this).HOOfan 1 - Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - link
I am mostly talking about the exterior appearance. I figured it was FSP just based on the way they broke down the label.