My Antec 400-watt power supply died after about a 1 1/2 years of abuse. I was kinda disappointed, I thought they were bullet proof. Not wishing to dump another $90 on something that wasn't gonna last, I choose the 450-watt Allied from Newegg for $46 shipped. It has two quiet ball bearing fans and the voltages were real strong, even under 2100MHz AMD, a million devices and fans, and a Radeon 9700 Pro. I fired up my old MSI 745 Ultra and found that I could run Windows stable at 185MHz in 2D apps, but 3D was limited to 175MHz or so. I noticed that my 3.3v rail was pretty low, 3.2 volts in the bios but this board has no adjustment and I searched in vain for some kind of mod.
I cracked open the Allied and low and behold, two adjustable pots for both the 5v and 3.3v rails! The 5v was already running 5.0v, so a slight adjustment to 5.1 and I adjusted the 3.3v from the current 3.2v all the way to 3.6v. My board is now rock solid at 183MHz. I noticed when I maxed the adjustable pots in the Antec, the voltage protection kicked in and shut down the power supply. I have reached no such limitations with the Allied. I also noticed the heat sinks and internal components are much more robust in the Allied and the power supply runs much cooler under full load. This power supply is so strong that it is almost an overkill for my system, if the 400-watt version has adjustable pots also then it is an awesome buy at $37 shipped. It should easily match the performance of any much more expensive "name brand" power supply.
I cracked open the Allied and low and behold, two adjustable pots for both the 5v and 3.3v rails! The 5v was already running 5.0v, so a slight adjustment to 5.1 and I adjusted the 3.3v from the current 3.2v all the way to 3.6v. My board is now rock solid at 183MHz. I noticed when I maxed the adjustable pots in the Antec, the voltage protection kicked in and shut down the power supply. I have reached no such limitations with the Allied. I also noticed the heat sinks and internal components are much more robust in the Allied and the power supply runs much cooler under full load. This power supply is so strong that it is almost an overkill for my system, if the 400-watt version has adjustable pots also then it is an awesome buy at $37 shipped. It should easily match the performance of any much more expensive "name brand" power supply.
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