PSU Guide

[guestxx]

I had Fortron SagaII 500 and it is in no way what fortron used to be, so i don't recommend it

 

[pepsi71ocean]

is there a way we can get this list updated with all of the new mfg's and cover names they have?

 

[Mussels]

is there a way we can get this list updated with all of the new mfg's and cover names they have?

you make a new list and i can edit it in.

 

[pepsi71ocean]

you make a new list and i can edit it in.

I wouldn't even know where to begin

 

[EarthDog]

Look past the fact that its Tom's that put this together...LOL!

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-oem-manufacturer,2913-4.html

The list below is comprised only of approved reviews from the best reviewers around (jonnyguru, [h] for example). These test in hot box, ripple and noise, etc. Better than people saying, this blew up on me or, ones that just make sure the rails are within spec.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=589708

 

[pepsi71ocean]

Look past the fact that its Tom's that put this together...LOL!

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-oem-manufacturer,2913-4.html

The list below is comprised only of approved reviews from the best reviewers around (jonnyguru, [h] for example). These test in hot box, ripple and noise, etc. Better than people saying, this blew up on me or, ones that just make sure the rails are within spec.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=589708

it looks like i am goign to go thread diving then!

Mussles expect a PM someday in the future.

 

[cdawall]

it looks like i am goign to go thread diving then!

Mussles expect a PM someday in the future.

shoot me pm's if you need some help

 

[pepsi71ocean]

shoot me pm's if you need some help

Thanks!

Im bound to run into questions along the way.

 

[Cvrk]

Corsair CX600

I have an Corsair CX600 PSU. I whant to buy a new case for my PC.My guess is that this is a buttom case psu.Not sure cuz now I have a top case, so it is instaled at the top and it sucks air from inside the case and it blows it outside the case. The air that it sucks is mostly the one from my CPU, wich is hot-iar,so this way I don't think the cooling of the psu is done corectly.In spite the fact that I have it for 4 mounths and it never overheated or anything like that. Wich one sould a buy, a "buttom case psu" or a "top/normal case PSU" (like I have now) ?
BTW I will buy a middle tower case .

Bottom line: Is the CX600 a bottom case PSU or not / what kind of case do you recommend for such a psu?

Here is a picture, you can see how I have my psu instaled at the moment

[img=http://s3.postimage.org/9e8j4w90/DSC02287.jpg]

 

[streetfighter 2]

@Cvrk
Every PSU that I've encountered exhausts out the back. If it exhausted out the bottom instead then it would be blowing hot air right onto the CPU in the top mounted configuration!

I wouldn't really worry about it as people, myself included, have been using the inefficient top mounting for years. Just remember to dust in there every few months and it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Mussels]

the PSU is at the top, because once upon a time the PSU was used as a case fan to exhaust hot air out of the case... its only with modern, power hungry components that enough heat was produced to have a detrimental effect on PSU's used in that manner.

 

[billcat479]

Very good, and very good information.

Thank you very much. This IS one subject that everyone should be very well informed about as you are def. right being the most important part of your computer is the power supply.
Being a used to be electronic Tech/engineer the worst hair tearing problems can be related to a poorly made or damaged power supply and buying good right from the start will give you the most enjoyment possible out of any system you have.
I can think back (harder after getting hit by car and my brain got hammered) to the days when it was very common to get power supplies with your case and most let it go at that. Even me... argh, em-barest to say the least because I got a bad one, but was a good learning experience and it was also after doing a lot of research that led me to my first PC Power and Cooling power supply purchase. I've stuck with them and I've only needed to buy 2 of them for my own computers as they have lasted and outlasted them as mods demanded more power.
I've recommended them to users and systems I built for friends and shouted down their bitching at the cost saying your going to thank me in the end by not coming back with intermittent lockups and such and ask me to find the trouble. That is no fun at all. I used to have my own O-scope and could fish out noise related and/or power related problems but it died long ago. but anyway....

Back then they (PC Power) were pretty much in a field of their own as far as reviews and word of mouth goes. Now they are build by others but built to their design specs so you will get a good one no matter who makes it. OCZ ownership still worries me but so far so good.

Anyway, thank you very much for helping everyone learn more about a area that computer builders should know about.
As no one can never know enough and your work here is commendable and just plain nice. Thank you...

 

[entropy13]

OEMs that sometimes produce decent PSu's, but you should stay away from:

Channellwell while they produced the notorious smartpower series, they also produce the very good thermaltake toughpower series, and have recently been making corsair psu's. They're overall a good company with a bad past, good recommend their newer units such as corsair & Thermaltake.

OEMs to stay away from:
Andyson(very notorious due to hiper psu's)
superflower (xion psus are decent..)
youngyear (the apevia psu's they make are crazy good)

This part is direly in need of an update. Superflower, right now, are the only OEM that makes the 80PLUS PLATINUM PSUs readily available to the market (under their own brand or as a Kingwin PSU). Others have announced their PLATNIUM PSUs, but are yet to release them. There are no "bad" PSUs from them since 2009, and their PSUs are actually one of the most efficient PSUs ever. IIRC it's because of how efficient some of their GOLD PSUs are that Ecos Consulting added PLATINUM.

Then there's Leadman...

 

[billcat479]

Just a passing note, with some unrealated info for how weird I am.

While it was a long time ago and adding to my prev. post I just thought I'd throw this one in. The bad power supply I got with a case and have heard from others was Sparkle power supplies. I swore I'd never go near them again but times do change and I saw to my amazement that they even made some PC Power supplies at one time. Boy was that a shock but I do owe them for making one terrible one that got me interested long ago (it was for a Cyrix 686 I think that was it's number as it was long long ago).. lol..
So I put them in my bad list mostly due to habit and because it was a pain finding out it was the source of my erratic acting computer. The 3.3v line was so noisy and dropped a bit when loaded so the computer worked fine under mild use but got unstable under various loads. What a nail biter that was.
But I took it as a good excuse to educate myself about power supplies because of them so I do owe Sparkle for that. Laughs...
I am kind of not impressed by the EarthWatts lineup. They say multi rail as the guy that did this said about false rails and are cheap to buy and doubt the multi rail part but I don't have any actual experience with them other than buying one for a disaster backup computer if my main one fails. I also bucked my standing trend of buying only PC Power by getting my Seasonic 850W Power supply.
I know it was expensive like was posted but they do make fantastic power supplies and are getting great reviews from sites that do take the time to do proper tests and check out many area's of power supplies that a lot of sites don't like noise and voltage stability when loaded. I also don't disagree but I question the remark of testing at room temp. I've seen a lot of product testing over the years and testing power supplies in colder or hotter than normal is very important because it tests all the components quality and some computers do work in high room temp or very cold room temps and it's is important to know they will be able to handle it. With electronic parts each different type of parts react differently to temps and if they are in critical circuit area such as feedback loops where any offset error is compounded it's important to know this. Though most don't need to go as far as millspec. testing it's still very important to know it will work in the worst of conditions and weed out the weak spots of a design. In power supplies where they are boxed in even with good fans they will still have hot spots and can run up temps pretty fast under heavy loads.
I Hope/pray the starter of this topic understands I'm not being critical or nasty. It's the last thing I want to do is even imply a insult which is not where I'm heading with this so please don't get mad at me. The world and the universe wants to kill me with a passion and I sure don't want to add people into the mix as well. Fate has me pegged as a target already it seems..
It's just the way I was trained to look at things when I was in school. And your more intelligent than I am. And I used to be a LOT smarter than I am now but like I said the world hates me and wants me out of the way.
But I got a lot of this working for Intel at their Fab4/production plant and Fab5 R&D plant next door in Beaverton Or. Man was that the worst job I've ever suffered. I leaned a lot of neat things but mainly kept the production equipment on line and felt more like a Maytag repairman that had to wear a bunny-suit. This is what we called the clean room attire we had to wear while in the production area.
When I got out of there and went to work for BTS,
Business Telephone Systems and repaired the phones and KSU that typical office buildings use that handle up to 50 phones off of the one KSU I saw some weird and supprising things. Like phones from Texas filled with dead cockroaches. Man what a stink that was and people would talk on these things.. gross...
But what I really want to get at is when a IC chip got wacked by lightning you would think that any chip with the same part number would work but this was seldom true. Either it's slew rate was a micro second off or it had a slight ring in the square wave front or back but we couldn't put,say a TI (texas inst.) brand chip in, we had to use another brand no matter if it should say it works in the TI parts data manual that gives you all it's tested specs but you read the total specs and you see a slightly different graph over a given temp range or current or fan out specs and all the good timing specs and as far as the repair goes you are working with a chip from Mars as far as it's concerned. In designing every element is usually tested at 10% beyond normal if possible to make sure of reliability in the field.
Here is a weird example of murphy's law in action. We had to use this brand chip for this particular circuit or their chip or another brand but some would work and some wouldn't even though everything said they should work for the most part everything was equal. In other area's of the circuit it would work but in come area's they wouldn't. Because of the circuit design some aspects of a design are more important than others. In feedback circuits it was super critical that everything worked to perfection and this is a good example of why they test to beyond normal conditions. And with parts now coming from China where they are still on a learning curve it makes it even more important to test their stuff harshly.

But anyway, back to power supplies... I do drift don't I..lol..
I sometimes treat power supplies differently for good brand name ones I like to think you get what you pay for a lot of the times and I prefer to buy knowing I'm getting quality components.
Without tearing into them like I used to and seeing caps and resistors with 1% tolerance rated parts instead of the cheaper 5% was the most common used spec tolerance or worse yet they used the 10% parts that goes into cheaper made power supplies.
It can be very important to get parts like these and worth the extra cost.. They have a lot better chance of working right the first time coming off the production line. But they put variable caps or resistors or inductors in to tune out these problems a lot of the time but they can't do it for everything and when you add more variables the problems get worse. At least Power Supplies are simple designs but they still need good quality parts like any other circuit.
At least to me now being stuck on disability and sometimes have to fight it out with my cat on who gets to eat each day it really shows how much importance I put into cost/reliability/length of use ratios. While I'm worried about costs a lot I also look at the long term use that can offset costs down the road. This is important. I will spend a bit more if I buy one that lasts 5 to 8 years instead of having to buy one every 2 to 4 years because it was a bit cheaper and not so well designed or has caps that won't dry out or explode... booom.. lol Does this make logical sense to you?

 

[billcat479]

And good backup data to these power supplies possible?

This part is direly in need of an update. Superflower, right now, are the only OEM that makes the 80PLUS PLATINUM PSUs readily available to the market (under their own brand or as a Kingwin PSU). Others have announced their PLATNIUM PSUs, but are yet to release them. There are no "bad" PSUs from them since 2009, and their PSUs are actually one of the most efficient PSUs ever. IIRC it's because of how efficient some of their GOLD PSUs are that Ecos Consulting added PLATINUM.

Then there's Leadman...

As your defending them and nothing wrong with that as long as you have credible data to confirm that they are making such good power supplies. This is the first I've heard of them so it sounds like they do well oversea's. Please give any good reviews, tests of these power supplies and so forth. It would be good to know.
If you don't then please don't post anything more than I heard that they were good. Information on the internet is already in situation critical overload LOL..... so if you have links please post them for all to read. It would be great to know.

 

[entropy13]

As your defending them and nothing wrong with that as long as you have credible data to confirm that they are making such good power supplies. This is the first I've heard of them so it sounds like they do well oversea's. Please give any good reviews, tests of these power supplies and so forth. It would be good to know.
If you don't then please don't post anything more than I heard that they were good. Information on the internet is already in situation critical overload LOL..... so if you have links please post them for all to read. It would be great to know.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Superflower

There are recent JonnyGuru and TPU (you know, this site itself) reviews in the first 6 results.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Kingwin

There are JonnyGuru, [H]ardocp and TPU reviews in the first 10 results.

 

[billcat479]

Thank you

thank you very much for the links. Have to check them out. Very nice of you to provide them.
Have a good weekend..

 

[mastrdrver]

Is there a reason why you didn't include Enermax under the OEM section?

 

[RoutedScripter]

Is there a reason why you didn't include Enermax under the OEM section?

they don't seem to do OEMs for others ... but i think they did

 

[cdawall]

Is there a reason why you didn't include Enermax under the OEM section?

because the list is like 2 years old?

 

[AsRock]

because the list is like 2 years old?

Shame it's not been updated for so long .

 

[de.das.dude]

someone edit this thread. corsair doesnt have seasonic OEM anymore.

 

[entropy13]

someone edit this thread. corsair doesnt have seasonic OEM anymore.

Uh, they still do?

The only way your statement would be true is if they discontinue the AX series, specifically the 650W, 750W and 850W models.

 

[de.das.dude]

no my gs600 isnt made by seasonic. someone told me.

 

[entropy13]

no my gs600 isnt made by seasonic. someone told me.

So how does that validate your statement that "Corsair doesn't have Seasonic OEM anymore"?

Also, the TXV2 series are by Seasonic.