Net SilentMax/Alphacool PSU

"High current mains, meet liquid cooling. I'm sensitive electronics, and I'd like to welcome you both to the power supply."

Well now we’ve seen it all. Although we’re usually nervous enough about putting water-cooling close to the power supply, now we’re plugging it into it.

The PSU was supplied without tubes or G1/4" locking nuts (despite the picture on the box, which has a completely different mounting block), expecting a custom system to already be installed.

Nicking the appropriate parts from our Cool-Trek Vostok, we set up a circuit, topped up the reservoir, hooked into a PC and flicked the switch.

Pure silence – almost. The Alphacool emits an electronic buzz akin to that of Silverstone PSUs, although once in a case you won’t hear a thing – in fact even from a metre away it’s not discernible from ordinary background noise.

The real problem lies in the vast lack of power connectors, with only two SATA, five molex and one PCI-E. This is completely inappropriate for today’s systems. We’d love to put more stuff in the specs box, but that’s honestly all it has. The 12V EPS cable is also too short, forcing some interesting PSU cabling acrobatics.

At idle the 3.3V, 5V and 12V rails gave 3.35V, 5.02V and 12.00V respectively, while under load this became 3.35V, 5.01V and 11.98V. Pretty uneventful, although it’s the first time in a long time we’ve seen a PSU drop below the 12.00V mark. This is still acceptable, it’s just interesting.

As a final death knell, check out that RRP. A just as quiet fanned Seasonic will set you back at least $200 less.

Unless you absolutely have to have everything in your PC water-cooled, you’d do well to steer clear of the Alphacool PSU. Just understand you’re buying it for looks, and not anything else.