Friday, April 21st 2023
TechPowerUp is Hiring a Power Supply (PSU) Reviewer
TechPowerUp is looking for a talented and motivated individual to work for us, as our reviewer of PC power supplies (PSUs). Our outgoing PSU reviewer, Aris Mpitziopoulos (crmaris) is among the world's very best in this trade, and is the brains behind the Cybenetics PSU Certification Program. We have grown together over our decade-long association. Aris has decided to focus on his full-time job with Cybenetics, and we wish him only the best. The PSU is a vital component in a desktop PC, as it provides power and electrical protection for everything else. It's essential to invest in a good PSU that can deliver clean power for years. Thanks to Aris, TechPowerUp established itself as a definitive source of highly technical PSU reviews, and we would like for a new reviewer to take over the reins. The new reviewer will need a solid command on the subject. This includes understanding and identifying the various under-the-hood components, switching topologies, electrical domains, and controllers.
Our testing covers load regulation and ripple measurements for the various rails, measuring switching efficiency for the voltages at variable loads, cross-load tests, advanced transient response and inrush/leakage current testing, protection mechanisms, cooling and fan-noise. You can read up on some of our recent PSU reviews for an idea of our testing format. We completely understand if you don't have all the infrastructure or know-how of our previous reviewer, and we're willing to work with you as we did with Aris in the past, on developing your own unique testing methodology.
The position of a PSU reviewer is a remote one—you work from your own testing environment. Although you may already have working relationships with various PSU manufacturers, we will work with you and the manufacturers to ensure there are review samples to work on at all times. While there are no specific expectations on how many reviews we expect you to publish, depending on your own pace and testing methods, we'd like to see several reviews from you per month. This is a paid, remote, part-time position.
As with every reviewer in this content format, certain essential skills are required, including a solid command over the English language, and creative-writing skills to make your reviews interesting to read besides the volume of testing data; and more importantly, we'll need you to possess technical photography and basic image processing skills, so your reviews have clear and detailed images of the various specific components that make up a PSU.
TechPowerUp is a diverse, multinational organization, with committed tech content professionals spread across six time-zones. Despite our geographic separation, we have built a closely-knit family that collaborates and contributes across departments. We are geeks above all else, and physically meet-up regularly in media-events and prominent trade-shows covering the PC hardware industry. We are always looking for committed and motivated individuals who share our love and passion for PC hardware and gaming.
Interested? Please e-mail your resume to w1zzard@techpowerup.com along with a brief cover letter on why you think you're the ideal candidate for this position, please include some basic details about yourself and where you're from. Optionally, you may provide examples of your work in any content medium. It's okay if you're not a PSU reviewer per-se, and think you have what it takes to become one. All the best!
The position of a PSU reviewer is a remote one—you work from your own testing environment. Although you may already have working relationships with various PSU manufacturers, we will work with you and the manufacturers to ensure there are review samples to work on at all times. While there are no specific expectations on how many reviews we expect you to publish, depending on your own pace and testing methods, we'd like to see several reviews from you per month. This is a paid, remote, part-time position.
As with every reviewer in this content format, certain essential skills are required, including a solid command over the English language, and creative-writing skills to make your reviews interesting to read besides the volume of testing data; and more importantly, we'll need you to possess technical photography and basic image processing skills, so your reviews have clear and detailed images of the various specific components that make up a PSU.
TechPowerUp is a diverse, multinational organization, with committed tech content professionals spread across six time-zones. Despite our geographic separation, we have built a closely-knit family that collaborates and contributes across departments. We are geeks above all else, and physically meet-up regularly in media-events and prominent trade-shows covering the PC hardware industry. We are always looking for committed and motivated individuals who share our love and passion for PC hardware and gaming.
Interested? Please e-mail your resume to w1zzard@techpowerup.com along with a brief cover letter on why you think you're the ideal candidate for this position, please include some basic details about yourself and where you're from. Optionally, you may provide examples of your work in any content medium. It's okay if you're not a PSU reviewer per-se, and think you have what it takes to become one. All the best!
65 Comments on TechPowerUp is Hiring a Power Supply (PSU) Reviewer
The electronics knowledge to identify parts, known crap parts and so on is a rare skillset to haveThis
The best approach is to give you the summary first, then the why after
2.1 Jiggawatt capacitor: B grade at best
[Technical boring reasons why, because it requires you to feed it a rare dying breed of bananas every 2.61 days or it strands you in the 1880's with a broken delorean]
An editor can help a technical person make it easier to consume, but no one can add-in that level of hardware knowledge except the person testing it
I've seen some amazing reviews with all the raw data, but comparing it to the other provided examples i just cant understand *why* the author has the views they do - sometimes it feels like you read "wobbly line has more wobble than the other which is bad, 9.5/10 highly recommend"
Those of us after different facts (maximum peak wattage, maximum sustained wattage, consistent noise levels with varying loads) want to know how each part performs seperately, then have the conclusion slap em all together
I've read reviews on really cheap PSU's that performed amazing but had noisy fans - and it's quite simple for a user to replace that fan safely, if they're willing to void the warranty on that unit
Same thing for if a PSU has short cables or long cables - dont just give a measurement, tell us if its above or below average. Tell us if the SATA connectors are spaced closer than normal for smaller cases, or at the far ends of extra long cables making it a nightmare for mATX users - we can't tell just by numbers alone and need someone experienced to tell us how these values differ, and why they matter
Only e-thot outlets like LTT can turn this into real money.
TPU was basicly the one point to go for me to get some real data on PSUs to compare to my own results.
But i can definitily understand this, if his other projects take a lot of time, you have to set priorities. PSU testing ist the most challenging thing to do in PC Hardware reviews. And let's be honest, the payment in media is bad.
To replace Aris ist a Task for years. Fist you need all the equipment that is worth up to 100.000 Euros. a decent AC Source is allready around 25K. On top you constantly need lots of money for replacement parts, calibration etc.
Then you need someone who knows how to use the equipment. Because there are tons of pitfalls with testing PSUs. I know first hand that even most of the manufacturers have lots of errors in their testing. Just take a look at LTT, they dumped 100k into the chroma auto tester that isnt really very usefull for the task, because it's an autotester for mass testing, and not for in depth analytical testing. They think they can just plug in the PSU and get the results, but it doesnt work this way. If you have ever seen an output report from the chroma ATU, then you know what i mean. You get a bunch of numbers and PASS/Fails. Good for RMA, not really usefull for reviews.
Testing serveral PSUs a month for someone who is not an expert in this and hasn't done this for years, that is not a part time Job, that is a well payed full time job!
The internet is severely lacking in PSU reviews. I don't really care for having to look up the Clutists tier list which doesn't always cite sources for their findings. Honestly I'd like to see PSU's put into a database the same way a GPU is.
12 years ago I bought a Thermalfake 850w TR RX PSU that ended up damaging a motherboard and taking out two graphics cards. I wouldn't have bought it if I knew how much of a pile it was. I had no problems once I replaced this PSU with a Seasonic X-1250 that I had just got back from an RMA. I've also had good luck with EVGA's Super Flower made units along with the Corsair AX and HX series.
My self criticism level is so high, that I don't feel comfortable if I'm not in total control or know everything of things need to be known. That is professionally, irl I'm quite easy person.
And then it affects my motivation.
I'm still interested in this position, but I'm afraid I don't have it. I'm quite sure I don't.
The easier stuff to review has all been taken already, like that W1zzard guy stealing all the GPUs
Also being a 4 prong 60Hz socket, it's not comparable to the rest of the world and how their sockets work (2 + prong + ground, 50Hz, here)
I get the feeling they want the PSU's alive after the review, as well as the reviewer