Picking up the plain white box that housed the Silencer 610EPS12V power supply didn’t excite me very much. With only a list of technical specifications on the side and no fancy graphics or pictures, I didn’t really know what to expect. It may not seem too impressive on the outside, but you should never judge a book by its cover.
PC Power & Cooling, Inc. has been around since 1985 specializing in high-performance computer power supplies. Today, we review the 610EPC12V power supply that is part of their Silencer Series of power supplies. It is stuck in between the Silencer 750 and the Silencer 470 making it about the mid-range supply in this series.
Features
The Silencer 610EPS12V comes with the following features…
-
Nvidia ® SLI certified
- 610W Continous @ 40 DegC, 670W peak
- large single rail +12VDC @ 49A
- 1 x 24pin, 1 x 8pin, and 1 x 4 pin Motherboard connector
- 8 x 4pin Molex connectors
- 1 x 4pin mini connector
- 1 x 6, 1 x 6+2 PCI-E connectors
- 6 SATA drive connectors
- Automatic Fan Speed Control Circuit
- 80+ Certified (83% efficient): 0.99 Active Power Factor Correction (PFC)
Technical specifications can be found at the PC Power & Cooling, Inc. Product Page. Now let’s take a look at what’s inside the box.
What’s In The Box?
The white box seemed larger than what is required for a typical power supply. Opening the box revealed decent protection of the power supply in case of any “brown van” incidents.
Packed inside the plain white box, you’ll find the Silencer 610EPS12V power supply, 6’ power cord, mounting screws, instruction manual and a certified test report. Except for the certified test report, everything included is pretty standard fare. Supplying a certified test report shows that this power supply was tested at the factory and we can be sure that it will perform as advertised. Not many companies perform this level of quality assurance when shipping their products. PC Power & Cooling must stand behind their products to include such documentation and it shows.
A detailed look at the test report revealed that we had a power supply capable of supplying 613.7W continuous power, 679.5W peak power with a measured efficiency of 84.72%. This is clearly greater than what was advertised. For all those concerned with rising electricity prices, this power supply is capable of converting 84.72% of the input power into useful output power required for your PC. The remaining 15.28% is thus converted into heat. This means lower electricity bills when using this power supply when compared to less efficient supplies.
Real-Time Price and Stock Check – Shop Like a PRO!
First Impressions
The Silencer 610W power supply looked very ordinary when we removed it from the box. The look of the power supply appears like its just another OEM power supply, with no flashy logos or fancy graphics.
The entire supply was painted in flat black paint with only a label on the top of the supply to indicate specifications. According to the specifications, we have a very large single 12V rail with an output of 49A.
There’s also a sticker on the side to indicate that this power supply is SLI ready – excellent for those hardcore gamers with a dual videocard setup.
On the rear of the power supply, there is one 80mm ball bearing fan. Being that the purpose of this power supply is to be a silent power supply, the variable fan is capable of 22-55 CFM with a noise rating of 26 – 38 dBA.
I’m a bit leary of such a small fan being quiet since if has to spin faster to move the same amount of air as a larger fan would. However, according to PC Power & Cooling, noise is caused by turbulence from nearby components. Therefore, they mount their components at least 1” away from the fan limiting turbulent air and hence, limiting noise. We’ll later see how well this works in reducing noise.
Real-Time Price and Stock Check – Shop Like a PRO!
Connectors
Being that this is not a modular power supply, we have a large bundle of wires sticking out of the back. Luckily for us, all of the cables are nicely sleeved making organization during installation easier. They also appear to come with adequate lengths for all connectors.
We were also pleasantly surprised to see a 6+2 pin PCI-E connector. For those of us lucky enough to have, say a Nvidia 9800 GX2, you will be well prepared with this power supply.
Installation and Setup
Since this is a Silencer series power supply, we thought it would be fitting to install this power supply into our Antec Sonata III. The Antec Sonata III is whisper quiet in terms of noise and installing the Silencer 610 into this case will allow us to test the manufacturer’s claims.
With dimensions measuring 5.9”W x 3.4”H x 7.1” D, we had no problems installing this power supply into our mid-sized ATX case. The only concern that I had was with the length of the supply and how much room I would have with the Optical drive. Fortunately, this wasn’t a problem. I even had room to neatly tuck all of the unused cables. Being such a relatively small case, we had no problems with the lengths of any of the cables, nor the size of the power supply.
Test System and Setup
Since the 610EPS12V is a mid-ranged power supply, we threw it in a mid-ranged setup. I have no doubts that the components of this setup will never come close to pushing the limits of this power supply, but we try our best.
- Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.40GHz processor
- Foxconn P9657AA motherboard
- Patriot 2 x 1GB PC-6400 DDR Ram
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA300 hard drive
- Leadtek WinFast PX7800 GTX TDH 256MB Videocard with Arctic Cooling Accelero X1 cooler
- LiteOn 20X DVD+/-RW SATA Drive
In terms of testing, we need to drive the computer as far as it would go with the components we had on hand. To do this, we played a DVD movie in the optical drive, ran a scandisk on the harddrive, and ran a 3dMark06 benchmark to get the videocard smoking. On top of that, we ran OCCT to really stress out this system. For noise, we positioned a sound meter 6” from the rear of the exhaust fan of the power supply. Readings were taken at both idle and load conditions.
Real-Time Price and Stock Check – Shop Like a PRO!
Test Results
As I had mentioned before, even with this system at maximum power, the power supply did not even break a sweat. Taking a look at the voltage output of each rail in the 610EPS12V under idle and load conditions confirms what we saw on the Certified Test Report – a consistent, stable, and reliable power supply. There were hardly any deviations on any of the voltage rails.
|
3.3V Rail |
5V Rail |
12V Rail |
|||
|
Idle |
Load |
Idle |
Load |
Idle |
Load |
|
3.37 |
3.35 |
4.99 |
4.98 |
12.10 |
12.08 |
The first thing that I noticed when I fired up the computer was that same noise levels that I noticed with the stock power supply – pure silence. Under idle conditions, the highest noise level reading we got was 41.3dBA, which is essentially the same sound level as the stock power supply at 41.5dBA. Under load conditions, I could not notice any sound level change and according to our sound level meter, the highest level that was measured was 42.1dBA; hardly an increase.
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
PC Power & Cooling, Inc’s Silencer 610EPS12V is a solid, well constructed, high quality power supply. It performed admirably as per the Certified Test Report, and proved that a power supply can perform silently and unobtrusively.
The Silencer 610EPS12V is a power supply that will not impress you with its looks. From the plain white box to the flat black finish, it looks like an OEM power supply. However, what will impress you is the way that this power supply performs. The voltage output remained stable under all conditions as we could not stress the supply to its limits. Its pure silent operation is not just a marketing gimmick from PC Power & Cooling. it is in fact a reality.
With a street price of around $150CDN, it has a slightly higher average price than the most 600W power supplies. But given the quality, craftsmanship, and performance of this supply, I would highly recommend this supply for a mid ranged system.
Pros:
- Quiet, silent operation
- Very stable voltage output
- High quality construction
- Adequate length of sleeved cables
Cons:
- It will look like an OEM power supply in your rig
- Non modular design in an age where this is pretty much mandatory
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
Discuss This Review in the Futurelooks Community Forums
Real-Time Price and Stock Check – Shop Like a PRO!