14 DAY TRIAL // Until several years ago, there weren't so many directives, standards and regulations when it came to efficiency, since the industry was mostly focused on raw performance, sometimes to the exclusion of anything else. However, after the economic recession made its mark, businesses ceased being the only end-users that looked at long-term costs when buying hardware. This phenomenon made a particularly strong impact upon the power-solution market, since energy consumption is the main determining factor in these long-term expenses.
The stronger emphasis on power efficiency led to the appearance of the Energy Star, 80+ and other efficiency certification programs. For power supplies, the 80+ criterion is the one that distinguishes between good PSUs and less impressive ones. Those that don't rank high on the 80+ list are cheaper, but they end up consuming more energy and, thus, increasing power bills. The higher ranking ones are somewhat pricier, but they waste less energy, thus being more convenient in the long run.
Since all PCs nowadays need this efficiency, OCZ and Scythe have recently unveiled their own power supplies, known as the Silencer Mk II and Stronger series. Now, Xilence has decided to bring this efficiency to even small form-factor configurations, such as those known as HTPCs (home theater PCs).
Using the SFX form factor, the two models have a power output of 200W and 250W, respectively, and are 80+ certified (waste less than 20% of all energy). Additionally, they have an active cooling mechanism optimized for silent operation, which is quite mandatory for multimedia-centric configurations, otherwise the experience would be ruined.
Unfortunately, the two SFX PSUs are not yet in stores, with mass availability only set for the middle of next month. When they do start selling, the 200W and 250W Xilence power units will be priced at 44.90 Euro and 49.90 Euro, respectively.