CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC PSU

[Nec_V20]

The other thing about reviews is that they are reviewed relatively and not absolutely. So a $50 PSU will be reviewed as "Good" with regard to others in its price class as opposed to "Absolutely abysmally pathetic" if it were compared to the whole gamut of PSUs that are out there.

 

[lehtv]

In reviews the PSUs are tested for a short time. For this reason they are inadequate.

In reviews like those at hardwaresecrets, the PSU is tested until it shuts down. If the protections are working fine now, they will almost certainly be working fine later as well. The fact that a unit blows up indicates its protections weren't working properly to begin with.

The other thing about reviews is that they are reviewed relatively and not absolutely. So a $50 PSU will be reviewed as "Good" with regard to others in its price class as opposed to "Absolutely abysmally pathetic" if it were compared to the whole gamut of PSUs that are out there.

Not quite true. No PSU review website of respect gives a PSU a good rating unless it performs well. Whether it's good value is a separate consideration... just look at JonnyGuru's reviews where value and performance and build quality are separately evaluated

 

[Nec_V20]

Speaking of Jonnyguru let's see what is said about a PSU which he scores with a 9:

They've come up with a reliable, cheap, and well performing power supply for everyday systems that don't expect a lot from their power supplies.

If he were comparing it to the gamut of PSUs would it still get a 9? Of course not.

I personally know that I am going to have to pay money for quality and if it is cheap then you can be assured it will be nasty in some way.

For something as critical as a PSU for the system I am not going to go for a $50 PSU which gets a "good" review when, if I put that review side by side with a review of a more expensive one it would be classed as beneath contempt.

And if the CX is good enough why don't you have one in your system lehtv? Because you are not bloody stupid enough to believe that it is anywhere near as good as the Seasonic X-660 you chose. Let's face it, if you were to compare the two then you would call the CX "bloody pathetic".

I am not going to consider something to be good enough for other people's systems if I don't consider it good enough for mine.

 

[Torn Mind]

There is all that you have said, and the fact that they catch fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj8-wNmYJvM

But I do appreciate your attempt to make lemonade out of lemons - best of a bad lot indeed

Two can play the game is taking one single disastrous sample and extrapolating the results to the rest of the group. That does not mean the extrapolation has any solid foundation. It is similar to saying all used cars are lemons or all wall warts are defective because one failed.

For example, I can find on Newegg the following:

Pros: Great PSU, very powerful, great amp rating.

Cons: 24-Pin Mobo connector literally melted into the socket. Specifically the 12V rail for the GPU power. Not sure what happened, but it was a disappointing sight! Dealing with RMA between two different companies now.

I would not dissuade anyone from purchasing the unit, however, as the unit had documented evidence from reviews of containing good component selection and solid results in the attributes that matter. Defects are not unavoidable, but they can be minimized.

So, even with the shock and awe of one incident of catastrophic failure, what proof is there that this is prevalent on all units and not an isolated manufacturing error. The user already report a brown liquid oozing out of the unit, which means capacitor failure.

Also, I suggest you recognize that final retail price is not an accurate indication of production costs or even wholesale pricing. Price is a heuristic when suitable information(various bits of information about electricity) is not available to the concerned party, but not a definitive indicator of quality once a certain minimum is passed. $60 is sufficient to get a superior unit compared to a CX PSU.

 

[Torn Mind]

Speaking of Jonnyguru let's see what is said about a PSU which he scores with a 9:



If he were comparing it to the gamut of PSUs would it still get a 9? Of course not.

I personally know that I am going to have to pay money for quality and if it is cheap then you can be assured it will be nasty in some way.

For something as critical as a PSU for the system I am not going to go for a $50 PSU which gets a "good" review when, if I put that review side by side with a review of a more expensive one it would be classed as beneath contempt.

And if the CX is good enough why don't you have one in your system lehtv? Because you are not bloody stupid enough to believe that it is anywhere near as good as the Seasonic X-660 you chose. Let's face it, if you were to compare the two then you would call the CX "bloody pathetic".

I am not going to consider something to be good enough for other people's systems if I don't consider it good enough for mine.

The reviewer is OklahomaWolf and your selective quoting of him misrepresents the whole of the thoughts he had in the conclusion. Even if he did curve a bit, the points deduction if he grade performance more strictly would have came out to 1-1.5 points. If he had given his typical 1 point deduction for modularity, functionality would have been deducted by one point.
In particular, in the build quality section of his review, he pointed out both the soldering and the capacitor selection, and even states to the effect he would pay "for the good stuff".
The CX430 would have nabbed around an 8 instead of a 9. Or in other words, its degree of worseness is not of a large enough magnitude to be deemed blood pathetic.

The degree of how well a PSU works exists on a continuum, not as an either-or scenario.

 

[pcslookout]

I love how detailed you all are.

 

[lehtv]

Speaking of Jonnyguru let's see what is said about a PSU which he scores with a 9:

If he were comparing it to the gamut of PSUs would it still get a 9? Of course not.

Provide a link to the original article

And if the CX is good enough why don't you have one in your system lehtv? Because you are not bloody stupid enough to believe that it is anywhere near as good as the Seasonic X-660 you chose. Let's face it, if you were to compare the two then you would call the CX "bloody pathetic".

I have never claimed that a higher end unit can't have benefits over a CX series unit, thus it makes no sense to argue that if I think CX series is good enough I should own it instead of a higher end unit.

The main reason I'm using an X660 is because I built the system to be as quiet as possible while being overclockable, and the X660 doesn't even turn its fan on while gaming. A CX series unit would be comparably noisy even on idle. Other reasons: longer warranty & better capacitors, modularity, higher efficiency, compatibility with SLI/Crossfire (no CX unit with this feature existed when I bought my X series unit), and the fact that I could afford it. Reliability while the product is under warranty is a very minor concern

 

[Nec_V20]

Torn Mind,

my exact words were:

I personally know that I am going to have to pay money for quality

at no point did I suggest that a higher price was any indication of quality, a piece of junk like the Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200W, is proof of that.