I am a newbie and want to build a 2.8 Ghz, 512 mb RAM P4 based system. Stability is my number 1 priority and I have no interest for overclocking. I will keep my old GeForce3 Ti200 video card as well as my WD 120 GB 7200 rpm 8 MB cache HD. I might be interested in a 10,000 rpm SATA drive in the near future.
In the past I have always used no name "el cheapo" power supplies that tipycally cost aroung $30. A local store I visited strongly suggest I get a high quality power supply like ANTEC or ENERMAX. These cost $60-$100. However, the salesman could not clearly explain the advantages the better units.
I would appreciate if someone could educate me as to why it would be advantageous to get one of the more expensive units.
Quality vs "el cheapo" power supply
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee, Devonavar
What's generally better in quality PSU's is the voltage regulation. The more stable and accurate the voltages supplied, the more stable the computer will be. This often has little to do with noise, though; if you're concerned about voltage accuracy AND noise, check out the Recommended power supplies on this site -- their noise levels are tested, as well as the voltage regulation.
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dukla2000
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Re: Quality vs "el cheapo" power supply
The link Pjotor aimed you at is some good solid advice.
There is a school that says PC Power & Cooling are the highest quality. Thereafter there are some folks (e.g. Fortron, SeaSonic) who deserve some level of quality accolade, but are closer to $60 than $100. And then there are Fortron based psus at price points in between (Nexus, Verax, Silenx & Zalman), and then (IMHO) there are the rest.
The risk with "el cheapo" is you don't know how much of a risk you are taking. The potential problems are poor capacity (or even complete inability) to cope with rated loads, poor regulation, noisy DC output signals or some other non-compliance with the ATX spec(s). The effects of 1 or more of these is not necessarily tangible: it may manifest from day 1 as instability, it may manifest as degradation over a year and then show instability, it may never manifest or it may explode and take your house with it. However despite the advice to buy quality (nobody ever got fired for advising to buy the best!), there are certainly far more cheapos out there (in homes/offices) than quality, and equally far more PCs presenting with psu related problems have cheapo psus! And looking at some cheapo psus, it is also easy to accept that proportionately cheapo psus cause more psu related problems than quality!
Nevertheless as you can my signature system contains an "el cheapo", to some extent as a protest vote against paying 4* as much for 'quality'. Now I certainly would not put this psu in a system that comes close to it's max specs (350W headline), but in fact in my system the highest loaded rail is <50% spec. I monitor the voltage and temps closely: I dont have any way to monitor the DC noise/ripple. So far I am very happy with it and my house has not burned down. Then again I enjoy hacking around my PCs and have a spare 'quality' psu I can use to debug should the need arise. For 'the man in the street' this is most likely too high risk.
In which case sure go for quality: just my 6p says Fortron or SeaSonic (rather than Antec or Enermax).
There are several ways I would criticise this phrase (not aiming at you or the salesman even if those were his words!) First, while Antec and Enermax are not cheapo, I worry about the 'high' in front of the 'quality'. Nevertheless I agree 'high quality' costs $60-$100, however that is not the same as all $60-$100 psus being 'high quality'.Denis54 wrote:... a high quality power supply like ANTEC or ENERMAX. These cost $60-$100. ...
There is a school that says PC Power & Cooling are the highest quality. Thereafter there are some folks (e.g. Fortron, SeaSonic) who deserve some level of quality accolade, but are closer to $60 than $100. And then there are Fortron based psus at price points in between (Nexus, Verax, Silenx & Zalman), and then (IMHO) there are the rest.
The risk with "el cheapo" is you don't know how much of a risk you are taking. The potential problems are poor capacity (or even complete inability) to cope with rated loads, poor regulation, noisy DC output signals or some other non-compliance with the ATX spec(s). The effects of 1 or more of these is not necessarily tangible: it may manifest from day 1 as instability, it may manifest as degradation over a year and then show instability, it may never manifest or it may explode and take your house with it. However despite the advice to buy quality (nobody ever got fired for advising to buy the best!), there are certainly far more cheapos out there (in homes/offices) than quality, and equally far more PCs presenting with psu related problems have cheapo psus! And looking at some cheapo psus, it is also easy to accept that proportionately cheapo psus cause more psu related problems than quality!
Nevertheless as you can my signature system contains an "el cheapo", to some extent as a protest vote against paying 4* as much for 'quality'. Now I certainly would not put this psu in a system that comes close to it's max specs (350W headline), but in fact in my system the highest loaded rail is <50% spec. I monitor the voltage and temps closely: I dont have any way to monitor the DC noise/ripple. So far I am very happy with it and my house has not burned down. Then again I enjoy hacking around my PCs and have a spare 'quality' psu I can use to debug should the need arise. For 'the man in the street' this is most likely too high risk.
In which case sure go for quality: just my 6p says Fortron or SeaSonic (rather than Antec or Enermax).
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larrymoencurly
- Posts: 170
- Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2002 11:29 pm
It should be easy to get a high quality 300-350W Fortron/Sparkle PSU from www.directron.com or www.newegg.com for about $27-36, and they have some of them for as little as $20-25 under the Hi-Q brand (sleeve bearing fan).
PC Power & Cooling has two visual comparisons of good and bad:
Their 510W verses a 550W (probably an A+GPB) http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/pdf/Tu ... 510_vs.pdf, but some of the crowding in the PCP&C may be due to the active power factor correction, not just beefier components.
A more dramatic comparison is here: http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/produc ... estory.htm, but it's not quite fair because their PSU is a 450W while the competitor's is rated for just 300W. BTW, I have the 250W version of that bad PSU, and it:
1. has no direct regulation of the +12V. I traced the circuit board -- the +12V output goes to nothing but a diode, filter capacitors and chokes, and the yellow output wires, with no feedback to any regulator circuit;
2. lacks any or adequate short-circuit protection for the +3.3V (proved when a friend plugged in a DIMM backwards;
3. has high voltage filter capacitors (black cylinders) rated for only 330uF, compared to 470uF for the better 250W PSUs. The capacitors on the low voltage side were physically smaller, but I didn't read their values;
4. lacks any RFI/EMI filter for the AC lines -- if you look really hard, you notice the empty space between the AC receptacle and the two high voltage capacitors where a dual choke and some boxy capacitors were left out. My AM radio reception was zilch until I added those missing parts;
5. The small circuit board on top is a completely separate power supply for the +5Vstandby power. It worked fine, even when I loaded it to 2.0A (rated for just 1.5A) and shorted it, but the circuit board was mounted with only a single screw and could swivel around, although I don't remember if anything could have shorted if it swiveled too far. I added a plastic spacer and a second screw to fasten it to the other heatsink (hole was already in the circuit board);
6. The yellow thing between the two big heatsinks, the main transformer, is a lot smaller than in quality 250W PSUs. Generally, the bigger this transformer is, the better the PSU, but while Fortron/Sparkle PSUs are known for having some of the biggest for any given power rating, some of that extra size is due to their transformers running at about 1/3 lower frequency than the usual 60KHz.[/url]
PC Power & Cooling has two visual comparisons of good and bad:
Their 510W verses a 550W (probably an A+GPB) http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/pdf/Tu ... 510_vs.pdf, but some of the crowding in the PCP&C may be due to the active power factor correction, not just beefier components.
A more dramatic comparison is here: http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/produc ... estory.htm, but it's not quite fair because their PSU is a 450W while the competitor's is rated for just 300W. BTW, I have the 250W version of that bad PSU, and it:
1. has no direct regulation of the +12V. I traced the circuit board -- the +12V output goes to nothing but a diode, filter capacitors and chokes, and the yellow output wires, with no feedback to any regulator circuit;
2. lacks any or adequate short-circuit protection for the +3.3V (proved when a friend plugged in a DIMM backwards;
3. has high voltage filter capacitors (black cylinders) rated for only 330uF, compared to 470uF for the better 250W PSUs. The capacitors on the low voltage side were physically smaller, but I didn't read their values;
4. lacks any RFI/EMI filter for the AC lines -- if you look really hard, you notice the empty space between the AC receptacle and the two high voltage capacitors where a dual choke and some boxy capacitors were left out. My AM radio reception was zilch until I added those missing parts;
5. The small circuit board on top is a completely separate power supply for the +5Vstandby power. It worked fine, even when I loaded it to 2.0A (rated for just 1.5A) and shorted it, but the circuit board was mounted with only a single screw and could swivel around, although I don't remember if anything could have shorted if it swiveled too far. I added a plastic spacer and a second screw to fasten it to the other heatsink (hole was already in the circuit board);
6. The yellow thing between the two big heatsinks, the main transformer, is a lot smaller than in quality 250W PSUs. Generally, the bigger this transformer is, the better the PSU, but while Fortron/Sparkle PSUs are known for having some of the biggest for any given power rating, some of that extra size is due to their transformers running at about 1/3 lower frequency than the usual 60KHz.[/url]
The PSU is the poor relation of the computer. People spend a fortune on a mobo and the processor but are happy with a cheap Chinese generic PSU. The system will only be as good as the weakest link.
There are PSUs sold in the UK which are of the 'unlimited' variety. No safety circuits - no short circuit protection, no over voltage protection, no thermal protection and no overload protection. When the unit fails, it blows up. Witness the headline picture of a PSU on fire in the Tomshardware survey of 26 power supplies.
The ratings are also exaggerated. There are 550W units giving less power than quality 300W items. And some are sold without power factor correction (illegal in the EU). As with everything, you get what you pay for but even then some market leading products are having warranty problems. Stick with the latest 120 mm fanned PSUs from Seasonic and Fortron.
There are PSUs sold in the UK which are of the 'unlimited' variety. No safety circuits - no short circuit protection, no over voltage protection, no thermal protection and no overload protection. When the unit fails, it blows up. Witness the headline picture of a PSU on fire in the Tomshardware survey of 26 power supplies.
The ratings are also exaggerated. There are 550W units giving less power than quality 300W items. And some are sold without power factor correction (illegal in the EU). As with everything, you get what you pay for but even then some market leading products are having warranty problems. Stick with the latest 120 mm fanned PSUs from Seasonic and Fortron.
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Sam Williams
- Posts: 158
- Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2003 6:21 pm
- Location: Great Britain
I've just had my third HDD failure in about twelve months. They're not running too hot (mid-40s Celsius), they're not being used much (MP3 and occasional video playback) and they're all new units. The AC supply is line-conditioned.
The bottom line is that I'm increasingly suspicious of my cheapo no-name PSU, which is also making some fairly nasty noises. I'll never buy cheap again...
The bottom line is that I'm increasingly suspicious of my cheapo no-name PSU, which is also making some fairly nasty noises. I'll never buy cheap again...
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dukla2000
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- Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2003 12:27 pm
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Hi supastar - I agree with your comments, except don't mention that other sitesupastar wrote:Witness the headline picture of a PSU on fire ...
Around here some of us were unimpressed with details in that review, the bogus fire picture but in particular the FSP efficiency. MikeC tried to get them to explain/correct without success: I know you quote and link that number in your shop. OK - so I may be a bigot, but certainly am more comfortable with your links to SPCR 
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MarcKercher
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2003 4:11 am
Taken into consideration the great reviews the 12cm Fortron PSUs have got, and the price/performance ratio they offer, I'd say it's pretty darn good to leave them out from that list.Pjotor wrote:check out the Recommended power supplies on this site -- their noise levels are tested, as well as the voltage regulation.