Review: PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 600W PSU

Posted by Ed Smith

Saturday, 04 February 2012 07:56

Article Index
Review: PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 600W PSU
Specifications and Features
The Box and PSU, A Photo Tour
Testing and Results
Ripple Testing
Dissection
Verdict and Conclusion

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Introduction

It's PSU review time again! This time it's a PC Power and Cooling unit. PC Power and Cooling got bought out by OCZ in 2007, but retained most or all of their design team and facilities. Today's unit is the largest unit in the newest generation of PC P&C's "Silencer" series.

PCPAC600w-PSU-side

The PC Power and Cooling website says the following about the company:

Why PC Power & Cooling Computer Power Supplies ?

"For over 25 Years, PC Power & Cooling has been at the forefront of the high-performance computer power supply industry. We have produced many innovations along the way: the first CPU cooler, the first PC heat alarm, the first independently-regulated PC power supply, the first redundant power system, the first NVIDIA SLI Certified supply, the first 1000W computer power supply and the first - and still only company - to offer an individual certified test report with each power supply sold. We produce the world's premier high-performance computer power supplies, all expertly engineered in San Diego, California."

Source: pcpower.com

Power Supply Testing Methodology

Unlike most computer parts, power supplies require rather specialized equipment to test correctly. Sure, you can plug it into a computer system and see if it can run a 980x and a couple GTX580s, but that doesn’t tell you how much power the PSU is putting out, nor what that output looks like. Worse, if the unit is defective or simply underbuilt/overrated the unit can fail catastrophically and take your computer along with it!

Purpose built loads and the testing units to run them cost thousands of dollars. They’re easy to use and very accurate and definitely the ideal way to test power supplies, but also entirely too expensive for me to afford. Instead I have built my own! It’s entirely mechanical and not automated in the slightest, but it can put a serious load on a PSU and will survive the PSU fails in the process.

Next up, specifications and features!