Today I'm reviewing Silenx's most powerful PSU on offer, the Silenx iXtrema Pro 600W. It is targeted at the high-end market for people who have a powerful or demanding computer system but also want their PC silent. Silenx are based in southern California, USA. They specialise in high end cooling equipment and low noise products. Their sales blurb says:
The 600w iXtrema Pro power supply is our top of the line model. This unit can power your dual processor system, your high-end gaming rig, your 20 hard-drive HTPC, any VapoChill or other high end cooling devices or anything else you throw along its path. One of our best sellers, if you want the absolute best, don't look any further! Tipping the scale at over 6 pounds, this is not a product for just anybody . With a true <14 dBA noise level from 1m, it will blow away any other so-called "silent" power supply on the market today.
I have a VapoChill phase change cooling system here which can be very demanding on a power supply as it has to power the cooling system and the computer components at the same time. A poor quality PSU with a VapoChill will cause the cooling unit to fail or make the computer unstable, so my system will be an ideal candidate to stress this power supply and see how it holds up.
A big thanks to ModYourPC for giving me the opportunity to test this PSU. ModYourPC is New Zealand's licensed supplier and reseller of Silenx
products. This particular PSU at the time of review costs
$330 NZD including courier from ModYourPC. Alternatively you can buy from Silenx or one of the resellers in your region.
Lets have a look at the specs for this PSU:
Features:
Active PFC Circuit
High Quality Construction
Extremely Low Noise 80mm Hypro Bearing Exhaust Fan @ 14 dBA
Silicone Vibration Dampening Fan Mounts
<5% Load Regulation
<1% Line Regulation
AMD, P4, Xeon, Opteron supported
Output: 600W
+3.3v |
+5v |
+12v |
+5vsb |
-5v |
-12v |
+3.3v and +5v |
32.0A |
42.0A |
36.0A |
2.5A |
1.0A |
1.2A |
260W |
Efficiency: 75% under load
Line Regulation: <1%
Load Regulation: <5%
Compatibility: ATX 2.10, EPS12V
MTBF: 100,000 Hours @ 25°C
Warranty: One year parts and labor
Connectors: 24pin EPS, 20pin ATX, 8pin 12v, 4pin P4, 8xMolex, 2xSATA, 2xFloppy
Dimensions: 150width x 140depth x 86height (mm)
AC Input
Operating Range: 95 - 264 VAC
Frequency: 50 - 60 Hz
On taking everything out of the box I found a very nice looking PSU, coloured black which would match my case and plenty of connectors. The main ATX cable is braided but I would have liked to see all the cables braided, it just makes everything a bit tidier inside the case. The 8pin 12v connector splits off into the 4pin P4 connector and another 6pin connector. For this review I used the 24 to 20pin connector and the 4pin P4 connector.
Installation was reasonably simple, the special grips on the molex connectors make them easy to plug into drives and remove. This makes things hassle free when you change things around in your computer a lot. I did have some trouble with trying to plug one of these molex connectors into the back of my video card though. On the video card the power connector is right next to the circuit board and the extra plastic was making it difficult to push the molex connector in. After some effort I managed to just get it in without damaging anything.
This PSU has active PFC which automatically adjusts for AC input voltage. So in the case of New Zealand's power supply which runs at 230V, AC at 50 Hz (same as Australia and Europe) the PSU will automatically adjust. The specs show that this PSU has very strong 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails. Let's put it to the test and see how well it handles a heavily stressed system.
Testing setup - full specs
VapoChill PE
Intel 3.2E Prescott @ 4.144Ghz (16 x 259 FSB), 1MB L2 cache
DFI 875B Rev B, S478
2x 512MB Corsair PC4400C25 memory
Sapphire X800 Pro Vivo with 16 pipelines @ 540 MHz / 1140 MHz
WD Raptor, SATA, 36 GB, 10000 RPM, 8 MB cache
WD
SE, 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache
Seagate 7200.7, 120 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache
Liteon SOHW-832S Dual Layer, Dual Format writer
Aopen
CRW4048 CD Rewriter
Floppy drive
3 system fans.
Test 1: PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 Deluxe
Test 2: Silenx iXtrema Pro 600W
Testing methodology
I measured my current PSU, a PCP&C 510 Deluxe which is at a similar pricing level to see how that stacks up against this one. You can read my review this PSU here. I have a multi meter here and I measured the rails when the system was idle and under load. To measure the rails I just got a spare molex connector and connected like so:
3.3v rail
Red lead off multi meter -> orange wire (3.3v) on 20pin connector
Black lead off the multi meter -> black wire (ground) on 20pin connector
5v rail
Red lead off multi meter -> red wire (5v) on molex
Black lead off the multi meter -> black wire on molex
12v rail
Red lead off multi meter -> yellow wire (12v) on molex
Black lead off the multi meter -> black wire on molex
Idle testing method: I let the system boot into Windows and close all open programs. Only standard system processes were running in the background. Then I measured the voltage readings off the multi meter for 1minute on each rail.
Load testing method: Two instances of Prime95 Max Heat torture test and AtiTool scan for artifacts. This stresses the CPU, motherboard, memory and video card to their maximum. I let the system run at full load for 10 minutes and then measured the voltage readings off the multi meter for 1minute on each rail.
Test Results:
| IDLE TEST |
510 Deluxe |
iXtrema 600W |
| +3.3V |
3.33 - 3.34 (1%) |
3.26 (-1%) |
+5V |
5.15 (3%) |
5.09 (2%) |
+12V |
12.13 - 12.14 (1%) |
12.18 - 12.19 (2%) |
All voltage tolerances are in good range here.
|
LOAD TEST |
510 Deluxe |
iXtrema 600W
|
|
+3.3V |
3.32 (1%) |
3.22 - 3.23 (-2.5%) |
+5V |
5.13 (3%) |
4.99 - 5.00 (0%) |
+12V |
12.15 (1%) |
11.98 - 12.03 (0%) |
Comments
At load the 3.3v rail drops down slightly to -2.5% of the voltage tolerance range but this is nothing to get worried about. The 5v and 12v rails seemed to hold steady under load however with hardly any fluctuations. I'm happy to say it continued to run at full load for another half hour before I stopped the test without any problems or errors in any of the tests.
Conclusions
Even at full load for half an hour this power supply is very quiet. I had to put my ear right next to the fan on it and could hardly hear anything. No vibrating and definitely a lot quieter than any of the other components in my case. This is where this PSU is really aimed at, silence and good, decent performance. The price is similar to other power PSUs in 600W range and you are really paying for the extra silence here. This PSU is much quieter than my 470W Enermax Noisetaker 2.0 or my PCP&C 510 Deluxe which can get quite noisy while gaming.
My system is not typical of most systems out there and a Pentium 4 Prescott CPU at 4.1Ghz and a VapoChill running off the 12v line did put it under very heavy stress. I'm happy to say this PSU performed very well under these stressful conditions and kept the noise level very low. I recommend this power supply to any overclockers or users that have a powerful Athlon 64 or Pentium 4 computer that want silence as well. It would also be ideal in a HTPC setup where you don't want any noise while watching a movie, or in a computer that you keep in your bedroom so you can get to sleep at night.
Pros
Silent even under load, less than <14dBA
Looks great
Plenty of connectors
Adjusts automatically to our NZ power supply
Usable in all desktop computers, even Xeon or Opteron servers
Single silent fan
Cons
Cables could be braided for a better look
Had difficulty installing molex connector into video card
Warranty only 1 year
Score: 19 / 20