Why do name brand PSUs make such a difference?

psy44

Banned
May 20, 2002
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I have a "turbolink" power supply and it works fine for me, I don't understand why people spend so much for Antec or Enermax. This one doesn't make much noise and isn't hot, I just don't get it...
 

BG4533

Golden Member
Oct 15, 2001
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Cheap PSUs are often far overrated. The rails often have far less power than their expensive counterparts and even a cheap 400W unit may not have enough power on the 12V rail to power a heavy duty system. Voltage regualtion is another very important reason. Intel specs say a PSU should hold its voltages within 5% of what is specified. Some cheap PSUs may struggle with this and only hold their voltages within 10%. This can cause early component failures. New PSUs like Antecs Truepower line claim 3% voltage regulation and I believe some of PC Power and Coolings PSUs claim 1%. One easy way to get a feeling for the quality of a PSU is by its weight. A 400w quality PSU may weigh twice that of a cheap 400W unit. This is because of larger heatsinks, heavier duty capacitors, etc. All of this leads to a higher life expectency of the PSU which can be very important. As PSUs die, they can take expensive equipment out with them.

Brian
 

tommie

Member
Apr 3, 2003
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i have a good story that should help understanding this. i have a asus p4pe with 3.06 and i was running 1 gb generic pc2100 . two hard drives and two optical drives a 750 zip. , five ball-bearing case fans ,one hungry volcano7+. and i was ( notice the "was) powering all this with a GENERIC 420w($20) PSU. i decided i would upgrade my mx440 agp to a 128mb ti 4200 and upgrade my ram to two sticks of corsair 512c2 xms pc2700. well when i made the changes my system became unstable errors and problems posting. my video was haveing problems as well dots and fragmenting text.i wapped out everthing trying to solve this. finalllllllly an upgrade to antecs trueblue 480 has ended these problems. it seems that when building a system, its allways the power supply that gets skimped upon, i made the same mistake . hope this saves someone else the head aches

tommie j
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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The PSU is the one part that has a good chance of nuking some/all of the other parts, if it fails catastropically. Everything rides on it. I mean, do you want to use generic motor oil and filters on your nice new car, or Castrol and Fram? :D
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
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I had an L&C power supply, 300W, running a system with an AMD T-bird 1GHz, and 4 IDE devices. Well, I also OC'd the Tbird to 1.4GHz. Now, the high-end Thunderbirds were very power hungry, like up to 72W for te 1.4 I believe. Well, this thing was running slightly increased voltage, and doing 1.4GHz. I ran the CPUBurn utility to stress the processor. A few seconds into the test, the system shut down, and I smelled the strangely familiar odor of fried electronics. I opened up the power supply and saw a lightly singed place on the circuit board. A component or two had apparently been overloaded when the CPU was stressed, so instead of shutting down like a good PSU should do when it's overloaded, this one just let its components fry themselves. The system was fine, but of course the power supply was dead.
Still, I'd say, yes, use generic ones, ONLY if the system is significantly below the rated output of the power supply, like maybe a socket 7 system, or a real basic socket A or Pentium III computer - budget videocard, 1 hard drive, 1 optical drive, not much else. And make sure whoever's using the computer knows to upgrade their power supply next time But a fully loaded system, no way. If you can afford good components, get a good power supply to go with it.
My main system is using a 420W TTGI (never heard of them, but the supply seems quite good) PSU. Nice, long cables, plenty of connectors, and it's running a lot of hungry hardware; heck, rather than re-typing the components, here's the links:
Main system
Secondary system (uses an Antec Truepower 430W, after a generic 400W proved to be insufficient)
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,685
136
There's no "Truth in Advertising" for psu's, sadly enough, except among the more reputable manufacturers. You get what you pay for, with the exceptions of paying too much or the occasional really good deal from some kind of overstock. Tough to go wrong with an Antec, Delta, Heroichi, Sparkle, Fortron, Enermax, Zippy or a few others. Both Enhance and Channelwell make some good stuff, too, but their low end is just that, low end...

A quality 350w unit will outperform and outlast a cheapo unit rated at 450w, and is generally more than enough, even for enthusiast-type systems...
 

digitalix

Member
Apr 18, 2003
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Often a matter of stability and the quality of the components inside. A look at the TomsHardware power supply shootout a while back shows the importance of quality. For me, I just wanted something quiet, I went with a Silenx. And FYI, channel well technologies manufactures Antec's power supplies. :)
 

Lizardman

Golden Member
Jul 23, 2001
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Originally posted by: digitalix
Often a matter of stability and the quality of the components inside. A look at the TomsHardware power supply shootout a while back shows the importance of quality. For me, I just wanted something quiet, I went with a Silenx. And FYI, channel well technologies manufactures Antec's power supplies. :)

Silex wow that is one expensive PSU. If anyone wants a quiet PSU get the fortron one at newegg with the 120mm fan. It outputs only 300W but is a very good 300W.
 

AgaBoogaBoo

Lifer
Feb 16, 2003
26,108
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I ahven't read the other posts but the quality of the parts such as the transformers and such in those have a lot to do with it.
 

RWalker2

Member
Sep 2, 2002
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The reasons are all stated above, but u dont have what i would call a generic PSU... its more of a middle of the line PSU made by a respectable manufacturer

I have the same PSU and i agree its great :D
 

digitalix

Member
Apr 18, 2003
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Quality of all the parts have to do with it :p A good indication of a quality power supply? Just see how heavy it is. Higher quality power supplies tend to weigh more and include a much more massive heatsink inside the unit. The SilenX, yeah it's on the expensive end. But the Fortron 120mm 300w or 350w power supply is a joke in comparison. I build systems for recording studios and all my customers rave about it. For that price, you'd expect that level of performance :)