PC Power & Cooling Silencer MKIII Power Supply Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,490 words · ~7 min read
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today we'll be unboxing the silencer Mark III series of power supply I mean
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I'm not going to I'm not going to do them all this is the 600 watt but it's
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actually available in a number of different wattages this is sort of meant
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to be an entry level um and based on the
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fact that the ocz Technology Group is using the PC
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power branding the positioning of this is that it is a value sort of low to
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medium wattage I mean 600 watt I remember back when I got into computers
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was like unheard of high but a low to medium wattage quality power supply it
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has a 5-year warranty which is in line with what we'd expect from the PC power
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and cooling brand here are the connectors that are included the non-
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modular and the flat black modular cables but we'll look at those once we
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open it up what else we got on here oh look at that true to form a PC power
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power supply has a single 12vt rail so a
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single strong 12vt rail means you don't have to worry about what you connect to
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what cable meticulous eily designed with only premium components including 105°
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capacitors so it should provide its entire rated output even at 50° ambient
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temperatures which is uh pretty absurd that's a little bit on the high side for
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what you'd expect uh 80 plus bronze efficiency means that while it's better
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than the standard 80 plus it's not going to be as expensive as some of the 80
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plus silver and 80 plus gold power supplies in this wattage range which
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haven't been that popular just due to the price increase engineered for you
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modular power cables yep pleas in mind
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with the 5year warranty and Engineering experience dating back over 25 years
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okay what else we got here technical specifications continued output rated
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yeah okay large temperature controlled 120 mil dual double ball bearing fan
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compant um all your usual uh protective
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circuitry including over voltage over power over short
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circuit um that's funny no over current
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Ian maybe that's what they mean by overpower but maybe you know some of the
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electrical engineers in the audience can uh post a comment and let me know what
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they think does overpower mean overcurrent
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protection all right modular cables
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included not all of them are flat black you can see there are some braided
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ones so our modular PCI Express connectors are braided and then the
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modular peripheral connectors are not raded we've got an instruction manual
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which presumably shows you how to plug the power supply into various things yes
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it does okay we've got some included black zip
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ties four included screws for mounting the power supply we've got the usual
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close Cell nice high durability foam here and then we've got a great look to
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this particular power supply that would actually make it go very well with one of the other things that I have here
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that's behind me the Phantom 410 which I'll be unboxing soon so we have a white
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and black finish that feels already incredibly durable so it's a bit of a
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textured finish that is going to be
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about as scratch proof as I think a power supply finish is going to get and
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then you've got kind of silver accents so white black silver color scheme and
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let's have a look at the included cables before we look too closely at the power
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supply unit itself so let me just undo
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this so we can check the lengths here all right so our 24 pin connector
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is a non-m modular cable as uh as we expected and it is about one Linus ARM
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in length just a little bit less okay and then we've got one in okay this is
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interesting so this is a sort of a different mix of pre-connected cables
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than what I've seen in the past so we have a single PCIe uh 6 plus two pin
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included and this goes on yeah that side
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right there so that's a six or an eight pin and then we have a single included 4
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plus 4 so that's your eight pin EPS connector oh and that one is about yay
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long so unless you have a tall case uh you're probably not going to have to get
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an extension although if you do have a tall case you probably will have to get
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an extension with this guy then we have aha okay so we have another included for
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another 4 + 4 this is a modular one so
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that would go there and then we have another 6+ 2 so you have up to 28 pins
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and two PCI Express connectors with this
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power supply and then I would have normally liked to see a few more modular
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peripheral connectors but let's see what they've included here okay so we have uh three
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Molex we have a three SATA and then we
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have a three SATA and yeah like I said I
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would normally like to see more peripheral connectors included in fact
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in this case uh with this power supply they have included actually Four
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peripheral connections on the power supply unit itself but only three
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actual H cable harnesses to go on them
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so you're left with one additional one I guess if you find another one that
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happens to be compatible then you could use that um normally okay Power modular
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power supplies to me the point of the modular power supply and why they
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originally came out was Cable Management so that was one and then the second
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generation of modular power supplies was more about options so that was back when
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a lot of the standards were really changing sometimes we had Molex
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connectors on the backs of video card sometimes we had PCI Express sometimes
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we had a 20 pin sometimes we had a 24 pin connector on the motherboard uh
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sometimes we had a four pin or an eight pin at the top sometimes you had IDE
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drives using um your four pin standard Molex and sometimes you had SATA drives
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using the SATA power connector so that was why modular power supplies were so
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important because it gave you the option of which cables to install so I always
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used to get a bit of a chuckle out of modular power supplies that only
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included exactly as many cables as fit in the uh in the sockets on the power
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supply itself because I was like oh well then you're not really having any options at all you're just plugging in
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whatever you need so it sort of gets the one point where you get improved cable
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management and better internal appearance but it misses the other point
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which is giving you options in terms of what you want to install and I've never seen one that comes with fewer cables
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than actual um sockets so it's possible
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if if someone bought one of these already and it does normally come with
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more cables this was a review unit so it's possible they made a mistake so let
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post a comment and let us know but there you go there's my little spiel about
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that so on the top of the unit we find the general specs again which we already
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saw on the outside so it's up to 555 52
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Watts on the 12vt rail total Power 600 watts continuous so um some power
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supplies are not rated for continuous wattage this particular one is and it
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better be any good quality power supply is rated for continuous wattage on the
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side here you see the silencer MK3 branding on the bottom we've got a nice
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little silencer MK3 badge with our 120 mil cooling
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fan on the side we find also right side
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up again I love seeing this because um
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for the longest time uh some manufacturers were putting them right
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side up and right side up which means that when you actually go and install it
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in the case it would be upside down if you wanted your fan side up which I usually prefer so there you have it and
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then on the back we find what has become standard honeycomb mesh and onoff switch
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and our power port I don't think I ever showed you but it does include a power cable as well so thank you for checking
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out my unboxing and first look at the silencer MK3 don't forget to subscribe
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