Power supply specialist Seasonic and air cooling expert Noctua exhibited the latest product of their collaborative efforts at Computex 2024. The Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition is an enhanced version of the vanilla Prime TX-1600 with Noctua's cooling optimization.
The Prime TX-1600 belongs to Seasonic's flagship Prime series that flaunts exceptional performance and quality. The 1,600W power supply has obtained certifications, including 80 Plus Titanium, Cybenetics Titanium in the efficiency area, and Cybenetics Lambda A in terms of noise level. The Noctua Edition should retain the same certifications since Noctua only provided its expertise in cooling, and it's unlikely that Seasonic has messed with anything else inside the unit. Assuming that's true, the power supply should have the exact dimensions as the original, 8.3 x 5.9 x 3.4 inches (210 x 150 x 86 mm).
Noctua has tailored an optimized fan grill for the Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition, proudly sporting the brand's characteristic brown color. There are divided opinions on Noctua's color themes. But given the power supply's normal orientation, it's unlikely to be visible in your case. The plus is that the redesign will help with airflow, which is more important than the visual makeover.
The Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition has a capacity of 1,600W. That equals 133.3A on the +12V rail, enough to power a multi-GPU setup. Although Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire are pointless nowadays, the power supply will be helpful to professionals or users who want to assemble several graphics cards for AI workloads.
The regular Prime TX-1600 employs a 135mm HA13525H12SF-Z fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) cooling fan from Hong Hua. The fan, which features a seven-blade design, has a rotational speed of 2,300 RPM. In contrast, the Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition leverages Noctua's NF-A12x25, a more petite 120m fan than the Hong Hua. It also spins a tad slower, achieving a maximum speed of 2,000 RPM. Noctua claims that the NF-A12x25 lowers the power supply's noise level by up to 10 dB(A). Depending on how fast the fan is spinning, the fan contributes six to eight decibels, and the fan grills around two decibels towards improvement. The Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition retains the semi-passive fan control system where the NF-A12x25 will stay off until 50% load at up to an ambient temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.
The Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition complies with the ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 standards and provides users with the new 12V-2x6 connectors so they don't have to worry about 16-pin meltdowns on Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards, such as the flagship GeForce RTX 4090. The power supply is fully modular, meaning you only connect the cables you need to reduce cable clutter. Being a Noctua Edition product, the braided cables carry the Noctua theme (black and brown), which may be a letdown for non-hardcore Noctua fans.
Seasonic will launch the Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition in the fourth quarter of this year. Pricing-wise, the new model likely carries a $30 premium. The regular Primx TX-1600 retails for $599.99; therefore, the Noctua Edition should cost around $629.99. Since it's just an offshoot of the Prime TX-1600, we expect the Noctua Edition to have the same limited 12-year warranty.
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Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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9 CommentsComment from the forums
CmdrShepard That's not an upgrade, that's a downgrade.
Seriously, as much as I like Noctua brand (I have a CPU HSF), they produce some of the fans with the worst sound profile out there -- the buzz / clicking they have even on low RPM is annoying the crap out of me and before someone says no it's not my fan. I had a lot of different Noctua fans (CPU, case, radiator types) over several years and all of them exhibit this because their bearings suck. On the other hand Corsair 14cm fans that I got with Obsidian 800D are some of the quietest fans I ever owned even after 10 years of 14+ hours a day.
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Furbo Finally someone did it, Noctua fans are great, I always replace every other fan with them.
I don't know why some companies use sh*tty fans when they could lower the noise and make users a lot happier.Reply
umeng2002_2 I do t get the obsession with silent PSU fans. That's something you never hear over all the other fans and choke noise.
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CmdrShepard Furbo said:
Finally someone did it, Noctua fans are great, I always replace every other fan with them.
I don't know why some companies use sh*tty fans when they could lower the noise and make users a lot happier.You sir are deaf if Noctua fans are great for you.
umeng2002_2 said:
I do t get the obsession with silent PSU fans. That's something you never hear over all the other fans and choke noise.My PSU fan doesn't even spin up until it reaches more than 350W load so most of the time there's literally nothing to hear. And once you fire up Cyberpunk 2077 and it starts drawing 750 W from the wall outlet the video card fans are the noisiest thing in the PC anyway.
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jlake3 Furbo said:
Finally someone did it, Noctua fans are great, I always replace every other fan with them.
I don't know why some companies use sh*tty fans when they could lower the noise and make users a lot happier.Higher cost and benefits that don't show up clearly on a box. My Noctuas are definitely the most expensive out of all the fans in my collection, and while the ones set up as intakes are quieter than my case's stock fans and my CPU cooler has lasted forever (it started life on a Core 2 Quad and is still going strong!), I didn't have a clear mental image of the sound difference just from the specs on the packaging.
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HWOC It's great to see that finally they've put in a Noctua in an official capacity into a power supply. The only non-Noctua fan in my current PC is the one in the Seasonic PSU, I wish they sold lower end Seasonic models with Noctuas. I've gone all Noctua over the years, having used dozens of fans of numerous brands over several decades. I've never experienced buzzing or clicking or any kind of annoying sound out of them. I guess different people find different sounds annoying.
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Notton It doesn't have to be Noctua.
I could live with NMB fans in a PSU. Do they still make fans under that brand name, or has it changed?Noctua's advantage is definitely in the smooth bearings and high static pressure fans.
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35below0 umeng2002_2 said:
I do t get the obsession with silent PSU fans. That's something you never hear over all the other fans and choke noise.If the case fans are quiet, and the CPU fan(s) are quiet, and the PSU is making noise...
No offense, but your fans are loud. Or maybe it doesn't matter to you. To me it matters a lot. I don't want to hear anything if that's possible.
...of course once the GPU fans spin up, all bets are off but at that point there's lots of noise coming out of the speakers so it's ok.
HWOC said:
It's great to see that finally they've put in a Noctua in an official capacity into a power supply. The only non-Noctua fan in my current PC is the one in the Seasonic PSU, I wish they sold lower end Seasonic models with Noctuas. I've gone all Noctua over the years, having used dozens of fans of numerous brands over several decades. I've never experienced buzzing or clicking or any kind of annoying sound out of them. I guess different people find different sounds annoying.Well, i have. Kinda. I think i screwed up my 140mm fan somehow. I don't know what i did but the Low Noise adapters were involved, and i know the CPU fans actually stopped working on at least two occasions.
Now i got the fan working properly, but it makes a LOT of noise above 1200rpm.
So, either there are DUD Noctuas out there, or people manage to screw something up, or they can wear out very quickly. This noise is approaching Intel stock cooler levels.
The fan was quiet before, even at 100% duty, so something must have gone wrong.Reply
umeng2002_2 Even when I turn all my fans down, I still never hear the PSU fan. It should only ramp up under high power draw. And if have high power draw, odds are your other fans are already spinning faster.
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