The advantage of a pico psu is that it takes up less space, so you can use it in a tiny case. Since you're getting a big case, that's not a factor. It can also be more efficient at really low power, but you're looking at the larger pico psu so that's not much of a factor. I'd just get something like
SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W ATX12V v2.31 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Active PFC Power Supply-Newegg.com
and probably save some money. (The Seasonic is one that I've used before and been happy with, but the general idea is to just get something that's power efficient, relatively low wattage, and with a variable speed fan; at low utilization it's pretty much silent.)
You know power supplies like that aren't really that efficient unless you get them in their sweet spot on the power curve which his system wouldn't be anywhere close to.
@Geran and others, I hope you don't mind me reopening an old thread, but there is a lot of common interest between a couple of my current projects and the discussion here.
Can you please elaborate on your statement about the efficiency of larger PSUs such as the one
@mstone suggested? Is there a link to some explanation about the efficiency of PSUs and how they work? I'd like to know where I can find information so that future decisions regarding PSUs are well informed.
Also
@Fodmidoid, here is a good build for under $350 and everything is included:
Case/PSU: M350 Enclosure with PicoPSU-80 and 60W adapter KIT
CPU/Motherboard: SuperMicro MBD-X11SBA-LN4F-O
RAM: Kingston Technology Corp. KVR16LS11/4
I'm currently building a couple of small, quiet, mini PCs, to be installed in passively cooled M350 cases.
One of the PCs I'm getting specs for is almost exactly your suggestion here, based on the X11SBA-LN4F. However, I was planning on using the picoPSU-90 with an 80W adapter, and I might install an M2 SSD or 2.5" SSD. This is going to be my firewall/router box for running pfsense.
The other mini PC I'm designing is an i5 system and I'm trying to match the most appropriate PSU to my desired CPU/motherboard combination. I would prefer a low-power, 35W Kaby Lake CPU (i5-7000T series) to the regular 65W CPU (i5-7000 series, etc). This should ease cooling requirements, but I still need to decide on an appropriate CPU cooler and fan so that it will fit in the M350 and stay quiet. The proposed motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-H270N-WIFI. I understand that a picoPSU-120 is more appropriate in this situation. May I ask what you think of this build? It's going to be used as a lightly loaded virtualization host, with one of the VMs runing pfsense.