This Noctua power supply is ideal for a silent gaming PC build if you can afford it.

PC Cooling Specialist Noctua has just introduced a new PC power supply developed in collaboration with Seasonic. The new Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition comes in the signature brown, beige and black tones associated with the Noctua brand. The company also says it has specifically designed the grille to further reduce noise. You’ll need deep pockets, however, as the price is a whopping $569, which is $20 more than the coveted Steam Deck OLED.

This is about as premium as you can get in the world of PC power supplies, and its specs are certainly on par with the best power supplies we’ve ever seen. The Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition is rated at 1600W and carries the 80 Plus Titanium badge, meaning it is 90% efficient or higher at any load, from 10% to 100%. Perhaps more importantly, Seasonic and Noctua specifically designed this power supply to be quiet, and that doesn’t seem like an exaggeration in this case.

According to both companies, the semi-passive fan control system of the fully modular power supply means that the included Noctua NF-A12x25 fan will not even spin until the power supply load exceeds 50% at normal operating temperatures (+/-25° C). .

Place this power supply in a PC with components that won’t draw more than 800 watts and you’ll for the most part have a quiet power supply, even while gaming. In our tests, even a power-hungry Core i9 14900K system playing games on an Nvidia RTX 4080 only consumed 557 watts at peak load, so there’s plenty of headroom.

However, there’s still plenty of power for those who want it, thanks to two 16-pin PCIe 5.0 connectors for the latest graphics cards like the upcoming Nvidia RTX 5000 series. The all-important 12V rail (the one that powers your CPU and GPU ) also has a huge current rating of 133.33A, which is enough to provide incredible levels of power to your PC.
So what is Noctua’s role in all this? Firstly, inside the device you get the excellent 120mm Noctua NF-A12x25 fan, which is one of the best PC fans you can buy right now.

However, Noctua has also put some serious work into the design of the grille that covers the fan, which it claims can “allow it to run about 8-10 dB(A) quieter than the already quiet standard model” of this Seasonic power supply. supported this statement with graphs of test results. This grill, according to Noctua, “has been designed and optimized to provide the smoothest possible pressure gradient as the NF-A12x25 fan blades pass through the grill posts.”

The company expands on this theme by stating that “the radial grille posts are angled and directed against the direction of rotation of the fan and the sweep of the fan blades, which helps avoid situations where the leading edges of the fan blades are parallel or nearly parallel. to the grill racks. This, Noctua says, “will cause a high-pressure pulse followed by a sudden drop in pressure as the blade moves out of the overlap position.”

Meanwhile, the package includes a full set of individually insulated cables, finished in Noctua’s classic black and brown color scheme. However, this is a large unit measuring 210 x 150 x 86mm, so you’ll need to make sure your case has room for it.

Noctua makes some bold claims with its fan-powered grill, but it’s also shown it knows what it’s doing with cooling and airflow, and we’ve been impressed with the company’s cooling products in the past. If you want to see why, check out our review of the Noctua NH-D15, where we were blown away by this cooler’s superb build quality, excellent cooling and low noise levels, ranking number one in our best CPU cooler buying guide.