PC Power and Cooling Silencer 610W PSU

When I received the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V power supply, I have to admit, I  was curious.  The 610 holds the EPS rather than ATX moniker in its name, which indicates it is designed around the EPS (server oriented) guidelines rather than the ATX guidelines.  In practice, the differences can be minimal, but if a company puts “EPS” in the name of a PSU, it’s an indication that said PSU is for serious folks. PC Power and Cooling states that the 610 “…gives you legendary PC Power and Cooling performance and reliability along with a unique ultra-quiet cooling design and a price that seals the deal.”  From a company that asks the consumer not to believe the hype – that’s a serious statement.

Features

We don’t consider packaging in our scoring, but this is one of those special cases when we feel we have to at least mention the packaging.  The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V comes in a plain Jane white cardboard box, symbolic of PC Power & Cooling's no nonsense approach.  All serious business, and we like serious.

Out of the box, the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V comes with just the basics; a three page manual with warranty information on a fourth page, a main power cord, four mounting screws, a specification plate on the PSU itself, and in our case, a test report from PC Power and Cooling’s $100K Chroma testing unit. There are no additional stickers, adapters, or even zip ties with the package – nada.  We should also mention that the test report is optional and costs an additional $20 USD for the Silencer 610. The report includes load test results similar to the tests we run.  Hmm… I guess we can just stop right here and not even bother running our own tests – NOT!

The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V is dressed in basic black finish (a popular choice these days).  Again, it’s all serious business. No fancy badging other than the SLI ready sticker sits on the PSU housing.

PC Power & Cooling follows traditional PSU construction by using a single 80mm cooling fan rear mounted on the PSU. That’s a bold move for a PSU called “Silencer” in a day and age when even 500 watt power supplies are packing 120mm fans and manufacturers are venturing into multiple fan setups.

The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V is not a modular PSU (thus a few zip ties in the box would have been nice) and that will add to cable management issues upon installation. PC Power & Cooling has never been a supporter of modular PSUs, and have been quick to point out that the potential performance losses, from added connector resistance, outweigh the cable management and cooling benefits of modular setups.  We are not so sure we agree with this philosophy, as we have seen quality units from other manufactures sporting modular setups without issue.

The specification panel numbers tell us that the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V is a single 12V rail model.  There is no wattage limit placed specifically on the 12V rail although the 5V + 3.3V rails are limited to 170W total.  That’s well within range of similar sized PSUs.

Cables, Connections, Dimentions

The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V comes with ten cable harness all sleeved in black mesh starting from the unit to the first connector on a particular harness.  This is a welcome feature that helps in cable management (and thus cooling), but it would have been nice if PC Power & Cooling had seen to sleeving beyond the first connector on a particular harness. That said, all of the standard connectors are on board and ready to use – you should not need any adapters.

The 24 pin connector breaks apart for use in a 20 pin system.  This is something we look for in a PSU as it’s an indication that the manufacturer didn’t opt to save a few pennies and cause the end user a possible headache in doing so.  Kudo’s PC Power & Cooling.

Cable lengths are adequate.  There are plenty of lengths to choose from for peripheral power (including SATA) all the way up to 3 feet.  The mainboard harness is a tad shorter than we like – especially for an EPS oriented PSU.  In fact, at this point , we were not sure why PC Power & Cooling really chose the EPS moniker.  The 610 seems very much an ATX unit. We would, however, soon be enlightened.

Dimensions

The dimensions of the 610 are 5.9” wide, 3.5” tall, and 7” inches long.  Here, the difference between the ATX and EPS moniker shows through. The EPS specification allows for longer PSU enclosures than the ATX (and PC Power & Cooling followed the EPS specification for this class PSU). PC Power & Cooling added an inch and a half to the PSU length for reasons to do with cooling.  While it may help with cooling, it may also present a problem for some folks. If you are using an ATX case, you might find that the 610’s 7” length will not fit in your case – or that the fit will be tight.  We checked a couple ATX cases in the shop and found lengths (or depths if you prefer) to range from 15 to 17 inches.  If you happen to have one of the shorter cases, you will find that you have a pretty tight squeeze (as little as an inch) in your case behind top bay mounted optical drives.  Further, most of the PSU’s ventilation holes are on the rear of the unit – right up against a possible optical drive and thus inhibiting air flow.  Normally, we would let this go since the PSU is clearly marked as an EPS type, except for a document from PC Power & Cooling that states the 610 achieves it’s quiet design by, “...making the Silencer’s form factor deeper (1.5”), without sacrificing compatibility with standard ATX computer cases”.  They might want to add that you may have to move your optical drive down a few bays (if you have them available) and invest in a shoe horn.

The lesson here is don't believe the hype - measure your case and check the dimensions of any PSU you are considering for possible fit problems. PSUs typically don't look good strapped to the top of cases (and trust us, the cables are almost always too short for that).