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
Cold Test Results (~22°C Ambient)
For the testing of PSUs, we are using high precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox and various other bits and parts. For a thorough explanation of our testing methodology and more details on our equipment, please refer to our How We Test PSUs - 2014 Pipeline post.
Due to the unique thermal design of the Nightjar NJ700, we had to change our testing methodology quite a bit. As there is no airflow to assess, we placed a sensor on the bottom side of the chassis and measure its surface temperature instead. Note that these thermal results are not directly comparable with those obtained by testing regular air-cooled products.
As expected from a fanless PSU with this kind of power output, its efficiency is extremely high. Our measurements indicate that the SilverStone NJ700 surpasses the 80Plus Titanium requirements regardless of its input voltage. It has an amazing 95% average efficiency across the entire nominal load range when powered by an 230V AC source, which drops down by just 0.6% when the input is lowered to 115V AC. The efficiency at just 5% load is above 86% and the peak efficiency is above 96%.
As expected from any well-designed PSU without active cooling, the surface temperature increases almost linearly and in near-perfect alignment with the unit’s thermal losses. The surface temperature does reach over 38 °C, which is to be expected, as the body of the PSU itself partially acts as a heatsink. The heatsinks of the PSU do reach temperatures over 50°C when the power supply is heavily loaded but that is a perfectly safe figure for an advanced PSU. The primary side is getting a little bit hotter than the secondary side.
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IBM760XL - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
As the owner of a SeaSonic Prime Ultra Titanium 650W (albeit with a fan), I'm not surprised by the performance covered in this review. It matches up with the reviews of SeaSonic's models I read prior to buying this PSU.The question does indeed seem to be why someone would buy this PSU in preference to SeaSonic's. The lesser warranty doesn't help that equation, and the SilverStone seems to be a little more expensive. Perhaps SilverStone has wider distribution channels and that's their plan? I'd be curious if there's any other reason to prefer the SilverStone.
Not that it really matters to me - my SeaSonic is under warranty until 2030, so I probably won't be in the PSU market for a few years.
shelbystripes - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
This is like reading hybrid SUV reviews that confirms industry-leading fuel mileage, and commenting “as an owner of a pickup truck, why would someone buy one of these?”If you don’t need a silent PSU, you don’t need a silent PSU. There’s also the advantage of not having a fan built inside a PSU (which laypeople should NEVER open up, for safety reasons) as a potential point of failure. It’s easier and cheaper to manage the airflow in your HTPC, including replacing noisy or failing fans, if they aren’t built into your PSU…
dubyadubya - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
Seasonic makes a completely fanless competitor, the SeaSonic Prime Fanless TX-700 so your analogy is a little off base IMO. In fact it is the same exact PSU for $26 less and it has a 12 year warranty instead of the 5 year warranty on the Silverstone. If I needed a fanless 700 watt PSU I know where my money is going to go. I tend to only buy PSU's made by Seasonic as IMO there are is nothing better so either way a great PSU.Oxford Guy - Sunday, December 5, 2021 - link
Silverstone is a middle man so it cut the warranty in order to find some place for margin.tonyou - Monday, December 6, 2021 - link
Actually Seasonic as an OEM does not offer warranty longer than 3 years no matter how much anyone is willing to pay. So its own retail division offering 12 year warranty is more or less a marketing cost, it doesn't mean the PSU will last any longer.jak0b-DK - Friday, December 10, 2021 - link
I don't have 12 years experience with seasonic yet, but the 5 years of using them in gaming-rigs and servers without any issues, make me suspect that they probably will endure.Also - knowing that a key factor to semiconductor (and Cap's) lifespan is heat - Less heat = longer life, it make sense that they can last longer in platinum series.
And finally - what company would offer 12 years of warrenty on a product expected to die within say 7 years. I trust that seasonic engineers know what they are doing, and apparently company exec's do so too. ;)
tonyou - Sunday, December 12, 2021 - link
All PSU manufacturers we work with including ourselves engineer power supplies to last the life of typical PCs. Other than design / production or bad batch from key components, most PSUs will be able to achieve that goal. With that said, even the best PSUs will not be 100% defect-free so that's what the warranty will hopefully cover. We are not saying that Seasonic or any other brands' PSU will not last up to 10 or 12 years. What we are trying to convey is that warranty length is not an indication of a PSU's service life or quality over models with shorter warranty. It is simply a marketing add-on by the brand's retail department when warranty offered is longer than industry standard 2-3 years. We have asked Seasonic to provide more than 3 year warranty to us and offered to pay more, but they refused.dubyadubya - Monday, December 13, 2021 - link
You are talking about commercial equipment not consumer stuff. Sure commercial stuff is made to last as money spent up front will keep costs down later down the road. No need for a long warranty on such products as the people involved know a warranty in itself does not make a product better. Now on consumer grade PSU's its a different story. A long warranty from a long standing company tells the consumer the manufacture more than likely did not cut corners and are selling a quality product. Yes as you say quality PSU's can last 10 years or more but for a consumer what is the measure of a quality PSU? Low end PSU's tend to fail sooner than later as most if not all a made by crap OEM's. Many crap PSU's are sold for high dollar even though they are crap. I have replaced a pile of them over the years for friends and relatives. PSU's are the number one failure point in consumer PC's or close to it. It used to be about equal between PSU's, optical drives and mother board caps back in the day. Even some big names sell crap PSU's. Look at the Gigabyte GP-P750GM fiasco. Many PSU failures wipe out other parts. When this happens the only safe thing to do is start from scratch which costs money. Nope I'd rather spend the money on the front end and buy Seasonic or made by Seasonic PSU's. My main rig is over 7 years old and the Seasonic built Corsair AX750 is still solid as a rock. It's too bad Corsair no longer uses Seasonic as a OEM as far as I know. I'm in the process of building a new PC and you can bet it's going to be Seasonic powered. The old PC will be handed down to replace the Q6600 rig I built in 2008 that is also Seasonic powered, so 13 years and counting.IBM760XL - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link
What dubya said. I already knew about SeaSonic's direct competitor, and the conclusion of the article mentions it as well, so if you'd read the article you would have also been aware of it. Just because I decided to buy the less expensive fan model doesn't mean I hadn't done research on the fanless one.Wrs - Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - link
It's possible this is an optimization of the Seasonic design. I don't remember the Seasonic fanless ever being more efficient at 115V? Or hitting 96% at 115V - that might be a record for ATX.