Power supplies, they’re the back bone of your PC build. They simply supply power for your components to run, right? So, surely so long as the wattage is correct you can slap in whatever, save a bit of cash to spend on other components? There is some truth in all of that, putting in a PSU with the correct wattage will work, but there is more to it than that!
First of all how efficient is it? The easiest way is to look for an 80 plus rating and find out which tier the unit sits in. The system works on colours, the range: white, bronze, silver, gold, platinum and titanium, white being the lowest spec and titanium being the best. It gets more complex with some being rated as, for example 80 plus - platinum II. What efficiency rating you need very much depends on the components used. A gaming PC is typically fine using a gold rated power supply as things stand. If you’re planning a really high end PC, we think it makes sense to look towards higher efficiency - that way it’ll smoothly supply your PC with all the power it wants for years to come without issue, and leave room for upgrades down the line.
Is having your power supply being fully modular still overlooked? You can still buy non-modular and semi-modular units cheap enough, perhaps that would be fine? It depends on your use case, but it is very rare that we need all of the cables included in each build, so if going non-modular you must plan on what to do with any unused cables, it makes cable management tricky! We’d always recommend a fully modular power supply!
Then we’d check up on the quality of the cables included. Yeah cable extensions have their place, they’re fine to be used, but add extra bulk. We think it’s always worth spending a little extra on a power supply with individually braided cables. Then you don’t have the headache of managing more cables than strictly necessary.
The final consideration for us is noise. Which sounds unusual. Power supplies sit in the back of the PC and don’t really do much. They do however have a fan, and if you're using a unit that is being consistently pushed towards its limit then you can end up with a high pitched whine and a constant whirring of the fan. The easiest way to alleviate the issue is to leave some power headroom. Watt I mean by this is if your system can draw 600w it might be wise to get an 800w power supply. The other way to help solve the problem is to get a unit with a quiet fan.
With all that said, I’ll give you 3 guesses what we’re centering the build around this week?
Power Supply Overview
Yeah, Seasonic and Noctua have teamed up to release the Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition. It’s a 1600w, 80 Plus titanium, fully modular, ATX 3.1, PCiE 5.1 behemoth. This is big (physically) at 210 mm (L) x 150 mm (W) x 86 mm (H). It’s times like these that I feel the studio should invest in some scales, the power supply is hefty!
We’re excited about this one, but for those who aren’t power supply or Noctua nerds let us explain. Of course it is top drawer for specs, with more power headroom than we’re likely to need, and it’s fully modular - that's all par for the course, but not truly special. So, what is it that has really got our attention? Over the last few years Matt has built a lot of Noctua themed PC’s, the aesthetic is one of his favourites, and the performance per decibel is largely unmatched. There is however one thing that could have always been better, power supply noise. When you build with Noctua, you do so for silence. Our expectation here is that this time we may finally have a barely audible build without compromise. It’s a tall order, and it’ll be interesting to see how it performs. So I guess it’s time for the ultimate Noctua build.
Parts List
How Was The Build
In recent weeks this is where I would describe that the build was simple, nothing unusual, unexpected or out of the ordinary, PC building is like LEGO right? It all just kinda fits where it is supposed to and that it is that! Well, it would appear that several easy builds in a row may have allowed complacency to creep in! The thought going into this is the TUF Gaming GT502 has for the last few years been a staple case used on the channel. It’s big, bulky and surely anything we’d associate with ATX will fit without issue? We came a little unstuck this time! We’d selected the components for the ultimate Noctua build including the Noctua NH-D15 G2. It’s one of the taller air coolers on the market thanks to its 140mm fans. It turns out once we’d put the motherboard into the case with the cooler attached that the glass wouldn’t go back on! Whoops! So we changed tact and instead went for the Noctua NH-D12L, which should more than suffice to cool the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X 3D.
The other issue we had to contend with was vertical mounting the ASUS x Noctua RTX 4080. It’s a beefy card which needed to sit underneath the aircooler, which though we’d had to choose a smaller model is still a large unit. The case came with a stock vertical mounting bracket, which technically worked, but left little clearance for the GPU power cable. After a bit of headscratching and playing around we ended up using an NZXT vertical mount as it made everything very sturdy, the included riser cable was of the perfect length and fitting was significantly simpler. It’s an $80 add on, which isn’t bad when you consider a good quality Gen 4 riser cable on its own is a similar price.
Cable management was a breeze in the GT502, there are lots of anchor points, though no included velcro. It was greatly aided by the quality of the power supply cables. They’re a lovely black and brown - which work well with everything Noctua, but more crucially they’re individually braided and very flexible. Cable management took a maximum of 20 minutes.
One final quirk of this build was we decided to mount the storage mount inserts, which arrived on the side of the case to the top. There may be some questioning why, and the answer is simple, it will help keep air pressure inside the case istead of having it escape out of the top. It’s not something strictly necessary, but it should help with cooling.
Airflow
As you would expect with a build containing only fans from one of the leading PC airflow brands everything went smoothly. Air intake was swift and uncompromising. It can be seen passing the air both to the CPU cooler and graphics card and being ejected with some force out the back and top rear of the case. Having the graphics card vertical mounted always causes a little turbulence as air is forced out the side of the unit, but never enough to be concerned about.
Performance
This build should get through 4K gaming, editing tasks and anything else thrown at it without issue. We ran it through our usual testing, results below:
Ambient temp 21.3°C
Spider-Man Remastered
3840x2160
Very High
143 - 160 fps
57°C CPU
73°C GPU
Forza Horizon 5
3840x2160
Extreme
116 - 132 fps
54°C CPU
78°C GPU
CPU-Z
Max Temp 76°C
Fan Speed ~2000 rpm
CPU Power Draw 131w
Furmark2
3840x2160
Avg fps 128
Max temp 81°C
Hotspot 101°C
So now we have the raw performance figures, what were the noise levels like under load? I’m pleased to say that this is the quietest build I’ve ever tested. It was loudest when using CPU-Z as the fans were all going at 2000rpm, and any fan is audible at such a speed, but under gaming conditions it was whisper quiet, and the noise didn’t pick up much while running a 4K Furmark 2 benchmark. I have to say I’m impressed and didn’t hear the power supply once!
Roundup
This build was more about the Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition than the rest of the components, and we’re happy to say it lived up to our lofty expectations! When used in tandem with high performance parts and class leading cooling we finally managed to produce the perfect PC for quiet environments. Sure the build had one major hiccup in that the planned cooler did not fit, and we had to re-adjust our vertical mounting solution, but all in all it was an enjoyable and educational experience. Our advice, check the sizing of your components and make sure they’ll fit before commencing your build!
Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes
Full Video Below:
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US Links
Case: https://amzn.to/4jhkRfh
CPU (alternative): https://amzn.to/3Poo52Q
MOBO: https://amzn.to/3PoZn2i
PSU: Coming Soon
Cooler: https://amzn.to/3PjwIeW
Storage: https://amzn.to/421HbDh
Fans: https://amzn.to/3DGXN9b
Riser Cable: https://amzn.to/3DEAtc5
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Mouse: https://amzn.to/421Hm1p
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UK Links
Case: https://amzn.to/3BWbJvt
CPU (alternative): https://amzn.to/4gFLZTo
MOBO: https://amzn.to/3BYD4x7
PSU: Coming Soon
Cooler: https://amzn.to/3BWbWif
Storage: https://amzn.to/4abKlGI
Fans: https://amzn.to/4g0Scbv
Riser Cable: https://amzn.to/3C7YS9w
Keyboard: not available
Mouse: https://amzn.to/4h2d82x
Monitor: https://amzn.to/4778eh2
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