The Test
Right, how do you test this bugger? We could do it with a multi-meter but will go with the traditional way: real-life, as that's what you'll be facing. We attached everything we could to the IDE-RAID test-rig, 3 HD's, GeForce 6600GT, Audigy 4 Pro, Pentium 2.8 GHz, NEC DVD/CD ReWriter.
Then we fired up some games, put in a few CD's, ran the CD's (let them play music), play games and waited to see what happened. Okay, so I played for hours and of course nothing special happened. We also burned some CD's on the rig as that requires a very stable power supply. Okay you get the idea already, solid like a rock and all that without any additional sound from a fan.
What I did notice was a small high pitch sound that came from the PSU, in the PSU are some coils and they do make a little sound.
When we looked at BIOS results we notice that all voltage levels are really stable, only very minor fluctuations could be seen in the order of .1 volts, which is perfectly fine. One thing that did worry me a tad was the ambient temperature inside the case. This PSU being silent of course has no fan, so the heat is dumped pretty much inside the PC. The housing of the PSU though is pierced everywhere so hot air traveling in an upwards direction will get partly ventilated towards the outside where colder air is.
That process however is not 100% fail proof as a bunch of residual heat is dumped in the PC case for sure. If the ambient temperature inside your PC case will rise then so will the components inside the PC. So if you overclock a lot then this might get a little tricky for you. Keep that in mind.
Overall in stressed conditions the ambient temperature of the case will go up towards 40-45 degrees C, which is a tad high but nothing to really worry about under normal conditions.
The Verdict
Without a doubt the Calmer 300 Watt is an admirable product. It states 300 Watt on the box but it has a little peak backup that will make sure you can stress it towards 350 rather well. Keep in mind that the ambient temperature of your PC case will rise a little though. Nothing to worry about, but like I said it might be an issue for hardcore overclockers.
For normal usage this product is awesome though. It is extremely stable, we were not able to stress the PSU at all, voltage levels remained very steady and the biggest advantage, it's 100% silent except from a little noise at the coils. We have been using this PSU for a couple of few weeks now, which delayed this article. But I wanted to make sure it can handle everyday usage before posting an article on it. It passed our tests for sure ;)
The Calmer PSU is stable, soundless and pretty much does it's job perfectly. I like the fact that the wiring is protected and these funny yet very handy Molex connectors make it a very easy to use product.
The huge advantage of this product is that it's relatively cheap. The first fanless PSU's we tested were in the 200 EUR (220 USD) range. The 300 Watt Amacrox Calmer however can be bought for roughly 99 EUR (110 USD), which is not a lot of money for a passively cooled power supply unit.
The high-end PC user with the hefty gaming rig of course should steer clear from this PSU. But the user with an average PC configuration that doesn't do much extreme stuff like overclocking will like this product very much. Next to that PSU's like these are an absolute must for HTPC builders.
Highly recommended.
Product: proSilence Fanless PSU
Manufacturer: Amacrox GmbH
Info: www.Amacrox.com
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