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PowMax Demon 580W PS

You get what you pay for, you buy a really cheap 550w PSU, and you maybe be one of the lucky ones that has no problems, but more then likely, that PSU will die and possibly take other hardware with it.
 
Originally posted by: NightCrawler
POWMAX sounds like a kungfu movie........I'm going to guess that it is junk.
Click to expand...
That would be my opinion. I acquired a Powmax case on eBay for a low bid and it came with a 450 Watt rated power supply. I didn't trust it enough to leave it mounted. Removed, it had less heft to it than a typical 250 Watt device. Among the old junk around here, I had a PS/2 era (1988/1990) power supply out of a micro box of that time, 140 Watts -- it was almost as heavy as the Powmax "450".

So I shoved the puny thing in a box that a 250 had come in, and stuck it on a shelf in case I ever need a 150 to 180 Watt device, or to toss it when that shelf gets too crowded.

😎
 
Powmax sucks. I've got one lying around too. Get something better like an Enermax or Fortron, a good psu is important for a number of reasons. It's money well spent.
 
Powmax has a pretty bad reputation, most of it apparently deserved. They seem to be involved in a disproportionately high number of bad PSU issues here on AT, although that is not truly conclusive (it may just be that, because they sell for cheap, they sell more PSUs, and so we see more issues involving them because more people are using them).

As for this particular PSU:

Max Load: +3.3@32A, +5@40A, +12@24A, -5@0.5A, -12@0.8A, +5vsb@2A
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Those are pretty respectable specs (assuming it can actually keep them up in real operation).

However, I'm not sure if those are accurate specs for this PSU. From Powmax's Website:

SPECIFICATIONS

Model: PSDE580
Dimensions 6"Wx3.6H"x6.6"D
AC Input 115/230, 10A/6A, 60Hz/50Hz
Max Load +3.3@28A, +5@38A, +12@17A, -5@0.5A, -12@0.8A, +5vsb@2A
MTBF 100K hrs at 25°C ambient conditions
Efficiency 70% Min. at full load
Noise Level Maximum of 37db at 100% system loading
Certified by UL, CB, CE, TUV, & FCC
Click to expand...

(these add up to ~480W, and indeed the "Demon 480W" has the same specs, so maybe this is just a typo on their page. But it's still not a good sign if they can't keep their own products straight.)

I'm highly skeptical that this PSU could consistently output nearly as much power as it claims. It's worth noting that the Antec TruePower 550W has the *same* specs as Newegg gives for the Powmax 580W PSU -- and I somehow doubt that the Powmax one is *better* than the Antec (which costs ~3x as much, and in its specs page it's even limited to *530*W on those lines). However, you would need to do some serious PSU benchmarking to truly determine how good it is (the kind of benchmarking that SPCR and THG do, where they stress the PSUs to their limits).
 
STAY AWAY from Powmax at all cost. You would be buying a ticking time bomb. Don't waste your money.

Get a Fortron, Antec, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, ect. Quality over quanity.

 
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