The SilverStone NightJar NJ700 Passive PSU Review: Silent Excellence
by E. Fylladitakis on November 29, 2021 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- SilverStone
- Passive Cooling
Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)
The energy conversion efficiency of the SilverStone Nightjar NJ700 was almost entirely unaffected by the high ambient temperature of our hotbox, with the efficiency dropping a mere 0.25% average across the entire load range. This, in conjunction with the lack of any active cooling, suggests that the active components are both oversized and designed so as to greatly resist thermal stress.
Under these operating conditions, the surface temperature of the SilverStone NJ700 reaches levels that would be painful for most people to touch. Nevertheless, the internal temperature of the unit does not get high at all. As a matter of fact, both the primary and secondary side heatsinks stayed a bit cooler than what actively cooled PSUs with such a power output can attain at maximum load.
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Wrs - Saturday, December 11, 2021 - link
Noise cancelation is already used in aviation headsets - realize it does cost something and sometimes a cheap pair of earplugs is more than sufficient. Those subway researchers didn't miss anything, they just wanted to point out the amount of noise. It's on subway riders to get earplugs or cheap passive headphones if they can't afford ANC, or learn to steady eardrums with a reverse valsalva. Typically 75dB is regarded as starting to cause hearing loss. That's 1000 times as intense as a somewhat noisy 45dB machine.Decibels are simply a log base 10 scale. If you raise the intensity by 5x, that's a 7dB gain. So 5 35dB fans that don't attenuate each other, 42dB. Every 2x is 3dB, 4x is 6dB, hope you get the picture.
Sorry about your experience with Beats. Ive never tried them but wouldn't associate them with good value. Bose is generally the ANC standard. Apple's Airpods Pro and Max are also well regarded. I use a Max and though a hiss is impossible to negate entirely its kind of hard for me to even notice it. Unfortunately I do not know how the experience differs for someone with significant tinnitus (everyone has that ringing, it just varies to what degree).
Wrs - Saturday, December 11, 2021 - link
So the comments about PSU sometimes adding insignificant noise are practically true. If the rest of system is already at 40dB when the PSU tops out at 29dB, they're not moving to 41dB. And all of this is nowhere close to causing hearing loss.Oxford Guy - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
And the Seasonic ‘Snow Silent’ PSU that ‘could be heard from rooms away’?That’s a quote from the review here.
Wrs - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link
I can't find a Snow Silent review from AT, but I did find a rather competent one done in 2015 by Tom's, where it was found relatively quiet to 50% but measured 52dB 1m away at 80%+ load, which I suppose is audible from rooms away (it depends on the frequency distribution). Perhaps half the name was a misnomer.Then in 2016 the same author reviewed a Prime Titanium 850W that stayed under 30dB until almost 800W. That's two orders of magnitude less sound energy.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - link
The last PSU that I owned, that was audible at all under load, was an old diablotek power suppyl with two 80 MM fans. Most moderen 120mm PSUs run cool enough and quiet enough that absent a totally silent system will be inaudible.Oxford Guy - Thursday, December 2, 2021 - link
Many modern PSUs are audible. One of them, a Seasonic ‘Snow Silent’ model could be ‘heard from rooms away.’That is a direct quote from the Anandtech review.
alcoholbob - Saturday, December 4, 2021 - link
Both the TX-700 (which the NJ700 is based on) and the NJ700 had problems with audible coil whine even while idling, which were much worse than higher wattage Seasonic semi-fanless units while running fanlessly. The issue with these 700W models appears to be the fact that the coil whine is very high pitched, so its quite audible from several feet away.On higher wattage Seasonic units like the 850W or 1000W RMx series, there is coil whine but its much lower in frequency. Due to the Fletcher Munson effect, it sounds nearly inaudible, while the TX-700 and NJ700, as well as lower end 520W and 420W Nightjar models sound to me quite unbearably loud due to the high frequency nature of the whine.
I find it much cheaper to simply get a Corsair RMx unit and just mod the fan with a low noise Noctua fan.
Oxford Guy - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
I recall that it was fan noise not coil whine that made that PSU audible, according to the reviewer.ruthan - Thursday, December 2, 2021 - link
Im only missing 2x EPS cable for some dual socket builds, 700W is enough for them.I had fanless Seasonic and Silverstones, in the past.. My expecience is than Silverstone have better cooling, it worked in machine, where Seasonic with same Wattage was overheating.
But we need some head to head review.
albaikinindia - Monday, December 6, 2021 - link
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