YeeHaaaa! What fun. At least they are not claiming that it is quiet, right? If for no other reason, this review will (hopefully) open some eyes to the fact that just because something is (very) expensive, and looks great, and has sexy features -- it can still suck!

Gimme a Fortron "Green" with it's plain-jane looks, unwrapped wires, tiny heat sinks -- the antithesis of this unit, and the low cost is just the icing on the cake. Since it is so "cheap", it cannot be very good, right?

Mushkin does make very good RAM, and they should stick to it! Either that, or consult with SPCR before they sell a power supply!

This is the PS they should have sold:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/PSU/HX620W/

...but wait, that's the Corsair PS... Corsair makes very good RAM, as well!

Was the PSU submitted for review by Mushkin? It's hard to imagine the company not realising that it would not meet the standards of SPCR.

Is that a rebadged modular Seasonic?

**EDIT** Never mind, just found the other thread about this PSU... must remember to read all new posts before opening my mouth!

im suprised muskin gave you somthing like this knowing who SPCR is and how you test products. They must have known it would turn out poorly for them.

my comment is not intended to deride the review. it was indeed throrough and well done. but i always thought SPCR has a policy against posting reviews of products that fail miserably in the lab... yet the last 2 reviews (zalman CNPS8000, mushkin PSU) have been just that.

what's the deal?

As a general rule, companies very rarely know who we are and what matters to us. What they see is an avenue to gain exposure for their product, and they are often focussed more on the quantity on reviews they can get than their quality. It's true that some companies seek us out with quiet products, but when they do, usually their products are reasonably quiet. This was not the case with Mushkin.

Thanks for the review. What a dog!

I don't see why reviews for sub-par products should be withheld. They should be published so people won't be tempted to take chances.

I would probably agree with you on that, but up til now it has been official editorial policy to discard reviews of products which have no place in an even moderately quiet PC; if this policy has changed, it would be nice to be informed about it.

We discussed this, but by the time it was really clear that we could not recommend it, we'd already spent a fair amount of our limited resources (time & effort) on it, and rather than waste all that effort, we went ahead with the review. As for the Zalman, given its long history with quiet coolers, I didn't see NOT reviewing it as an option.

I'd be in there with my flat-blade screwdriver, prying off those goofy "<m" logos from the fan grilles.

I think it made sense to go through with this review, since Mushkin is a newcomer to the field of power supplies. The Vantec Stealth triple-fan power supplies weren't quiet, either, but they got a review because it was important for the customer to be informed. The seven-o'-clock news doesn't report on the fact that many people are in jail because they have committed crimes, but it does report on recent crimes committed by formerly law-abiding members of society.

Perhaps some mods on this power supply should be explored. If the fan controller receives its signal from an NTC thermistor, then it should be possible to dial in a lower speed with a properly-placed potentiometer. Instead of those howlers (which are both Globe fans BTW, sharing the same model number convention), the SPCR Semi-Official Quiet 80mm Fan of the Month could be substituted. I remember modding my Enermax 350W dual-fan with Panaflo L1As, and putting a small non-polar electroytic cap in parallel with the thermistor for a crude fan-start circuit. It works flawlessly now, though it has spent the last year or so in my bin of parts, displaced by the original 120MM-fanned Fortron 300W power supply. Those were the days. Here's to voiding your warranty.

Did we read the same review?!

When you say voltages stay within 1%... I guess that means +/- 2%? Because 11.83 is definitely more than 1% less than 12.

No point in doing so. There are way better candidates. Just look at efficiency, power factor etc. There is simply nothing worth it.

Yay, another ToPower PSU. This one is obviously not based on their newest PCB design... I would still like to see a review of Be-Quiet PSUs wich are based on the most recent topower designs, but as they are not sold outside europe i don't see that happening anytime soon.

We have a couple of bequiet PSU samples, too. We're preparing our 240VA power source for this review.

Could we have more but shorter negative reviews please? The important points of this review can be covered in half a page: modular cables, good presentation, no active PFC, lousy efficiency, noisy. Rather than one big negative review like this, I'd like to see a collection of (say) five short negative reviews. This coveres more products with (hopefully) the same amount of effort. E.g. for a PSU, test it first at (say) 200W. If it is clearly inadequate, do no more testing, and write up a negative mini-review.

I agree the Zalman needed a full review, despite being negative. For the SPCR audience, a new Zalman heatsink is too significant an event to take shortcuts on.

Nice Im not actually in need of a PSU, im happy with my current ones, but would like to see the be quiet reviews just out of interest I have a few previous very positive experiences with them.


I don't think lot's of negative mini-reviews would be a good idea, adding lot's of mini-reviews would clutter up the site imo, and not be good for SPCRs reputation of thorough reviews.

I also think anything that is being published should get a proper review, if only because there's people that aren't silence nutters reading the reviews also.

It would be a better idea to have a forum sticky with a list of components wich SPCR has received for review but that are simply too noisy with no potential of silencing. For some reason im not sure i like this idea either.