hot deals on a PSU

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: SpacemanSpiffVT
wow thats alotta work dude

If the PSU isn't in the system yet, it's not that bad... Besides, a good high-powered PSU can last a decade, it's not like you need do this to EVERY PSU you get your hands on either, just the one you personally use/reuse. Then again, i have a different perspective, if one of my PSU failed I'd just repair it, while someone who doesn't want to repair (or can't) might not want to invalidate their warranty.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

bump

 

[doug]

Okay so I'm looking at the Tom's hardware article http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html which in the summary says "Fortron FSP, Verax and Herolchi" are recommended BUT in the summary chart giving scores I don't even see a Fortron, and the ones that scored best are Verax (okay that makes sense), Conrad and Antec.

Whats the deal with that?

Why are only 2 of the recommended ones even in the charts and why are they not the top rated ones?

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

i was wonderin the same thing

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: doug
Okay so I'm looking at the Tom's hardware article http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html which in the summary says "Fortron FSP, Verax and Herolchi" are recommended BUT in the summary chart giving scores I don't even see a Fortron, and the ones that scored best are Verax (okay that makes sense), Conrad and Antec.

Whats the deal with that?

Why are only 2 of the recommended ones even in the charts and why are they not the top rated ones?

Look at the model numbers for those PSU... "FSP" is a Fortron/Sparkle. They're essentially all the same PSU, with a few minor changes like the fan.

When referencing the Tom's Hardware Article, remember that it is a VERY crude way to test a PSU, is hardly a good assessment except to demonstrate which PSU would be best if you were to buy based on it's stated/labeled rating then proceed to overload the PSU till it stops working (by failure or automatic cutoff). The maximum output a PSU can deliver says little about how stable the output is near the upper limit, nothing about recovery time, fluctuations, etc, or what the MTBF might be nearer the upper limit. For example, some PSU are rated at 100% capacity for a MTBF of 100K + hours, while others (like Enermax) are rated at only 70% ouput capacity for the same MTBF... 70% capacity on a 350W PSU doesn't seem too good @ 245W.

 

[Softballslug]

Originally posted by: Maelsturm
are you a PSU salesman or something?

I peed my pants on that response!

 

[LiQiCE]

Originally posted by: doug
Okay so I'm looking at the Tom's hardware article http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html which in the summary says "Fortron FSP, Verax and Herolchi" are recommended BUT in the summary chart giving scores I don't even see a Fortron, and the ones that scored best are Verax (okay that makes sense), Conrad and Antec.

Whats the deal with that?

Why are only 2 of the recommended ones even in the charts and why are they not the top rated ones?

If you read through the entire review, the Verax PSU (model is FSP300-60ATV) is a relabled and modified Forton 300w PSU (I believe the fan is the only difference). The Conrad is a relabeled 350w Fortron PSU (model is FSP350-60BTP) ... No modifications were made to it as far as I know.

The Herolchi is a recommended PSU because it scores fairly well and is a good bang for the buck according to Tom.

Many Fortron PSUs are rebadged, similar to the Newegg one that is labeled a Sparkle PSU but is actually made by Fortron. The link above to Directron states that the PSUs are Fortron PSUs but if you look closely at the labels, they don't appear to say Fortron on them (Specifically the 350w one appears to say something Group Inc, but that may just be another name for Fortron).

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: LiQiCE
... link above to Directron states that the PSUs are Fortron PSUs but if you look closely at the labels, they don't appear to say Fortron on them (Specifically the 350w one appears to say something Group Inc, but that may just be another name for Fortron).

They are labeled "FSP Group, Inc.".

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

so is that fortron/sparkle one quiet?
lol i cant seem to get someone to answer this...
and how quiet

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

ok so ive narrowed down my choices to:
the compusa deal for a antec sl400 , smartpower 400 w psu for about 45 (w/rebate)
or
the sparkle/fortorn 350 w psu for 48 shipped
all i want to know is... which is quieter?!!!?!?

 

[sleefer]

The Fortron/Sparkle would be quieter simply because it only has one fan. The Antec has two, so it would have to be louder. It would provide more cooling, if you need it.

 

[Cybordolphin]

Not neccessarily true. Just because the Antec has (2) fans does not mean it will be louder. It has to do with the fans used and the rpm's they are running at.

I have ANTEC ps that are WAY quieter with (2) fans... than some of my PS's with only one fan running.

 

[sleefer]

My SL400 isn't that quiet at full load. That's what I base my opinion on, the actual unit. I don't have this particular Sparkle unit, but going by Tom's article it's (FSP350) about the same at full load as the 380 TruePower's (44db, 45.3db) which has Antec's new low-noise technology that's not used with the Solution series. I also have a PP-412X Antec and It's not that louder yet, but they both do run cool. I'm not saying they are too loud, but I an hear them both running over my Panaflo case fans.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

guess im gonna go w/ the sparkle then

 

[Bonesdad]

The reason this is important is because the motherboard, cpu, agp/pci, and usb devices all run off this part of the power supply (3.3V & 5V)

Doesn't the power to almost all of the newer CPU's run off the 12V line? States this in Tom's Hardware take on PSU. If this is the case, your post is misleading...

Components in my system total as follows:

3.3V = 23.1 W
5V = 61 W
12V = 180W (this includes the CPU an Athlon XP2000+)

Every reference I've read states that newer CPU's run off the 12V rail. If you corrected later in the post, and I didnt see...ignore the above.


EDIT: I am considering the Antec TruePower 330. Spec sheet sez 310 W for all 3 rails. By adding 3.3 and 5 V rails, I get 240W, PLUS the 12V line runs @17A (204W). Sound like enuf???

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: Bonesdad
The reason this is important is because the motherboard, cpu, agp/pci, and usb devices all run off this part of the power supply (3.3V & 5V)

Doesn't the power to almost all of the newer CPU's run off the 12V line? States this in Tom's Hardware take on PSU. If this is the case, your post is misleading...

Components in my system total as follows:

3.3V = 23.1 W
5V = 61 W
12V = 180W (this includes the CPU an Athlon XP2000+)

Every reference I've read states that newer CPU's run off the 12V rail. If you corrected later in the post, and I didnt see...ignore the above.


EDIT: I am considering the Antec TruePower 330. Spec sheet sez 310 W for all 3 rails. By adding 3.3 and 5 V rails, I get 240W, PLUS the 12V line runs @17A (204W). Sound like enuf???

Nope, on the P4-spec compliant motherboards the CPU uses 12V, but AGP, memory, etc, use predominatly 5V, some 3V.

On the majority of Athlon systems the 5V line is used for processor, the 12V hardly powers anything EXCEPT HDD, Optical Drives, fans. It's quite easy to tell looking at the motherboards, if it uses the 12V line, it always uses the ATX12V connector AFAIK, even on an Athlon motherboard.

I dont' know where you get the 180W figure for the CPU, but there are currently NO CPUs that can draw much more than 120W, most are still well under 100W (including the inefficiency of the motherboard's switching regulators).

 

[Devistater]

Dang, tons of good info here. Also thanks to the one guy for that one link at tomshardware. I'm going to check it out.

Also, thanks for mentioning that they are quiet PSU's. That's a big factor for me.

 

[dethman]

nice post. but i'm still running a axp2000+ w/ 1agp 4 pci, 3 hard drives (2x7200), 5cdroms, 5 fans, and a ton of usb crap on a super generico 300 watter so until something blows up i'll stick to my belief that all power supply propaganda is hooey.

 

[vinnyracer]

How do you test your PS to see if you have enough power for system or not?

I have Asus PC Probe, if that help.

 

[Bonesdad]

I really hate to argue this, cuz I am a n00b....but the article in Tom's Hardware Guide and this article from firingsquad clearly state that all modern CPUs run on the 12V rail. Tom's article shows a table that puts the Athlon 2100+ CPU on the 12V rail (as does the firingsquad article) in addition, this text from Firingsquad flatly states it:


"The problem is that because the power supply is not a unified source of energy, the 87.5W from the Athlon XP is meaningless unless you know how those 87.5 watts are distributed; are they on the +5V rail or +12V rail?

And therein lies the problem. You see, the Pentium III and all CPUs before it ran on the +5V rail. Since the CPU remains the largest consumer of electricity in an x86 machine, power supplies were engineered to provide significant amounts of current on the +5V rail. Modern CPUs such as the Athlon and Pentium 4 run on the +12V rail. The problem is that many power supplies are still based on older Pentium III-era designs and so even for many mid-range gaming systems, chances are that the +12V component of the power supply is not going to be adequate."

If true, this completely shifts the emphasis of this thread AWAY from the 3.3 and 5V rails to the 12V rail. This would seem to me to be incredibly crucial to the direction of this argument. I want to go with something that can support about 200+ watts on the 12V rail. As I stated above, using AMD's table (or the one from Firingsquad.com) my system lays out like this:

3.3V = 23.1W
5V = 61 W
12V = 180W (this includes the CPU...an Athlon 2000+, 2 7200 rpm hard drives, system fans, a little from the mobo, a CDRW and a CDROM - again, reference the power use tables)

Perhaps I'm reading this all wrong, but I don't think so. I just want to make sure everyone is getting the right info, and that I'm getting the right PSU

Please continue this thread...

 

[mindless1]

To put it as simply as possible, if the articles do in fact mean to claim that Athlons now use the 12V rail for power, they are largely looking at atypical examples and towards the future, speculating this will happen. Of course some Athlon motherboard(s) DO use 12V, but they are still a minority. Only time will tell, there is currently no technical need to move to 12V, the greater problem is heat radiation, to use more current than contemporary 5V designs can provide, they need better cooling than air can provide.

Some nForce2 boards do, like the nVidia reference design and MSI nForce2, but then some Asus don't.
nForce1, most KT400, KT333, KT266, etc, boards usually do not use 12V for the CPU (seems Abit does more often use 12V, MSI does on occasion but not most of the time, same with Gigabyte's newer boards).

Certainly it's true that for a power supply to be viable in the future, it needs a large 12V capacity for use with P4, lots of HDD, or those certain boards that do use 12V for the CPU.

On the other hand, I have a motherboard that used 12V for an o'c Athlon XP, with 3 HDD and typical fan setup, all on a non-ATX12V PSU (a ATX12V plug adapter was used) rated at 13.5A on the 12V rail IIRC (the Delta 300W PSU deal from Directron a few months back).

 

[Bonesdad]

So your saying you really need to know which mobo you have and which rail it uses before you decide to upgrade the PSU. Seems there are way too many simple answers flying around...

 

[ralphhorn]

The Verax FSP300-60ATV mentioned in the Tom's Hardware article is available at Directron for $27.

Directron lists it as "Fortron 300W FSP300-60ATV ATX P4 Quiet Computer Power Supply w/ Noise Killer, OEM".

I believe this is the same as the "Sparkle Power FSP300-60ATVS OEM" at Newegg which has very good reviews and an identical description.

You can get more info at the Fortron web sites Fortron-Source Technology and Fortron/Source.

There is a nice PDF file showing the PS models at PDF file.

I ordered this PS on 12/26. It is scheduled to be delivered 1/7.

I'll report back here regarding how quiet it is and how well its working.

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

ralphhorn: plz post your results... i am def interested in the quietness especially.. did you order from newegg or directron? cause it says its similar to the verax one... but apparently verax uses modified fortron psus with quieter fans correct?

i am now leaning towards buyin the allied psu over the sparkle one... alot more of the allied reviews on newegg say its quiet... anyone know which is def quieter? im 50-50 basically

 

[mindless1]

Allied is junk, IMHO. I have thrown away Allied & Deer PSU because they weren't worth the time to repair. When you see Newegg's listings mention a MTBF of 50K hours, believe it... most name-brand PSU are rated closer to (or in excess of) 100K hr.

'Tis Better to have a 300W Sparkle than a 350W Allied.