Efficiency
Efficiency plays an ever-increasingly important role in modern computers. Particularly with HTPCs designed to run constantly in living rooms, the high level of efficiency of the power supply ensures significantly lower electricity costs at the end of the year.
Overall, the Fortron power supply performed well. In the three load stages of the specification, the unit was constantly at over 84%. The best performance was obtained at below half load, where the efficiency increased to over 88%.
In our fictional system with a 250 watt load, the efficiency remained at a very good 87.7%, but in our low power system it only managed 76.3%.
In standby mode, with no load at all, the power supply only used 440 mW. With a standby load of just 2.5 W (500 mA at 5 V standby voltage) the Fortron converter drew 3.77 W from the socket, which is an efficiency of 65.5%.
The Zen 400 (PPA4000300) from Fortron (FSP) is available for a price of around $150.
- Power ,
- Supply ,
- Efficiency
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Another great article. But again, please UK Toms - is it difficult to insert UK costs when you copy and paste from the US site that only seems to do any work now a days? UK Toms used to be so good...
efficiency at 35 watts?
why would one buy a 400 watt psu for a low power system?
how about testing a 100 or 200 watt unit???
Agree with Josh. If you build a HTPC with the current HDTV IGPs then why would you use one of these as opposed to a 120W picopsu which is $50 - a quater the price, will fit in the tiniest case and is more efficient at very low loads?
Hold on, the Silverstone is more expensive, does a poor job at regulating the supply at high loads (3.15V on a 3.3V line is not good, it's bloody awful), is less efficient and is a gas guzzler in standby compared to the other supply on test and yet the Silverstone wins??????? Is it me or is the only thing going for the Silverstone that it is truly silent (especially when it turns off due to overheating). How the hell does the Silverstone come out on top?
I have zen300 and I must say I wish I never bought it, that high pitch noise it a nightmare, it is times more annoying then average speed 120mm fan in ordinary PSU