hot deals on a PSU

[0roo0roo]

cpus like athlon xp and p4 run off 12v now, so thats important. i just got a sl350 antec from a local shop for 51 after tax.

 

[sterling]

HEHE

It never ceases to amaze me how one article can change peoples perceptions. I remember awhile back everyone thought Maxtor was the best hard drive to buy. After Western Digital put out the 8mb cache drives and everyone read the reviews, they can barely give the Maxtors away now.

Toms Hardware came out with an article where he actually put 21 power supplies under a load. Fortron was one of the brands that came out on top. Every place u go now on the web, everyone wants a Fortron, there was a time people wouldnt take this brand if it was for free. Great article!! As a Engineer ive been telling people for quite a long time that most of these brands are just a bunch of crap made overseas. I always hated Enermax. Heres a company that basically speciallizes in brass plating grills. If you want to read the article here it is: http:www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html This article ought to be be posted someplace here permanent!!!

 

[qo23]

I saw a 350Watt Kingwin PSU at Frys the other day for $54. I hear they make good cases, but I never heard anything about them making PSUs. Any thoughts on the PSUs? I haven't been able to find any reviews about it. I did find one review here for the Kingwin 450W.

 

[Johneverd]

I also bought a brand of PSU that I never really see discussed called Turbo-Cool. Here is one for sale at DIRECTRON, and a review at extremeoverclocking.com. Has anyone had any experience using this brand, or heard good or bad about it?

By the way, good post HumblePie.

 

[chizow]

FYI, Tried, Tested, Proven Antec Smart Power 400W PSU is on sale at CompUSSR starting tomorrow for $49.99 ($59.99 and $10 MIR). Cheaper than most places online, and you can walk out the door with it Not as nice as a TruePower 430W, but its an excellent PSU.

Chiz

 

[vexingv]

chiz, i dont see anythig about the antec psu on the compusa site....could you provide a link?

btw how does the Antec SmarBlue350 compare to the 350 Fortron?
here's the specs on SmartBlue

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: vexingv
chiz, i dont see anythig about the antec psu on the compusa site....could you provide a link?

btw how does the Antec SmarBlue350 compare to the 350 Fortron?
here's the specs on SmartBlue

Its in this week's circular.

Chiz

 

[HumblePie]

Johneverd says,

I also bought a brand of PSU that I never really see discussed called Turbo-Cool. Here is one for sale at DIRECTRON, and a review at extremeoverclocking.com. Has anyone had any experience using this brand, or heard good or bad about it?

By the way, good post HumblePie.

I said,

Only fortron and PC power&cooling turbo cool psu's have 1% tolerances. Antec claims to have only a 3% variance but some of their psu's are 3% and some are outa specs at 5% variance. Vantecs are 3-4% and everything else is 5% or more period.

I did mention P&C with their turbo cool psu's. ONLY fortron and P&C make a standard atx PSU that has a 1% or less ripple of noise in the wire signals. Everyone else doesn't. Period. These are the two top of the top in terms of parts and specs. The biggest difference is a 350w fortron will run you less then $50 while a 350w P&C will run you over $100. There in lies the HOT deal. Now, if you for some gawd awful reason NEED more then 250 combined 3.3 and 5v wattage, then I would spend the extra money and pick up a 425 watt P&C for $189 with a combined wattage of 300 watts for those 2 lines.

As for kingwin... well you get what you pay for. Basically here's the true run down of PSU makers from the best at the top to the worst at the bottom.

These make the cream of the crop in decending order:
P&C power and cooling
Fortron/Sparkle
Vantec
Antec
Enlight


here are some "decent" power supplies:
Enermax
Thermaltake
Coolmax
Topower
Raidmax
foxxcon/Allied (these guys only really have so far built 2 good PSU.. their 400 and 450 true powers... everything else from avoid like the plague)

Pretty much everything else I would avoid period. Some people I trust have ran a few tests on the Compusa PSU's and say they are decent but not worth buying if you plan on being an overclocker or doing some heavy modding. If you are then pick from the cream of the crop PSU's, if you aren't then one of the decent PSU's will work. Thing is, if you are in the market for a new PSU you can't go wrong with the fortron/sparkle 350watter for under $50.... cause nothing else is going to give you that type of quality and performance for under 50 bucks. NO ONE. If you decide to go with something not on this list... well it's your parts and they do make good key chains don't they?

 

[sleefer]

Guess I might as well throw all my Delta's away...

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: sleefer
Guess I might as well throw all my Delta's away...

I wonder why Delta never gets mentioned? They ARE the largest PSU manufacturer in the world and dominate the server market. Suppose it's because they manage to sell all their PSU to buyers like Intel, they have no need to sell to end-users.

 

[Slaimus]

The Enhance 300 and 350 watt PS's both are rated at 220 watt combined 5v/3.3v and are very cheap and reliable. Newegg had been bundling them with thier cases beginning of the year.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

are those psus that are linked very quiet?
i need a very quiet good psu?

 

[Pothead]

the quietest and better than Zalmans, quietpc.com

I have 2 of them and worth every penny. And yes they are quieter than the Antec True series.

 

[TheWart]

So the allied PSU's are not bad? I really need a good one. Also, could someone give me a link (or post right here) what the voltages in Motherboard monitor should be for my +/- 3.3, 5, and 12v rails? Thanks!

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

those quietpc.com psus are very expensive....
are these good quiet ones?

 

[Miramonti]

How can you tell what the combined 5v/3.3v wattage for a psu is? In the psu's mentioned in Humblepies (awesome) post, its not mentioned in the newegg links...gotta get it from the manufacturers site?

 

[HumblePie]

Jjsole asks,

How can you tell what the combined 5v/3.3v wattage for a psu is? In the psu's mentioned in Humblepies (awesome) post, its not mentioned in the newegg links...gotta get it from the manufacturers site?

With newegg.com all you have to do is click on the link that says "- See It!" and then click on the side image of the sticker available for that PSU. Other websites don't do that for you. Some, like directron sometimes, will post what that information is under "specs" about the product. Some sites won't post really anything so if you are interested in that product I recommend going to the manufacterers website and looking up the specs there for an unknown PSU.

SpacemanSpiffVT asks,

those quietpc.com psus are very expensive....
are these good quiet ones?

Yep, these are both very quiet. The fortron comes with a noise killer fan that usually only spins when the PSU actually needs cooling. In the fortrons case this is needed only went it gets underload. At idle it most likely won't spin at all. Which mean no noise at all. When it does I think it's under 28 dba at the highest RPM for the fans. If you are really concerned just stick on whatever quiet fan you prefer. See, with a good PSU doing it's job your system won't generate as much heat in the first place that a bad PSU will. This is because when your system is trying to get a certain amount of power and the PSU doesn't provide that power efficiently it then has to try to over compensate by sending more power. This will generate more heat.

 

[hans007]

one of the bettter power supplies out there is the FMI unit in the compusa branded 300 watt power supply.


i use it in my main unit and it is not only whisper quiet. but has 30 A on the 5V and 14 A on the 3.3 volts for 196.2 watts on the 5v & 3.3v lines. it also has 10 A on the 12v so you get which is already over the 300watt rating.


it goes on sale for about $25 every once in a while. i bought mine on ebay personally from this company
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3670&item=2083563473

comes out to about $21 shipped there, and well they take a while to ship but you do get your power supply.

 

[render]

14 A on the 3.3 & 10 A on the 12v : Very low

 

[vexingv]

i've been using the FMI (compusa) brand psu for awhile now and its been fairly good. however, now that i've gotten dsl and my rig's been up practically 24/7 the psu has been acting up...e.g. sometimes when i try to play a game or if there is a lotta stuff running, the system will automatically reboot.

funny thing about the FMI is that i calculated and did a rough estimate of the current on the +12V line and my calculations give me 13-14A....thats over the rated 10A! you can check out whats in the system in my sig.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: vexingv
i've been using the FMI (compusa) brand psu for awhile now and its been fairly good. however, now that i've gotten dsl and my rig's been up practically 24/7 the psu has been acting up...e.g. sometimes when i try to play a game or if there is a lotta stuff running, the system will automatically reboot.

funny thing about the FMI is that i calculated and did a rough estimate of the current on the +12V line and my calculations give me 13-14A....thats over the rated 10A! you can check out whats in the system in my sig.

well i didnt look at the exact specs, i saw a picture on ebay, i was too lazy to check.



it may have more than 10 amps on the 12v. anyways, i actually upgraded to this power supply from my old 250 watt liteon (liteon was fine, just it was noisier).


i am running quite a bit more stuff than you and my computer is on 24/7. i dont know the last time i crashed , its been very long.

i'm running a p4 2.26, gf4 ti4200, 512mb ram, WD 80gb 7200rpm, 40x cdrw liteon, and a 16x dvd rom.

 

[popeye44]

Here's my 2 cents.

AMPS X VOLTS = WATTS

That being said. I ran Raid with a high power video card sound cards 2 cdroms/burner and one more hard drive on a 250 watt PS from Enlight... for 2 years. and that ps is still in use. Sometimes even a pig rootin in mud finds an acorn

I've got an older 400 watt antec now and it's doing fine running far more than the above ever did.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

ok HumblePie, you got me interested in the sparkle psu now
couple of questions:
1) i was readin reviews of those sparkle psus on newegg and people say its loud... and what not... how do these compare to the antec true powers/ smart powers , noise wise? cause thats my main concern.. i have a turbolink 420 psu right now and its crazy loud.. sounds like a vaccum and i want something much quieter

2) also. i dont know how to replace fans on a psu so if i find the sparkle too loud... how do i go about replacin it?

3) from those links in your original post.. i am just wondering if i could get away with a 300 w sparkle or should i just be safe and go with the 350w? .... You can see my system specs in my profile... (for the amd system)


thanks

 

[mindless1]

and now a word about quiet...

I like quiet, quiet is good. However, there are two reasons why a quiet PSU can be a problem:

1) Switching power supplies depend on cooling for higher output. Take ANY switching power supply, reduce the cooling, and it will have a lower stable output. If you reverse the situation, increase the cooling...

2) Cooling has a direct affect on the lifespan of the PSU. If you're buying a cheap PSU, it's not so much of a loss to have it die prematurely, but to spend upwards of $100 or more and have a PSU failure within a year or two instead of 7+ years is harder to accept. Although a PSU has capacitors rated at 85 or 105C, they will not live so long a life at temps even half that high. Suppose your system only draws 200W from that 400W PSU.. at typical 70% efficiency that's 85W of heat produced in the PSU, quite a lot compared to all but the fastest of modern CPUs.

If you want both quiet and long-life, there is only one way to achieve that, IMHO, to reduce the turbulence as much as possible while keeping the airflow as high as tolerable. Choose a PSU with dual fans, having a larger 92mm on the underside. Remove the rearward fan and cut out the stamped grille if one is present. Then add a wire/chrome grill if original grill was stamped-in, else you already had a wire grille. Next remove the 92mm fan, cut out the grill in front of it, and mount that fan at the same spot on the OUTSIDE of the PSU. This will only work if the PSU has enough clearance from the motherboard. You may even need to add a [~47-110 Ohm) resistor to the fan lead to further reduce RPM if the heat/RPM control circuit isn't very well tuned.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

wow thats alotta work dude