I have been rocking this PC for almost 1.5 years now and it served me well so far.
But, some time ago when I turned off all my case fans, I noticed that the noise didn't change a single bit. So I looked into that and I'm certain that it's the power supply that makes that noise since the CPU cooler sounds different and the tripple fan cooling on my 770 have an entirely different frequency when I crank those up. The only fan that's left is the PSU fan.
Now, I didn't build this PC to be quiet! (pun intended), but seeing (well hearing in this case, no pun intended) that the PSU fan is louder than all the other fans combined made me crave for a near silent power supply.
So I looked around a bit on my favourite price comparison site and I have lain my eyes upon two units:
be quiet! Power Zone 650W
Corsair RM650
They are basically head to head for me.
The be quiet! has these points going for it:
Made in Germany (I'm german so supporting local companies is a concern)
Lower ripple
Would fit better in my system (looks)
Cheaper
Whereas Corsair:
Better voltage regulation
Higher efficiency
Better cables
Semi-passive cooling
I'm leaning towards Corsair since I really like the cables, the higher efficiency and the semi-passive cooling, but the be quiet! looks better, is cheaper and is made in Germany.
Which one would you choose? Or would you choose an entirely different unit? (Price shouldn't surpass 120€)
If it were me I would go for the Corsair; the reasons you mentioned for be quiet! weren't performance based. If it is available where you are Seasonic has great PSUs and I've had one for two years and it runs perfect
Look at some reviews of the Corsair RM series. I'm sure that'll be enough to sway you away from getting one.
I was about to get one of those, but went with a Seasonic SS-850KM3 instead. Corsair use cheap caps, mixed with good caps, in the RMs. Plenty of people have complained about theirs dying.
I've read both jonny guru's and kitguru's review of it and didn't think that'd be much of an issue since the most important circuits have high quality caps. It does have substantially more ripple compared to the be quiet!, though. They both have their strengths and drawbacks, that's why I'm so torn.
The Seasonic X-650 does look promising (it even has 7 years warranty), but it's too expensive. It costs 135€+ here and I was looking around 100€ with 120€ being the absolute limit. The prices for that unit did go up in the last month, so maybe I'll wait for it to get cheaper again. Thank you very much.
I have a Corsair VS550 in my rig and have no problems. How much better are Corsair's features? If they are minimal I would pick the Be quiet! due to its perks.
I am sworn off corsair alltoghther after a bad experience with another product. One of their top ifnthe line keyboards. LEDs started to burn out after only 4 months and the customer support was the worst I have ever experienced. Then they refunded me for less that what i paid and completely wrote off the not so cheap shipping costs I had to cover to get NOTHING back.
Even if the Corsair unit is better I would avoid it for fear of it ever going wrong and having to deal with their customer support. I am also in Europe and their returns base is in Sweden or Norway, I forget, but the shipping to send it back was over €50 which I never saw again and they never even confirmed they received it until I asked. 4 weeks of zero response without having to poke them and no eta on a replacement while they were rolling out the RGBs en mas. Yeah they are not good people.
Well, the ribbon-cables, semi-passive cooling and higher efficiency are pretty big points for Corsair.
Yeah, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about Corsair recently which is another reason why I'm so torn. But I think I can rule the Corsair unit out now. I've read Jonnyguru's and Kitguru's review of the Seasonic X-650 KM3 and it has all the features that I like about the Corsair unit plus less ripple, better looks and even higher efficiency which makes the be quiet! seem pretty pale with only 2 points (local company/price) going for it. So if the price drops in the next few weeks I think I'm going for the Seasonic because of its superiority even though it does blow my budget a bit.
I am pretty happy with my RM650, but it hasn't blown me away. I don't know if it's just me, but all cable connectors where extremely tight and did get me slightly annoyed. My Psu is deffenetly silent under heavy load, but I am not sure if I would go for a psu with the zero rpm at low load another time as you get a quite a bit of unessersary heat in your case, which could have been easily ventilated away without significant noice.
I have the AX1200i in mine and I love it. Alot of people have had bad experiences with their customer support but when I had a switch die in my K70 after 2 weeks I had nothing but a great experience getting it replaced. even though you may have already decided I would go with the corsair. just my .02
Thanks for your input. I'm not worried about extra heat in my case, I have plenty of air moving through it. And the Seasonic I mentioned above even has a switch which turns the semi-passive cooling on/off.
Yeah, some have really great and some have really bad experiences... My own experience with Corsair is neither great nor bad.
I'd love to have some good indepth reviews on the 650 G1 (there isn't a G2 version of it). I don't want to buy a unit without some good solid data on VR, ripple and noise again.
I think the G1 is the same model as the Supernova NEX. I stay away from the Supernova NEX lineup though(the one with 4 +12v rails), as it's not a great performer.
Also, since you seem to actually know what to look for in a power supply, I'll link you this page. I found it not too long ago and it's amazing.