[jakebot]

pc power and cooling... corsairs are new and up coming... thermaltake (honestly some of the best...) modular is failry impaortant too for a clean look... i would say go corsair my next one is gonna be their 1kw.

 

[FasterThanEver]

I agree with Leeperry that 12V ripple numbers matter for PC audio with a soundcard. The ATX requirement for 12V ripple is 120mV. We'd like much lower ripple and good power supplies have less then 20 mV. However, it mastters much less for general PC use than it does for audio so many reviews don't provide detailed results for jitter. Some sources for power supply reviews (and example articles) with ripple measurements:


techreport.com
Eleven enthusiast power supplies compared - The Tech Report - Page 1

Anandtech.com
AnandTech: 300W to 450W: 20 Power Supplies on the Test Bench
This website shows the ripple waveforms for the reviewed powersupplies. The Enermax Liberty ECO 400W seems to have a smoother ripple waveform than the others tested. I'm thinking of trying one in place of the Seasonic S12 II 380W power supply I use now.

Hardwaresecrets.com
Corsair VX450W Power Supply Review | Hardware Secrets

hardocp.com
DC Output Quality - Enermax MODU82+ 625w | [H]ard|OCP

Bill

 

[sonci]

Dont understand the tifo on various brand since only 2 or 3 manufact PSU, so how can you say that Corsair is better than Seasonic, its like Ferrari gives the good engine to the Toro Rosso and keeps the old one for themselves,

Back to my problem, I borrowed a cheap PSU from one of my friends, smth not branded 350W, just for the time when the new come, but this thing starts after 5 min, in Foobar the sound comes and go, and again restarts,(with only one hard disc connected!!)
while everything seems fine with my 850W CMaster Real Power, for like 10 hours,
Im starting to thing that this Tyan board is pricky on psu or its just bad, Im not going to buy another 850 monster, for just music server,.

 

[sonci]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FasterThanEver /img/forum/go_quote.gif I agree with Leeperry that 12V ripple numbers matter for PC audio with a soundcard. The ATX requirement for 12V ripple is 120mV. We'd like much lower ripple and good power supplies have less then 20 mV. However, it mastters much less for general PC use than it does for audio so many reviews don't provide detailed results for jitter.

Is this really important, shouldnt motherboards have some onboard voltage regulators? The voltage to the pci depends on the motherboard or the PSU?

 

[Aynjell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonci /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is this really important, shouldnt motherboards have some onboard voltage regulators? The voltage to the pci depends on the motherboard or the PSU?

Garbage in, garbage out. A motherboard can't perfect on crap, but give it good voltage to start with and it'll only make it better (in theory).

 

[CodeToad]

The bigger the fan the quieter it runs. BTW you can buy a PSU that is rated higher than you need and it will run at what is needed...not at what it's rated.

 

[RicHSAD]

I have the Corsair HX620 and it works great. More power than advertised, modular cables, silent and at a decent price too.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonci /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is this really important, shouldnt motherboards have some onboard voltage regulators? The voltage to the pci depends on the motherboard or the PSU?

very high end mobos got 12/16 phases to "shape" the Vcore very accurately, but they don't touch the 12V AFAIK? they only work on the Vcore(which is 1.xV something?)

anyway, for audio you need to find a branded PSU w/ the lowest 12V ripple available. problem solved

 

[linuxworks]

'for audio' ?

for audio you use an outboard dac. in that case, the computer's PSU means nothing in terms of audio. nothing at all.

go outboard dac, use usb or spdif to drive it and forget all PSU worries

 

[linuxworks]

another idea (for those that run lower power rigs) is to use a fully fanless 12v based upconverted power supply. the mini-itx cases all use this style (12v power brick outside and a 12v 'to pc' inverter to create all the pc voltages).

'City Net ITP15080B Pico Power Supply 150W Power Kit '

FRYS.com #: 5974914

you can buy it elsewhere, too:

picoPSU-150-XT 12V DC-DC ATX power supply

150watts gets you a lot of power, actually. on my workstation, I tend to draw much less than 70w. much much less (no gaming, of course).

so that's another thing to consider. fanless is higher reliability (nothing to fail, in terms of physical moving parts).

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif for audio you use an outboard dac. in that case, the computer's PSU means nothing in terms of audio. nothing at all.

it'll crawl back through the USB cable, eventually

and the OP is using an E-MU 1212M apparently..

going external has advantages indeed(only if it has a serious PSU, not a wall wart), but going external might also increase jitter(USB or S/PDIF)...if there were a 100% trouble-free solution for PC audio, we wouldn't be in here

and most of these USB DAC's use the stock windows drivers, that are capped to 16/48...no 24/96 HD audio for you, and their drivers are not quite bit-matched either?!

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RicHSAD /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have the Corsair HX620 and it works great. More power than advertised, modular cables, silent and at a decent price too.

+ extremely low ripple for a computer PSU.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakebot /img/forum/go_quote.gif modular is failry impaortant too for a clean look.

Not really. Plastic clips from the local hardware store does the trick.

 

[FasterThanEver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonci /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is this really important, shouldnt motherboards have some onboard voltage regulators? The voltage to the pci depends on the motherboard or the PSU?

If you are using onboard sound or a PCI soundcard, it may be important. Ripple on the 3.3, 5 and 12V power lines is noise; it doesn't belong there and it affects the performance of the DAC chip, the clock circuitry and the analog circuitry. A soundcard may have some filtering but it isn't elaborate. That filtering may remove some ripple but it lets some get by. So, the less ripple there is on the power inputs to a soundcard, the cleaner the power going to the audio circuitry.

If you are using SPDIF output, noise might affect the SPDIF transmitter chip, resulting in greater jitter. Fewer mechanisms to affect sound though.

If you are using USB output, noise on the power lines might be transferred directly to the power and ground wires on the USB cable.

So what level of ripple is good enough? As usual, nobody is doing valid experiments and taking measurements.

Bill

 

[leeperry]

12V ripple on the aforementioned Corsair HX620W is around 40mV at full load: Google Translate

that's the most technical PSU test I have ever found, and some of the other PSU's were actually going as low as 8 mV

for audio, Corsair is way overrated IMHO