Neat power supply

October 9, 2007 by Omega.

As I was researching the possibility of replacing my Antec NSK1300’s power supply I came across one of the most interesting power supplies I have seen yet.

Pico Power Supply

It’s an itty-bitty power supply that is built directly onto the motherboard connector. It’s fanless and 96% efficient, but it does have a couple of downsides. One issue is that it runs on 12v, which is fine for car operation but it means that in the house you’ll need to use a little adapter outside of the computer. The larger downside, though, is that it is only 120 watts, which is insufficient for anything but very small, low power machines. The same website sells small 200 watt power supplies which would probably be able to support a microATX computer assuming the builder pays plenty of attention to using low power parts.

So, unfortunately, I don’t think any of those tiny power supplies would be a good replacement for my 300 watt Antec supply right now, but hopefully in the future they will offer a higher power version. Even a PSU that is 1/3 to 1/2 the size of a normal uATX would be a great savings in space. In the meantime if you’re looking to build a mini-ITX or other very small PC I’m sure it would be a very good supply to look into. If you do build such a machine let us know how it goes, or write a review on the wiki!

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