Cooler Master Silent Pro PSUs
by Christoph Katzer on September 8, 2008 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Internals
We knew before even cracking the casing that this power supply is from Enhance, which is fine since we like their craftsmanship. We have seen many different models made by this ODM, but they are usually 850W to 1000W. These are the first 500W-600W models we've seen from Enhance, and we were eager to begin testing. As you will see shortly, they don't let us down.
The heatsinks are large and occupy almost all of the free space in the casing. Cooler Master advertises their use of small copper plates on the heatsinks as a means of increasing heat dissipation, since copper transfers heat faster than aluminum. Aluminum still dissipates the heat faster to the surrounding air, which is one reason the whole cooler isn't made of copper. The second reason is of course the much higher price of copper. In fact looking a little bit closer at the "copper" plates, we don't actually think they are made of pure copper - more likely a copper alloy (i.e. bronze). That is again cheaper than pure copper since there is a higher percentage of zinc in the alloy. This keeps most of the good features of copper and only decreases the outcome slightly.
The layout is another good Enhance feature. The input filtering stage reaches from the AC input over the whole upper side of the PCB to the right side. After that comes the PFC stage with a large coil. There are two main capacitors made by Nippon Chemi-Con (450V, 180µF, 105°C). In the secondary, we find mostly Teapo capacitors and two made by Su'scon.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
15 Comments
View All Comments
ryboto - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
You're quite incorrect. The method for heat transfer from the heatsinks to the air is the same for both copper and aluminum. If you took a heat transfer course you'd know that the thermal conductivities and convective heat transfer coefficients are what is used in the heat transfer equations. No where is it dependent on the heat capacity. So, you haveQ=K A (Tb-Th) where Tb=base temp, Th= heatsink temp, then heat transfer to the air is
Qa=h A (Th-Ta) where Ta is the bulk air temp. These are highyl approximated, as there are multiple layers. Now, look at the equations...if K for Cu is greater than for Al, heat transfer is faster. What this amounts to is a greater Th, but look at the second equation, if Th is greater, the temperature gradient(or driving force for heat transfer) is greater than it would be for aluminum. Copper is a better material for this application. It's just expensive, and it oxidizes, which is why we have nickel plated copper heatpipes.
Megaknight - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - link
Great explanation mate.Penti - Monday, September 8, 2008 - link
It's an old tale but it's just that a tale.Weight has probably a lot to do with it on modern coolers, I have a Tuniq Tower 120, think of this cooler in pure copper, it would snap the motherboard with it's weight probably. We haven't moved to coolers weighing 2-3 kg yet. But as always price is the main factor.
Aquila76 - Monday, September 8, 2008 - link
'Transfer' and 'dissipate' are different things. The copper plates transfer heat away from the components better; the aluminum fins dissipate (exchanges may have been a better word choice there) the heat into the air. This is not unlike those heatpipe tower-style CPU coolers.Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 8, 2008 - link
Thanks mate.