Vantec Stealth 470w PSU

The Vantec Stealth power supply has three different speeds for the fans: low, medium, and high. You can set the speed of the fans that you want with the switch on the back of the power supply. I installed this power supply into the Panther case that I reviewed a while back because I had planned on using it for the new OCModShop server that I have built. As you can see the cables are really long, too long even for the full tower Panther. Long cables are nice for large cases but I think that these cables are a little too long and should have been made a little shorter. I ended up not being able to use the Panther case for the server because the motherboard would not fit in it so I decided to use the Blue Meany case instead which is a mid tower.

Test Bed:

• MSI K7D Master-L (review to come)
• 2 1.2MHz Atlon MPs
• 2 Golden Gate heatsinks
• 1GB registered PC2100 Corsair RAM
• Adaptec 19160 Ultra160 SCSI card
• 2 IBM Ultra160 18 GB, 10,000 RPM SCSI HDD (RAID 1)
• 30GB Western Digital ATA100 7200RPM HDD
• 52x Lite-On CDROM
• ATi Rage 128
• Blue Meany case
• Vantec Stealth 470w PSU
• Onboard sound
• Onboard NIC
• Floppy drive

I went ahead and installed this PSU to my system which had all of the above hardware in it. I booted up the system and found this power supply is pretty quiet on the low setting. After Windows 2000 Advanced Server finished loading I went ahead and started up Motherboard Monitor which I will be using to get the voltage readings from this power supply. I let the computer idle for about 20 minutes and watched the readings. The 5v line was a little low and did not fluctuate much, for the most part it stayed at 4.95v. A 5v line voltage of 4.95v isn’t too bad in however it would be nice if it were higher because of the fact that this is a server and it should be as stable as possible and that it is going to drop even more under load. The 12v line is also a little lower than I would have liked to see it but it is less important than the 5v line.

After getting the idle voltages I loaded up Prime95 which I used to put the CPU to the test. The meters on Motherboard Monitor did not show any CPU usage but the system was being used very heavily. While running this test the 5v line dropped a little lower to 4.89v which is getting a little low, especially since this system isn’t even overclocked. The 12v line stayed pretty good under load of course because it goes up while the 5v goes down.

Conclusion

This power supply is a really nice to say the least. The biggest reason I think I like this power supply so much is because of the fact that it will work with almost any ATX motherboard. There were only three motherboards that Vantec said this power supply would not work with; the Tyan S2468, S2462, and S2603. This power supply has 3 fans, which are are controlled by a fan switch so you can set the level of cooling and noise you want which is a really cool feature. I really like the way that this power supply looks as I am really tired of the drab and standard silver power supply. There are however a couple things that I did not like about this power supply. The 5v line is lower than I would have liked to have seen it, even though the system was stable. I think Vantec needs to look at this problem and correct it, especially for the price of this PSU which is about $120. I also did not like that the cables were so long and think that Vantec should shorten them a little. Overall I am really impressed with this power supply and would recommend it to anyone with a really nice server, or someone who wants a strong power supply with a great look to it. I am going to give this power supply a 9/10 and award it the OCModShop seal of approval, I would really like to thank Vantec for sending over this power supply for me to review. You can get this power supply from a few of my sponsors or use the list of vendors on Vantec’s website. I will be using this power supply in an upcoming guide along all of the hardware listed above so watch for that.

Pros: Looks really nice 3 80mm fans for cooling Fan speed control switch 24-pin ATX plug 4-pin, 8-pin, and auxiliary plug 9 Molex and 3 Berg plugs 24-20 pin adapter Will work with almost any motherboard Cons: Low 5v rail Cables are a little long Good hardware is expensive (about $120)