Cheap psus, ur personal experience

ld13 said:
No. I have heard of one too many isonic PSU that went BOOM with the first boot. I'll stick with the brand name ones thx. :p
Click to expand...
Like I said...its a calculated risk.

Also depends on the rest of the PC. No point in blowing 1.5k on a PSU if your budget is only 5k.
 
Qwikslver said:
You wanted to know if people with low requirements can get el cheapo psus. Well antec make 350W psus. :D

The only makes of psu I would buy are: Zalman, Antec and Corsair.

There could be other makes that are worth buying, but I'm too picky. I sat with all my pc parts without a psu for 2weeks till I could get a decent psu.

I own a Zalman HP-1 600W at the moment and I got my brother a Antec Neo He 550W psu for the pc I built for him.

I once had a buddy that had an el cheapo psu. When he benchmarked his pc he unplugged his lights to get more juice.

Was quite funny.
Click to expand...

LOMAO
 
Cheap PSU's are like cheap Condoms

use at your own risk. You might end up having to pay way more than you were expecting.
 
Personally I had a no name Sahara 500watt with the same spec'd machine in my signature.
Upgraded it to a Gigabyte 720watt power supply when I added water cooling for the graphics card.

Never had any problems with cheap power supplies :)
 
I have a R200 500W Psu and it's working fine (3 hdd's, 2 Dvd burners, Newcastle64, Agp). It has 3 fans (gimmicky) and the brand name is Black Power (lol).
 
Qwikslver said:
I once had a buddy that had an el cheapo psu. When he benchmarked his pc he unplugged his lights to get more juice.
.
Click to expand...

Yeah think el cheapo has a much lower efficiency, so using brand name could possibly save u on electric bills and save our country/eskom blah blah blah.

SYNERGY said:
Personally I had a no name Sahara 500watt with the same spec'd machine in my signature.
Upgraded it to a Gigabyte 720watt power supply when I added water cooling for the graphics card.

Never had any problems with cheap power supplies :)
Click to expand...

DBE said:
I have a R200 500W Psu and it's working fine (3 hdd's, 2 Dvd burners, Newcastle64, Agp). It has 3 fans (gimmicky) and the brand name is Black Power (lol).
Click to expand...

Cool two more points for el cheapo...

I read somewhere if u psu acts funny, open it up(if theres no more warranty), find a bulging or leaking capacitor , replace it and it'll be as good as new....
 
Not true. I have 80%+ efficiency with a relatively cheap Gigabyte.
 
I tried to use a cheap 500w to initially power my system, and it was a bad mistake. That thing could barely put out enough power to handle the system. I had bought it way back, before I knew about rails and amps and so on, I was just impressed by the high figure.

I got a Corsair HX620W after that, and it's powered my rig no problems the last 3 months. Even under heavy load in Crysis it keeps running nice and quiet. Also, it's modular, so saves me some cable clutter which is good :)

Over the years I've seen a few cheap psu's give up and emit smoke, once even during a test we were writing in high school in the computer room. I generally use el-cheapo's at work, since those office type machines don't need anything more really. They work alright, but can get noisy as they get older, fans start to struggle a bit.
 
yip isonic "she not so good".... just my 2c iv had 3 in one month all lasted three days each.... and the coolermaster "she very loud" ....
 
ld13 said:
Only the one model you mean :p Stay away from the CoolerMaster Extreme Power 550W PSU everyone! It is proven to be l o u d :eek:
Click to expand...

how loud is ur 460 w is it louder than ur case fans?? if the rooms its in can ur hear the psu above ur graphics card ect?
 
I love my Coolermaster iGreen 600W continuous (700W peak). Silent (except on 34C days while running Crysis), more than enough power and never gave any hiccups. A year old now :)
 
I have a cheap/generic 350W PSU called "FSP group" running in one of my PC's for nearly 4 years now, the PSU came with the chenbro gaming bomb case I bought.
 
Last edited:
I have mainly used Aopen psu's. Never had an issue with either the 450 watt one in my old pc( still going strong now into its 4th year being used by my dad) or my current 750 aopen psu.

But if I were buying a psu today I would go for corsair or the pc power and cooling psu's. I really like the fact that both only use one 12v rail with 60 amps on their 750 models.
 
stefan9 said:
I have mainly used Aopen psu's. Never had an issue with either the 450 watt one in my old pc( still going strong now into its 4th year being used by my dad) or my current 750 aopen psu.

But if I were buying a psu today I would go for corsair or the pc power and cooling psu's. I really like the fact that both only use one 12v rail with 60 amps on their 750 models.
Click to expand...

I think there are regulations which state that the rails aren't allowed to go over x amps due to possible fire hazard, although I know some companies don't seem to care.
I prefer my tri-railed PSU :p
A graphics card with a 6pin and 8pin power connector will at max use 25A.
 
As far as I know a single 12v rail is considered better than multiple rails. a Single rail is more efficient since it uses all the amps while if its split over 4 or so rails you lose some power. Say the 12v1 has 17a on the rail but the cpu that uses this rail only uses 7 you loses those 10 amps. While if it was a single rail for the entire system those 10 amps would just be redistributed to the other components.

Also those standards that you are talking about is intel 12v atx powersupply standards. PC Power and cooling don't agree with that and have never used that.

Here's a piece on the single 12v vs mutliple 12v from Bjorn3d.com's review of the 750 pc power and cooling psu review.

Lastly, we look at the 12V rail. Yes, singular, as in the 750 watt Quad Silencer has a single gargantuan 60A rated 12V rail! It used to be that single 12V rail was once shunned, however single 12V rails are slowly coming back into vogue as the disadvantages to splitting the 12V are becoming better known. In a nutshell splitting the 12V means each 12V is "capped" with a line limiter, effectively limiting each individual 12V rail to only a small portion of the total power. So if the CPU uses only a portion of the 12V1 rail and the two GPUs need more power then the 12V2 and 12V3 rails can provide, they cannot use the unused power that is stuck on the 12V1 rail. While my example is horrible one can find a better example directly from PC Power & Cooling's excellent Power Supply Myths Exposed article. Despite that they would have an obvious interest in marketing their own products, the overall majority of the article is a refreshingly frank look at some power supply misconceptions and only underscores PC P&C's confidence in the high quality they put into their own power supplies.
Click to expand...

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1172&pageID=4010
 
stefan9 said:
As far as I know a single 12v rail is considered better than multiple rails. a Single rail is more efficient since it uses all the amps while if its split over 4 or so rails you lose some power. Say the 12v1 has 17a on the rail but the cpu that uses this rail only uses 7 you loses those 10 amps. While if it was a single rail for the entire system those 10 amps would just be redistributed to the other components.

Also those standards that you are talking about is intel 12v atx powersupply standards. PC Power and cooling don't agree with that and have never used that.

Here's a piece on the single 12v vs mutliple 12v from Bjorn3d.com's review of the 750 pc power and cooling psu review.



http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1172&pageID=4010
Click to expand...
I know the limitations of multiple rails, but possibly sucking 60A through a thin wire isn't a very good idea :p (I'm paranoid, k? :cool:) That's a good psu though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X