Fan Speed
When testing in a power supply laboratory it is difficult to take fan noise readings as the noise from the Sunmoon test equipment and air conditioning corrupts everything. The next best thing in our circumstances was reading off the fan speed with a tachometer to get an idea for the noise. The ambient temperature during testing held constant at 22 degrees, with 1 degree of variation. Each power supply had a consistent time period of 5 minutes to stabilise between each load scenario.
In my experience the following general relationships apply between noise levels and fan speeds, though it can vary greatly between the type of fan used.
- Below 800 RPM – Inaudible/Silent
- 800 to 1000 RPM – Barely audible
- 1000 – 1200 RPM – Audible but still quiet
- 1200 – 1400 RPM – Moderately noisy
- 1400 – 1800 RPM – Noisy
- 1800 RPM or higher – Intolerable
Acoustic performance was good for this price point, assisted by the fact a 1400 RPM fan is used. It isn’t silent but the noise output isn’t offensive either, under typical loads you certainly won’t hear this PSU fan.
There’s no reason to state “Fan speed lower is better” on the chart because that is only a subjective opinion while factually speaking, higher is better for the PSU itself to reduce temperature except in this particular case that low quality Yate Loon fan will probably wear out its sleeve bearing before the life of the PSU is otherwise exhausted.
Hello. I am looking into buying a new PSU for my computer. I will upgrade to the AMD R7-370, my CPU is AMD FX4300. I want to buy the Thermaltake Tt Toughpower DPS G 550W ATX23 (here is the link http://hardware.nl/thermaltake/ps-tpg-0550dpcgeu-g.html ), but it seems to be different from the one you are reviewing. Is this a really different line? The one to which I linked has a 140mm ventilator, so it should be quieter. But the one I see in the image has a 120mm.
Yeah, it seems so. Strange Google gives this link when I am looking for a different Thermaltake.