Corsair RM550 or XFX XTS 460 for Bitfenix Prodigy

[Woomack]

Since all my plans to make quiet and small gaming PC failed so far and I have free Bitfenix Prodigy case right now then I thought I will make it there. Bigger case than I wanted but should be fine with better cooling and all will be silent.

The only issue is PSU as Prodigy has some restrictions and I need ~450W ( while I have only 300W ). After browsing local stores I found 2 options:

- Corsair RM550 - 550W 90+ Gold , fully modular - http://www.corsair.com/en-us/rm-series-rm550-80-plus-gold-certified-power-supply
- XFX XTS - 460W 90+ Platinum, fully modular and with passive cooling - http://www.xfxforce.com/en-gb/produ...ular/xts-series-460w-fanless-psu-p1-460f-xtsx

I'm not sure which one to pick. All my PSUs are living like 5 years+ so I assume I will keep this one for a long time.

I wonder if XFX won't overheat in Prodigy case. On the other hand I have bad experience with Corsair fans. About 20% sold by me Corsair PSUs back for issues with fan. Somehow all which I had at home were working perfect.

Option would be also something from EVGA but it's not on stock and I will have to wait about a week while I wish to already finish this PC.

Maybe anyone has any experience with passive PSU in Prodigy case ? Or maybe anyone is using that XFX PSU and can say something about it.

 

[Blaylock]

I don't have experience with the XFX PSU or passive PSU's but I do have the RM850. It's a good PSU but has it's draw backs. I bought it for silent operation, which it is. The fan only kicks on when it reaches a certain load but since my rig rarely does that it never really turns on. This means the PSU gets pretty warm and when it's in a case (not the open bench) it's dumping loads of heat into the case. I don't think you'd want that in an ITX case. JMO

 

[Woomack]

I got good price for RM550 so I already bought it but I'm still interested how passive PSU like mentioned XFX is acting in smaller cases.

Spec for my rig is:
- 6600K@not much above stock but maybe I will set it higher, CPU temps were never an issue
- GTX960@stock - temps of graphics card are not an issue outside the case but in something as small as Raijitek Metis it simply has not enough space and fan is trying to keep it under 80*C running at about 50-60%. It simply makes noise.
- Single SATA SSD - no issues at all
- 2x4 or 2x8GB DDR4 - no issues

So in total it needs about ~300W after OC. I'm just used to see that above 50% load all PSUs are making some noise so I wanted more something like 550-600W even though I don't need so high wattage. I also wanted high efficiency PSU because they are not generating so much heat = usually run quiet. I don't really care about PSU heat as long as it's quiet. Prodigy is large enough to have good airflow even without additional fans inside. I had 6x HDD+ SAS controller inside and was fine with passive cooling for CPU ( low power APU ) and no additional fans.

I got some water cooling parts from my brother so maybe I will try it again on this rig. In larger case all should fit good and fittings from his old rig are much better than EK that I have. These new EK are not holding tubes good as I already mentioned somewhere in other thread. Total cost of new parts made me to back to air cooling.
In general there are constant issues with this rig regardless what way I pick so I just want to make it good and see it works for some time without any issues.

 

[Blaylock]

You should be good with the RM550 then. Looks like you'll still be in the "low noise" range for this PSU and according to the chart only be around 12dB. Hopefully someone will come by with some insight on the XFX passive.

 

[Woomack]

During the weekend I installed all in Bitfenix case. RM550 is silent but as you said it generates some heat. At least all PC is now really quiet.
Right now it's something like this:
- i5 [email protected] 1.25V - huge vdroop on my mobo and I'm still testing various settings
- MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC - as mentioned above still some BIOS issues but almost everything works great
- GTX960 Gigabyte / ITX @stock - it doesn't really have to be overclocked to run all what I need
- 1x 240GB HyperX Savage SSD - maybe I will change it to something else but for now it's good enough
- 2x4GB Geil DDR4-3333 @ XMP ( I know it can make some more but I had no time to play with this kit on MSI )

Cooling - 2x120mm Swiftec rad + 2x Enermax blue LED fans ( RAM has blue LEDs too ) + Magicool pump/res combo ( cheap, quiet and works good ). No additional fans in the case. Temps are not perfect but low enough to keep everything quiet.
Maybe I will post rig's photos.

 

[Blaylock]

Nice little setup. Pics would be great.