I agree. I purchased one of these on a similar deal at NewEgg. They ended up sending the 600w version of the PS so I got an even better deal on it but it's been a good inexpensive power supply. I do agree that it definitely isn't silent when the fan really spins up but it's not horrible either.
Newegg happens to have this PS for 25$ after 20$ mail in rebate right now.
I've had a Corsair HX 620 for about 6 years now and it has NEVER skipped a beat, "only" got 1 year left on the warranty, I've recently relegated it to another machine and grabbed a Corsair HX 850.
The thing with Corsair PSU's though is that you always have peace of mind as all the PSU's they offer are good.
uh... pipe down over there, guy. the most expensive psu is 55 dollars. most are around 30-40. what's cheap? 10 bucks? if you need a 10 dollar psu maybe you should reconsider your choice of hobbies.
Totally agree. Tom's wouldn't recommend low quality (cheap!) PSU's for two very good reasons:
For one, you save money by spending more, especially if you leave your PC on all the time. Better efficiency at idle means you pollute less, and spend less money on energy.
Secondly, if your PSU dies, your motherboard can go too. Who wants to waste money and have the hassle of that? Buy quality. At least if your motherboard perishes it probably isn't your fault (as long as you pay attention to ESD. Also, although you can buy better grade motherboards too by doing your research, but you will still get the one that dies the second day you use it now and then).
If you want to buy an exploding toaster to power your PC have at it. That's one less ignorant poster online.
You get what you pay for. I bought two of the V2 units - both exhibited coil whine across multiple builds and one failed to run reliably (standby power issues.) One I gave away and one is sitting on my parts shelf. It's anecdotal evidence but still enough to make me avoid them.
Antec's EarthWatts 380D has been my default choice for awhile now, but I'll have to give some of these a shot.
I don't think "you get what you pay for" always applies, because I bought a Seasonic X650 gold a while back, which is a fairly expensive and highly rated unit, and I get coil whine. It happens.
Sorry, but were you looking for a review of, say, a PowMax power supply?? Not sure why you refer (twice, in two posts) to these power supplies as "elitist.
Trust me, you don't need to make $100K/year salary to own these. Especially the Corsairs, which are regularly on sale for <$20, after mail in rebate.
Very surprised to see the VP-450 not make the list of candidates.
Between what you have here, I've used both the Corsair CX line and the Rosewill Green line. After a disappointment with the CX and coil whine, it was replaced with a Rosewill RG and I couldn't be happier.
Bottom of the barrel, me personally I'd go with either the RG or now the Antec VP-450.
I'm not spending $50 on a <500w PSU, sorry. You can get a decent 500-600w, sometimes having to wait on a rebate or a coupon code but nonetheless - Antec NeoEco, Antec HCG, even a Corsair TX2, for not much more than that.
Speaking of prices. The Raider is not available yet and the going price will be much lower than the MSRP.
Antec didn't reply to my email and I wasn't able to get the US version in Germany. Anyway, I will try to get cheap Antec PSUs next time. Thank you for your comment.
That's because you're a moron. Just because it supplies lower wattage does not mean that it is any less important or valuable than an 800w power supply. Voltage regulation is pretty simple, getting no ripple and getting good efficiency is a bit harder. You pay for quality, not for wattage. If you want junk, then buy junk. This was for people who are serious about their PCs and want them to work well and last for awhile.
While this is a nice article on low(er) power PSUs, would it be possible to see some sort of real world enthusiast article which focuses on NAS/HTPC boxes and power?
For instance, there's a Zotac Atom DTX board with 6 SATA connectors and two PCIe slots (x1 and x16 I think). Theoretically you could have 14+ HDDs hooked up (killer NAS for the motherboard form factor).
Something looking at the power of a NAS or HTPC with regards to PSUs would be nice. A 70% efficient 400w PSU would consume a lot more (relative) power on a low wattage box than something like a DC power supply with adapter (from experience), since they can get closer to 95% I believe in lower power situations. It would also be nice to see peak (boot) power for such a HDD loaded system in terms of what sort of PSU is required to boot the thing without staggered spinup.
I personally made a G620T system with a 250w mATX PSU, which I swapped out for a PicoPSU, and dropped power use from about 35w IIRC, to 25w, which is a lot in % terms, although in absolutes it's not all that significant. Just a thought for an article if there is the desire. I definitely am interested in low power HTPC and NAS boxes (considering building a NAS box with the above mentioned Zotac DTX board in the coming months).
I'm able to review all PSUs with AC input and DC output. SFX, TFX PSUs, Picos in combination with laptop adapters.
How about some 300W SFX units and 90W adapters? Most PicoPSU are very good but the adapter is usually a bit of a problem. Nobody takes a look inside. Quite often the quality is abysmal .
I'm not sure how hard it would be, but would it be possible to write up a review of a few PicoPSU adapters? I've considered a few for low-power builds, but I've always been wary of the little no-name sealed plastic bricks that come with them.
Then again, I don't know if Anandtech would be the ideal audience for such a review.
Ditto. I own a wide variety of PicoPSU and other related electronics from mini-box/ituner, as well as some similar Antec DC-DC products. I would love to see more of this stuff reviewed, with some emphasis on the "black box" bricks that can be had for very little outlay in some cases.
> I'm not sure how hard it would be, but would it be possible to write up a review of a few PicoPSU adapters?
This!! Please.
It's difficult to find information on suitable adapters, and it's kind of a critical part of the build given how little PicoPSUs filter their input (afaicr).
I love those manufactureres with hundreds of versions. Ironically they didn't want me to review their Triathlor 385W as it is "not available in the US".
The AST is also a good PSU.
However, pricing will be a problem now. Thank you for this correction.
AST is also a good PSU eh? I trust you know what you're talking about - care to elucidate? I shared this on this thread in slickdeals and your post/comment about the Enermax will get some attention there so your comments would be much appreciated by many ;)
I find that the one crucial point missing in ALL computer hardware reviews is long term reliability. It's understandable given the circumstances, but I wish there were some way for hardware reviewers to do some kind of simulated stress testing. I have found over the years, especially with motherboards and power supplies, that the reviews that award winners based on their feature set don't always do well long-term. The only way I've found to get an indication of this factor is through user reviews, which is not a perfect either as most reviews posted a few months past initial purchase are negative. Still it gives me a little better way to compare.
I personally have had quite numerous failures 6 months+ out with excellently reviewed hardware, especially when its a lesser-known brand or a newcomer to the field.
You can get some idea from the quality of components used, the soldering, and so on..
But yes, a soak test would be nice.
HardOCP does something close to this - their Torture Test - 8 hours @ 80% load, which is quite a nice test. Maybe something like this but for a bit longer?
Maybe with a high ambient temperature.. Maybe some power cycling during the test (to full cold, then back on again) to test cold joints and how well the PSU copes with heat cycling.
I don't know, just some ideas. But yeah, these tests would quite a bit of time.
Look at the product's warranty and its terms and conditions. Pay close attention to how long the warranty lasts on replacements. A 5-year warranty doesn't mean much if they're only guaranteeing the replacement for 90-days. The longer a company is willing to allow easy and (mostly) free replacement of the product, the longer they're guessing it should last. Divide product price by the number of years the company allows hassle-free replacement for a rough estimate of long term value.
Of course, this doesn't apply to new brands that simply haven't been around for very long, or brands that are simply rebadging cheap 'no-name' vendors.
I bought a FSP Aurum 400W 80 Plus Gold about a year ago, and I'm EXTREMELY pleased with it. It's very cool and energy efficient
I have my computer on pretty much 24/7, but last week I turned it off for pretty much the first time since I got the PSU to install more RAM, and the PSU was still very cool, didn't feel like it was on at all.
This power supply has been on sale for under $20 after rebates a few times over the last months - it's on sale right now for another day, at newegg 15% off code and rebate.
It's a re-badged Seasonic S12II - high quality unit. I got a few as spares, use a HCG-620 myself.
I've got a Shuttle SZ77R5 with a 500W PSU, running an i7-3770k and a GeForce GTX 670... It doesn't get all that much faster than this without your cost/performance ratio going to crap, and the 500W PSU is way more than enough.
Why this is the case should be obvious: the processor has a 77W TDP, the graphics chip has a tdp of 170W, which is 247W at full load, and those are the two biggest power draws in the case. Yes, the other parts use power, like the hard disks (I've got SSDs), fans, memory, chipset, etc. but not enough to max out even a 500W PSU.
For your system a 500W supply sounds great, but for other people they might have more stuff in their box that needs more power. For example, my main system has an i7-920, GTX 560, and 14hdds. It was giving me random fits occasionally when rebooting on my old 650W supply (can't remember the name but I believe it was one of the recommended ones either on here or tom's or someplace) I ended up replacing it with an 850W and now I don't get restart cycles anymore. Theoretically, the 650W supply had enough power to run everything (and still 100+W of spare capacity), but something wasn't happy and a large supply seems to have fixed everything.
I think he's almost certainly correct in that the PSU was a problem -- HDDs tend to draw power differently than GPUs and CPUs (same voltage, different rails). The real question is what he's doing with 14 HDDs in a single system. Sounds more like something for a file server, and if you're running a file server you should probably also have a higher quality PSU to begin with.
As for your contention that he has an "American mentality towards the environment", kindly take your stereotyping elsewhere. Very likely this has nothing at all to do with his nationality and is simply a reflection of his enthusiasm for computers and technology.
Hard drives are commonly designed to draw up to 2 amps on the 12 volt line when spinning up, so if you spin up 14 hard drives at ones the power draw could be 2A * 12V * 14 = 672 watts. Normally, systems with large numbers of hard drives are configured to spin up a few drives at a time to avoid overloading the power supply. The alternative is to do what you did: buy a very large power supply.
Still running a Corsair 450W VX PSU since 2007 here. Currently with an overclocked Phenom II X4 system and GTX460. Rock solid. I always laugh when people ask whether their new 750W PSU's will be enough for a Sandy Bridge and Radeon 6850 plus one SSD...
That's what I want to know. I use the same two all the time, but I am almost scared to find out how they actually test.
Most users do not notice, and do not care. They only want the cheapest PSU. I may get them to allow me to installed a better one, but only so far. Most of the PSU's reviewed here are marginal in that regard.
We're talking about systems with a core i3 and integrated graphics, and a single hard drive. Maybe it can push 100-120 watts, when the grand kids try to play WOW on their grandparents' computer. Sometimes they want the $25 model even.
Shoot, for office workstations I use these Cooler Masters even. I haven't had a problem yet. Nowadays that means Core-i5, 8GB DDR3, and 60GB SSD. I built a server recently that only used 18watts at idle! It is just hard to find good PSU's at less then 400 watts.
BTW, though I really enjoy most Anandtech articles, your PSU ones can't beat SilentPCReview. But then I can't see how you could do better without an anechoic chamber
The cheapest PSU on that list is well over $100, which is more than double the most expensive one in this article, which is about finding a good "cheap" PSU.
I'm glad AT did this article as it should encourage a little more competition in the low-end space.
In my experience I've had a couple low end PSUs do bad things to MBs even though they were modestly loaded. After using a number of different manufacturers all I buy are Seasonics. I get them when they are on sale.
I have a 9 yr old 600 S-12? on its second system and the output measures the same as it did when new. Blow out the dust occasionally and it just works. Even in low end systems I don't trust inexpensive PSUs, their quality control is all but non-existent with wide variation in samples.
You get what you pay for and I don't like buying things twice.
I wish you could round up even more models and/or present the results in a common bench-like database (you know, like the CPU comparison etc.) where different models coudl be added over time.
That Sinan PSU is likely made by LongYi, a small and crappy PSU manufacturer in Guangdong, China. They make knock-off, cost-down designs based on reverse-engineered FSP and similar PSUs.
Not many need more than 400W anymore, some think it's better to buy more now to be sure about future upgrades, but that view is should be reversed, total watt consumtion in builds going down for every generatio. I hope to see Platinum/Gold PSU from 200-300W in the future.
"The Teapo models don't have the longest lifetime and lowest ESR; however, we've never detected a problem with Teapo in power supplies."
Official ratings mean little when they're not honest, and while I haven't looked at Teapos in recent power supplies, they had very high failure rates in older CWT supplies, including those sold as Antec Smartpowers and Truepowers.
True, but Teapo has several products, you can't compare old models with current offerings. And some ratings are wrong for sure, but most manufacturers in this roundup used the same series and some of this companies have less than 1% failure rate according to retail shops.
Not least you can't compare old PSUs with a modern 80Plus device. Temperatures are much lower today and switching frequency is different (which is why a low-ESR model would have been nice anyway). The ambient conditions are different. Teapo had problems on mainboards for the same reason. There are no bad or good components, just the right choice for a specific range of functions.
"True, but Teapo has several products, you can't compare old models with current offerings. And some ratings are wrong for sure, but most manufacturers in this roundup used the same series and some of this companies have less than 1% failure rate according to retail shops.
Not least you can't compare old PSUs with a modern 80Plus device. Temperatures are much lower today and switching frequency is different (which is why a low-ESR model would have been nice anyway). The ambient conditions are different. Teapo had problems on mainboards for the same reason. There are no bad or good components, just the right choice for a specific range of functions. "
These were mostly Teapo SC (green w/ gold or bronze writing), as new as 2010, a product still being made. What model Teapos were you thinking of? I believe these operated at frequencies of 60K-100K Hz and averaged temperatures of 50-65C. What are the operating conditions of the capacitors in the 80Plus power supplies?
Power supplies will often continue to operate adequately even years after capacitor failure since some capacitors are redundant, including with motherboard capacitors, and most computers draw little power.
Even then it might be that Teapo changed some ingredients.
However, let's assume that this is not the case. Current PSUs switch much faster than 100 KHz in order to reduce component size. E.g. 250 KHz is a common value these days, some of them are even faster. This is just one out of many different conditions:
"averaged temperatures of 50-65C." No matter where--it will be lower, but where did you measure these temperatures? On which outputs or circuits did they fail? Did they all fail? Is there more or less space for cooling than in most PSUs in this review? How high was the average ambient temperature during operation? Do these PSUs have the comparable ripple values? How high was current? How high was load?
This and even more is what we need to evaluate the position.
For sure PSUs can operate without some of the output capacitors, but not for ever and ever. There are signs. In many cases you can hear noises when capacitors fail (or measure something). Moreoever I've never seen faulty Teapo capacitors in old FSP units and I used plenty of them for years.
The source of such problems can be elsewhere. I had a PSU with an oscillating controller and all capacitors on 5VSB died. Does this mean the capacitors are the problem? No, after replacing a single resistor the controller was stable and the caps didn't fail again.
"RE: Capacitors in Rosewill power supply by Martin Kaffei on Friday, July 06, 2012 Even then it might be that Teapo changed some ingredients.
However, let's assume that this is not the case. Current PSUs switch much faster than 100 KHz in order to reduce component size. E.g. 250 KHz is a common value these days, some of them are even faster. This is just one out of many different conditions:
"averaged temperatures of 50-65C." No matter where--it will be lower, but where did you measure these temperatures? On which outputs or circuits did they fail? Did they all fail? Is there more or less space for cooling than in most PSUs in this review? How high was the average ambient temperature during operation? Do these PSUs have the comparable ripple values? How high was current? How high was load?
This and even more is what we need to evaluate the position.
For sure PSUs can operate without some of the output capacitors, but not for ever and ever. There are signs. In many cases you can hear noises when capacitors fail (or measure something). Moreoever I've never seen faulty Teapo capacitors in old FSP units and I used plenty of them for years.
The source of such problems can be elsewhere. I had a PSU with an oscillating controller and all capacitors on 5VSB died. Does this mean the capacitors are the problem? No, after replacing a single resistor the controller was stable and the caps didn't fail again. "
250 KHz has long been common for motherboards, but which PSUs oscillate near that frequency? I wasn't able to find anything operating above approximately 150 KHz at websites that presented oscillographs (Jonnyguru.com, Hardwaresecrets.com) where the fundamental could be identified. Temperature readings were taken with direct contact thermistors or thermocouples touching the metal bodies of the output capacitors while the PSUs operated motherboards without high performance video cards.
In well designed power supplies, few components fail nearly as much as capacitors, and there's a fairly common +5VSB circuit made of 2 discrete transistors that overvolts when it fails, almost always due to a bad capacitor, often 1-2 10V, 1000uF Teapo SCs.
Forget about Teapo. C(r)apxon is the biggest epidemic right now. They're in basically every Fortron and Fortron based PSU (Bequiet anyone?)
If you have a PSU with Crapxon on the secondary side it's almost guaranteed it won't make it to it's 2nd birthday without the crapxons puking their guts out and in turn, sh*tloads of ripple (I've had client computers where shitty cheap FSP OEM PSUs killed HDDs due to their caps failing)
Instability, whining and sometimes (for example Bequiet E5 series and FSP Bluestorm I & II) power-up problems (because of bad caps on the 5VSB circuitry) are pretty much the norm with these..
No matter how good fortrons may sound.. avoid them at all costs unless you can recap them BEFORE putting them into service.
I too am interested in lower-wattage units, so this article was a good read. I've been more impressed with FSP's recent offerings. The way the Raider's efficiency quickly ramped up was excellent. Maybe not down to the Picos, I am also interested in physically smaller units, like TFX and SFX models. Seasonic and FSP have some good ones there.
My "goto" PSU in budget builds for years has been the Antec EA-380D. I've never had one fail. I buy Seasonic or Antec for my own systems, although I'd consider FSP, Corsair, or Enermax also. If you go through the assortment of reviews Gabrial Torres at HardwareSecrets has done on CM PSUs, you will understand why I call them "Crappermaster." The "Extreme ..." lines in particular are near-junk, most with liar-labels and/or claimed protection circuits actually missing. That's consumer fraud. One of my favorite comments though comes from a HardOCP review, in which the GX650 was summarized as a "polished turd in a box." Friends don't let friends buy Crappermaster (even their good stuff, because that is supporting a dishonest business).
I would even go so far as to say 1 KW power supplies aren't needed for most configurations. Running a Core i7 2600k, 16 GB RAM, 6 Hard Drives/SSDs (2x2TB WD Blacks, 2x1TB WD blacks, 1x1 TB Seagate, and 1xSSD 256 GB Force GT) as well as a radeon 6970. under load i pull 400 watts from a 650 watt PS. A bit more than the review mentions, but most people would swear they need a 1 KW ps for this setup.
I, for one, would really appreciate some more comparison charts with all of the PSU's stacked up against eachother. You don't need every data point but a summary of at least idle and load, like maybe 50W and 400W, or 20% and 100%, would be much appreciated.
Something so I don't have to flip through 9 pages to compare ripple, efficiency, noise, and PFC
And again you didn't give any information about the size of your reviewed psu's.
In my view you did not do your homework. You omitted basic facts by not listing the physical dimensions of your reviewed objects. Anandtech tries to keep up a nearly scientific approach to their other reviews.
Would you omit the measures if reviewing a computer case? A smartphone? A NAS-Box? A car? A TV?
I brought this point up in several comments, alas to no avail.
I think you're shooting yourself in the knee.
Switch to german:
Wenn grundlegende Dinge wie Maße fehlen, wie vertrauenswürdig ist das ganze Werk? Wissenschaftliche Arbeit fängt bei der Beschreibung der Testobjekte an.
Wenn also die Grundlagen wissenschaftlicher Methodik verletzt werden, dann stelle ich fest, dass Anandtech die sich selbst auferlegte "professionelle Arbeitsweise" nicht einhält. Sicher ist das ein wenig Haarspalterei, werden einige sagen. Meine Einstellung: Macht es richtig oder gar nicht. Sonst droht Euer Niveau auf das der PC-Welt zurück zu fallen.
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fic2 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I have bought two of these on sale from newegg for about $17 after $20 rebate. For $17 these are great power supplies.Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Corsair is always a good choice. Enjoy!esteinbr - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I agree. I purchased one of these on a similar deal at NewEgg. They ended up sending the 600w version of the PS so I got an even better deal on it but it's been a good inexpensive power supply. I do agree that it definitely isn't silent when the fan really spins up but it's not horrible either.Newegg happens to have this PS for 25$ after 20$ mail in rebate right now.
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
You got a competent 600W PSU for 17 bucks? You lucky SoB!I hope it found a good home in a nice machine.
StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
I've had a Corsair HX 620 for about 6 years now and it has NEVER skipped a beat, "only" got 1 year left on the warranty, I've recently relegated it to another machine and grabbed a Corsair HX 850.The thing with Corsair PSU's though is that you always have peace of mind as all the PSU's they offer are good.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 8, 2012 - link
None of these power supplies in the article are CHEAP - save perhaps the one Sinan that almost nobody likely recognizes.These PS are low wattage near top of the line PS.
I'm not certain how the anand reviewer got that so wrong.
Whatever - it's one word but still... it's the concept, and being correct about what is spewing forth that counts.
These are EXPENSIVE power supplies.
I can show the never joe blows here some cheap power supplies - or the article writer - since the elitist smell of self aggrandization is all about...
I can't make it on 100K a year either...
nipplefish - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
uh... pipe down over there, guy. the most expensive psu is 55 dollars. most are around 30-40. what's cheap? 10 bucks? if you need a 10 dollar psu maybe you should reconsider your choice of hobbies.JonnyDough - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
Totally agree. Tom's wouldn't recommend low quality (cheap!) PSU's for two very good reasons:For one, you save money by spending more, especially if you leave your PC on all the time. Better efficiency at idle means you pollute less, and spend less money on energy.
Secondly, if your PSU dies, your motherboard can go too. Who wants to waste money and have the hassle of that? Buy quality. At least if your motherboard perishes it probably isn't your fault (as long as you pay attention to ESD. Also, although you can buy better grade motherboards too by doing your research, but you will still get the one that dies the second day you use it now and then).
If you want to buy an exploding toaster to power your PC have at it. That's one less ignorant poster online.
GeorgeH - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
You get what you pay for. I bought two of the V2 units - both exhibited coil whine across multiple builds and one failed to run reliably (standby power issues.) One I gave away and one is sitting on my parts shelf. It's anecdotal evidence but still enough to make me avoid them.Antec's EarthWatts 380D has been my default choice for awhile now, but I'll have to give some of these a shot.
Avalon - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I don't think "you get what you pay for" always applies, because I bought a Seasonic X650 gold a while back, which is a fairly expensive and highly rated unit, and I get coil whine. It happens.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 8, 2012 - link
These are all elitist power supplies, not you get what you pay for power supplies.Try to find 6 pin + 6+2 pin on a 450W anywhere... they are RARE.
This is NOT the cheap power supply review - this is the name brand poular low wattage PS review.
marvdmartian - Monday, July 9, 2012 - link
Sorry, but were you looking for a review of, say, a PowMax power supply?? Not sure why you refer (twice, in two posts) to these power supplies as "elitist.Trust me, you don't need to make $100K/year salary to own these. Especially the Corsairs, which are regularly on sale for <$20, after mail in rebate.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
I just said why, but you're "not sure" why, probably the "not sure" from the movie Idiocracy.Black1969ta - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
more like a member of the Cabinet.rickcain2320 - Thursday, July 12, 2012 - link
Don't ever mention PowMax in my presence ever again, speak not that word.zero2dash - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Very surprised to see the VP-450 not make the list of candidates.Between what you have here, I've used both the Corsair CX line and the Rosewill Green line. After a disappointment with the CX and coil whine, it was replaced with a Rosewill RG and I couldn't be happier.
Bottom of the barrel, me personally I'd go with either the RG or now the Antec VP-450.
I'm not spending $50 on a <500w PSU, sorry. You can get a decent 500-600w, sometimes having to wait on a rebate or a coupon code but nonetheless - Antec NeoEco, Antec HCG, even a Corsair TX2, for not much more than that.
Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Speaking of prices. The Raider is not available yet and the going price will be much lower than the MSRP.Antec didn't reply to my email and I wasn't able to get the US version in Germany. Anyway, I will try to get cheap Antec PSUs next time. Thank you for your comment.
JonnyDough - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
That's because you're a moron. Just because it supplies lower wattage does not mean that it is any less important or valuable than an 800w power supply. Voltage regulation is pretty simple, getting no ripple and getting good efficiency is a bit harder. You pay for quality, not for wattage. If you want junk, then buy junk. This was for people who are serious about their PCs and want them to work well and last for awhile.Lonyo - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
While this is a nice article on low(er) power PSUs, would it be possible to see some sort of real world enthusiast article which focuses on NAS/HTPC boxes and power?For instance, there's a Zotac Atom DTX board with 6 SATA connectors and two PCIe slots (x1 and x16 I think). Theoretically you could have 14+ HDDs hooked up (killer NAS for the motherboard form factor).
Something looking at the power of a NAS or HTPC with regards to PSUs would be nice. A 70% efficient 400w PSU would consume a lot more (relative) power on a low wattage box than something like a DC power supply with adapter (from experience), since they can get closer to 95% I believe in lower power situations.
It would also be nice to see peak (boot) power for such a HDD loaded system in terms of what sort of PSU is required to boot the thing without staggered spinup.
I personally made a G620T system with a 250w mATX PSU, which I swapped out for a PicoPSU, and dropped power use from about 35w IIRC, to 25w, which is a lot in % terms, although in absolutes it's not all that significant.
Just a thought for an article if there is the desire. I definitely am interested in low power HTPC and NAS boxes (considering building a NAS box with the above mentioned Zotac DTX board in the coming months).
Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I'm able to review all PSUs with AC input and DC output.SFX, TFX PSUs, Picos in combination with laptop adapters.
How about some 300W SFX units and 90W adapters? Most PicoPSU are very good but the adapter is usually a bit of a problem. Nobody takes a look inside. Quite often the quality is abysmal .
arthur449 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I'm not sure how hard it would be, but would it be possible to write up a review of a few PicoPSU adapters? I've considered a few for low-power builds, but I've always been wary of the little no-name sealed plastic bricks that come with them.Then again, I don't know if Anandtech would be the ideal audience for such a review.
clarkn0va - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Ditto. I own a wide variety of PicoPSU and other related electronics from mini-box/ituner, as well as some similar Antec DC-DC products. I would love to see more of this stuff reviewed, with some emphasis on the "black box" bricks that can be had for very little outlay in some cases.freezervv - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
> I'm not sure how hard it would be, but would it be possible to write up a review of a few PicoPSU adapters?This!! Please.
It's difficult to find information on suitable adapters, and it's kind of a critical part of the build given how little PicoPSUs filter their input (afaicr).
Machelios - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I noticed that the enermax PSU that you reviewed is not the same as the one on newegg. In the gallery, (this pic:http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/2123#7) the model is ENP450AWT.
However, you say you are revieweing the ENP450AST, which is the one available on newegg.
The ENP450AST (newegg link:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... lacks the 80 plus bronze certification and has less sleeved cables as far as I can see.
So, it seems you have reviewed the wrong psu...
Machelios - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
sorry, the link was wrong for the psu on newegghere is the right one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I love those manufactureres with hundreds of versions. Ironically they didn't want me to review their Triathlor 385W as it is "not available in the US".The AST is also a good PSU.
However, pricing will be a problem now.
Thank you for this correction.
Flashfir - Tuesday, December 1, 2015 - link
AST is also a good PSU eh? I trust you know what you're talking about - care to elucidate? I shared this on this thread in slickdeals and your post/comment about the Enermax will get some attention there so your comments would be much appreciated by many ;)http://slickdeals.net/f/8336981-enermax-naxn-enp45...
augiem - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I find that the one crucial point missing in ALL computer hardware reviews is long term reliability. It's understandable given the circumstances, but I wish there were some way for hardware reviewers to do some kind of simulated stress testing. I have found over the years, especially with motherboards and power supplies, that the reviews that award winners based on their feature set don't always do well long-term. The only way I've found to get an indication of this factor is through user reviews, which is not a perfect either as most reviews posted a few months past initial purchase are negative. Still it gives me a little better way to compare.I personally have had quite numerous failures 6 months+ out with excellently reviewed hardware, especially when its a lesser-known brand or a newcomer to the field.
piroroadkill - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
You can get some idea from the quality of components used, the soldering, and so on..But yes, a soak test would be nice.
HardOCP does something close to this - their Torture Test - 8 hours @ 80% load, which is quite a nice test. Maybe something like this but for a bit longer?
Maybe with a high ambient temperature.. Maybe some power cycling during the test (to full cold, then back on again) to test cold joints and how well the PSU copes with heat cycling.
I don't know, just some ideas. But yeah, these tests would quite a bit of time.
arthur449 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Look at the product's warranty and its terms and conditions. Pay close attention to how long the warranty lasts on replacements. A 5-year warranty doesn't mean much if they're only guaranteeing the replacement for 90-days. The longer a company is willing to allow easy and (mostly) free replacement of the product, the longer they're guessing it should last. Divide product price by the number of years the company allows hassle-free replacement for a rough estimate of long term value.Of course, this doesn't apply to new brands that simply haven't been around for very long, or brands that are simply rebadging cheap 'no-name' vendors.
Freddo - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I bought a FSP Aurum 400W 80 Plus Gold about a year ago, and I'm EXTREMELY pleased with it. It's very cool and energy efficientI have my computer on pretty much 24/7, but last week I turned it off for pretty much the first time since I got the PSU to install more RAM, and the PSU was still very cool, didn't feel like it was on at all.
http://www.fspgroupusa.com/aurum-gold-400-au400/p/...
jasonnovak - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
This power supply has been on sale for under $20 after rebates a few times over the last months - it's on sale right now for another day, at newegg 15% off code and rebate.It's a re-badged Seasonic S12II - high quality unit. I got a few as spares, use a HCG-620 myself.
Guspaz - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I've got a Shuttle SZ77R5 with a 500W PSU, running an i7-3770k and a GeForce GTX 670... It doesn't get all that much faster than this without your cost/performance ratio going to crap, and the 500W PSU is way more than enough.Why this is the case should be obvious: the processor has a 77W TDP, the graphics chip has a tdp of 170W, which is 247W at full load, and those are the two biggest power draws in the case. Yes, the other parts use power, like the hard disks (I've got SSDs), fans, memory, chipset, etc. but not enough to max out even a 500W PSU.
QChronoD - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
For your system a 500W supply sounds great, but for other people they might have more stuff in their box that needs more power. For example, my main system has an i7-920, GTX 560, and 14hdds. It was giving me random fits occasionally when rebooting on my old 650W supply (can't remember the name but I believe it was one of the recommended ones either on here or tom's or someplace) I ended up replacing it with an 850W and now I don't get restart cycles anymore. Theoretically, the 650W supply had enough power to run everything (and still 100+W of spare capacity), but something wasn't happy and a large supply seems to have fixed everything.Finally - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Bullshit.What you are describing is the American mentality towards the environment, not much else.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I think he's almost certainly correct in that the PSU was a problem -- HDDs tend to draw power differently than GPUs and CPUs (same voltage, different rails). The real question is what he's doing with 14 HDDs in a single system. Sounds more like something for a file server, and if you're running a file server you should probably also have a higher quality PSU to begin with.As for your contention that he has an "American mentality towards the environment", kindly take your stereotyping elsewhere. Very likely this has nothing at all to do with his nationality and is simply a reflection of his enthusiasm for computers and technology.
KAlmquist - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Hard drives are commonly designed to draw up to 2 amps on the 12 volt line when spinning up, so if you spin up 14 hard drives at ones the power draw could be 2A * 12V * 14 = 672 watts. Normally, systems with large numbers of hard drives are configured to spin up a few drives at a time to avoid overloading the power supply. The alternative is to do what you did: buy a very large power supply.JimmiG - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Still running a Corsair 450W VX PSU since 2007 here. Currently with an overclocked Phenom II X4 system and GTX460. Rock solid. I always laugh when people ask whether their new 750W PSU's will be enough for a Sandy Bridge and Radeon 6850 plus one SSD...bwave - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Why would you consider any of these when you can get a Cooler Master Elite 460W for $29.99 or a Cooler Master 500w for $37.99 ?I've used hundreds of the Cooler Masters with zero failures, very high quality and it's a name brand!
'nar - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
That's what I want to know. I use the same two all the time, but I am almost scared to find out how they actually test.Most users do not notice, and do not care. They only want the cheapest PSU. I may get them to allow me to installed a better one, but only so far. Most of the PSU's reviewed here are marginal in that regard.
We're talking about systems with a core i3 and integrated graphics, and a single hard drive. Maybe it can push 100-120 watts, when the grand kids try to play WOW on their grandparents' computer. Sometimes they want the $25 model even.
Shoot, for office workstations I use these Cooler Masters even. I haven't had a problem yet. Nowadays that means Core-i5, 8GB DDR3, and 60GB SSD. I built a server recently that only used 18watts at idle! It is just hard to find good PSU's at less then 400 watts.
pvdw - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
Here's some good ones to look at in 350W-450W range:Seasonic X-400 Fanless
Seasonic S12II-380
Silentmaxx Fanless 400W MX460-PFL01
Nexus Value 430
Seasonic M12II-430
And just above the 450W range, but unlikely to use any more power in most systems are these good ones:
Enermax Modu/Pro87+ 500W
Kingwin STR-500
pvdw - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
BTW, though I really enjoy most Anandtech articles, your PSU ones can't beat SilentPCReview. But then I can't see how you could do better without an anechoic chamberCheck out their list of recommended supplies:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs
A5 - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
The cheapest PSU on that list is well over $100, which is more than double the most expensive one in this article, which is about finding a good "cheap" PSU.I'm glad AT did this article as it should encourage a little more competition in the low-end space.
knutjb - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
In my experience I've had a couple low end PSUs do bad things to MBs even though they were modestly loaded. After using a number of different manufacturers all I buy are Seasonics. I get them when they are on sale.I have a 9 yr old 600 S-12? on its second system and the output measures the same as it did when new. Blow out the dust occasionally and it just works. Even in low end systems I don't trust inexpensive PSUs, their quality control is all but non-existent with wide variation in samples.
You get what you pay for and I don't like buying things twice.
pvdw - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
A quick search turns up this link:http://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-ATX12V-S12II-430-BR...
The Seasonic S12II 430 for $60 shipped. Or the 380W for $54 shipped.
clarkn0va - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Seasonic SS-350ETSupposedly not as quiet as their retail offerings, but always inexpensive. I would like to see how this one holds up against similar offerings.
Maybe AT needs a Bench section for PSUs?
Belard - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
I've bought some CX models for bottom end PCs for clients...But I picked up two 500w models, both were defective.
1) Defective power connector (at the motherboard)...
2) Flutter fan noises.
Returned them, bought Thermaltake TR2s.
piroroadkill - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
When the Corsairs first hit the scene, the HX series were all Seasonic.Corsair is a nice rebrander, but I go straight to Seasonic for my own system's PSU these days. I have a Seasonic X-660..
Arnulf - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
Great article !I wish you could round up even more models and/or present the results in a common bench-like database (you know, like the CPU comparison etc.) where different models coudl be added over time.
silverblue - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
Enermax NAXN ENP450AWT-B 450W - £60 at Scan:http://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-enermax-naxn-8...
(Unfortunately, out of stock)
Rasurbo RAP350 350W - £44 inc. delivery on eBay:
http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/280832584568?var=lv...
The 450W variant - £58 inc. delivery on eBay:
http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/280758645995?var=lv...
Corsair CX430 V2 430W - from £35 inc. delivery:
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=Corsair...
You can find FSP Hexa, Aurum and Fortron PSUs quite easily; the Aurum 80 PLUS Gold 500W is £62 inc. delivery.
Phaedrus2129 - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
That Sinan PSU is likely made by LongYi, a small and crappy PSU manufacturer in Guangdong, China. They make knock-off, cost-down designs based on reverse-engineered FSP and similar PSUs.Martin Kaffei - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
Thanks for these information. I guess there are more brands who use this manufacturer so it wasn't useless to test a German product.hasseb64 - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
Not many need more than 400W anymore, some think it's better to buy more now to be sure about future upgrades, but that view is should be reversed, total watt consumtion in builds going down for every generatio. I hope to see Platinum/Gold PSU from 200-300W in the future.Owning:
460W GOLD ATX
300W Gold ATX
bryanl - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
"The Teapo models don't have the longest lifetime and lowest ESR; however, we've never detected a problem with Teapo in power supplies."Official ratings mean little when they're not honest, and while I haven't looked at Teapos in recent power supplies, they had very high failure rates in older CWT supplies, including those sold as Antec Smartpowers and Truepowers.
Martin Kaffei - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
True, but Teapo has several products, you can't compare old models with current offerings. And some ratings are wrong for sure, but most manufacturers in this roundup used the same series and some of this companies have less than 1% failure rate according to retail shops.Not least you can't compare old PSUs with a modern 80Plus device. Temperatures are much lower today and switching frequency is different (which is why a low-ESR model would have been nice anyway). The ambient conditions are different. Teapo had problems on mainboards for the same reason. There are no bad or good components, just the right choice for a specific range of functions.
bryanl - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
"True, but Teapo has several products, you can't compare old models with current offerings. And some ratings are wrong for sure, but most manufacturers in this roundup used the same series and some of this companies have less than 1% failure rate according to retail shops.Not least you can't compare old PSUs with a modern 80Plus device. Temperatures are much lower today and switching frequency is different (which is why a low-ESR model would have been nice anyway). The ambient conditions are different. Teapo had problems on mainboards for the same reason. There are no bad or good components, just the right choice for a specific range of functions. "
These were mostly Teapo SC (green w/ gold or bronze writing), as new as 2010, a product still being made. What model Teapos were you thinking of?
I believe these operated at frequencies of 60K-100K Hz and averaged temperatures of 50-65C. What are the operating conditions of the capacitors in the 80Plus power supplies?
Power supplies will often continue to operate adequately even years after capacitor failure since some capacitors are redundant, including with motherboard capacitors, and most computers draw little power.
Martin Kaffei - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Even then it might be that Teapo changed some ingredients.However, let's assume that this is not the case. Current PSUs switch much faster than 100 KHz in order to reduce component size. E.g. 250 KHz is a common value these days, some of them are even faster. This is just one out of many different conditions:
"averaged temperatures of 50-65C."
No matter where--it will be lower, but where did you measure these temperatures? On which outputs or circuits did they fail? Did they all fail? Is there more or less space for cooling than in most PSUs in this review? How high was the average ambient temperature during operation? Do these PSUs have the comparable ripple values? How high was current? How high was load?
This and even more is what we need to evaluate the position.
For sure PSUs can operate without some of the output capacitors, but not for ever and ever. There are signs. In many cases you can hear noises when capacitors fail (or measure something). Moreoever I've never seen faulty Teapo capacitors in old FSP units and I used plenty of them for years.
The source of such problems can be elsewhere. I had a PSU with an oscillating controller and all capacitors on 5VSB died. Does this mean the capacitors are the problem? No, after replacing a single resistor the controller was stable and the caps didn't fail again.
bryanl - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
"RE: Capacitors in Rosewill power supply by Martin Kaffei on Friday, July 06, 2012 Even then it might be that Teapo changed some ingredients.However, let's assume that this is not the case. Current PSUs switch much faster than 100 KHz in order to reduce component size. E.g. 250 KHz is a common value these days, some of them are even faster. This is just one out of many different conditions:
"averaged temperatures of 50-65C."
No matter where--it will be lower, but where did you measure these temperatures? On which outputs or circuits did they fail? Did they all fail? Is there more or less space for cooling than in most PSUs in this review? How high was the average ambient temperature during operation? Do these PSUs have the comparable ripple values? How high was current? How high was load?
This and even more is what we need to evaluate the position.
For sure PSUs can operate without some of the output capacitors, but not for ever and ever. There are signs. In many cases you can hear noises when capacitors fail (or measure something). Moreoever I've never seen faulty Teapo capacitors in old FSP units and I used plenty of them for years.
The source of such problems can be elsewhere. I had a PSU with an oscillating controller and all capacitors on 5VSB died. Does this mean the capacitors are the problem? No, after replacing a single resistor the controller was stable and the caps didn't fail again. "
250 KHz has long been common for motherboards, but which PSUs oscillate near that frequency? I wasn't able to find anything operating above approximately 150 KHz at websites that presented oscillographs (Jonnyguru.com, Hardwaresecrets.com) where the fundamental could be identified. Temperature readings were taken with direct contact thermistors or thermocouples touching the metal bodies of the output capacitors while the PSUs operated motherboards without high performance video cards.
In well designed power supplies, few components fail nearly as much as capacitors, and there's a fairly common +5VSB circuit made of 2 discrete transistors that overvolts when it fails, almost always due to a bad capacitor, often 1-2 10V, 1000uF Teapo SCs.
Bambooz - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link
Forget about Teapo. C(r)apxon is the biggest epidemic right now. They're in basically every Fortron and Fortron based PSU (Bequiet anyone?)If you have a PSU with Crapxon on the secondary side it's almost guaranteed it won't make it to it's 2nd birthday without the crapxons puking their guts out and in turn, sh*tloads of ripple (I've had client computers where shitty cheap FSP OEM PSUs killed HDDs due to their caps failing)
Instability, whining and sometimes (for example Bequiet E5 series and FSP Bluestorm I & II) power-up problems (because of bad caps on the 5VSB circuitry) are pretty much the norm with these..
No matter how good fortrons may sound.. avoid them at all costs unless you can recap them BEFORE putting them into service.
Onus - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
I too am interested in lower-wattage units, so this article was a good read. I've been more impressed with FSP's recent offerings. The way the Raider's efficiency quickly ramped up was excellent. Maybe not down to the Picos, I am also interested in physically smaller units, like TFX and SFX models. Seasonic and FSP have some good ones there.My "goto" PSU in budget builds for years has been the Antec EA-380D. I've never had one fail. I buy Seasonic or Antec for my own systems, although I'd consider FSP, Corsair, or Enermax also.
If you go through the assortment of reviews Gabrial Torres at HardwareSecrets has done on CM PSUs, you will understand why I call them "Crappermaster." The "Extreme ..." lines in particular are near-junk, most with liar-labels and/or claimed protection circuits actually missing. That's consumer fraud. One of my favorite comments though comes from a HardOCP review, in which the GX650 was summarized as a "polished turd in a box." Friends don't let friends buy Crappermaster (even their good stuff, because that is supporting a dishonest business).
Scootiep7 - Thursday, July 5, 2012 - link
What, no Cooler Master GX 450W Bronze? I CALL SHENANIGANS SIRS! A recount must be done.nubie - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
I still love my PC Power and Cooling Silencer 470, from before they were bought up by (forget right now).Of course at over $100 it really needs to be worth it, but I have seen some on the 'Bay for $30 or so.
Too bad that PC Power didn't have a lower power supply in this test, I would have liked to see how they measure up.
betam4x - Saturday, July 7, 2012 - link
I would even go so far as to say 1 KW power supplies aren't needed for most configurations. Running a Core i7 2600k, 16 GB RAM, 6 Hard Drives/SSDs (2x2TB WD Blacks, 2x1TB WD blacks, 1x1 TB Seagate, and 1xSSD 256 GB Force GT) as well as a radeon 6970. under load i pull 400 watts from a 650 watt PS. A bit more than the review mentions, but most people would swear they need a 1 KW ps for this setup.veri745 - Monday, July 9, 2012 - link
I, for one, would really appreciate some more comparison charts with all of the PSU's stacked up against eachother. You don't need every data point but a summary of at least idle and load, like maybe 50W and 400W, or 20% and 100%, would be much appreciated.Something so I don't have to flip through 9 pages to compare ripple, efficiency, noise, and PFC
Pappnaas - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Again a review by Mr. Kaffei.And again you didn't give any information about the size of your reviewed psu's.
In my view you did not do your homework. You omitted basic facts by not listing the physical dimensions of your reviewed objects. Anandtech tries to keep up a nearly scientific approach to their other reviews.
Would you omit the measures if reviewing a computer case? A smartphone? A NAS-Box? A car? A TV?
I brought this point up in several comments, alas to no avail.
I think you're shooting yourself in the knee.
Switch to german:
Wenn grundlegende Dinge wie Maße fehlen, wie vertrauenswürdig ist das ganze Werk? Wissenschaftliche Arbeit fängt bei der Beschreibung der Testobjekte an.
Wenn also die Grundlagen wissenschaftlicher Methodik verletzt werden, dann stelle ich fest, dass Anandtech die sich selbst auferlegte "professionelle Arbeitsweise" nicht einhält. Sicher ist das ein wenig Haarspalterei, werden einige sagen. Meine Einstellung: Macht es richtig oder gar nicht. Sonst droht Euer Niveau auf das der PC-Welt zurück zu fallen.
Bambooz - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link
Dein Niveau (wenn man das noch so nennen kann) ist wohl schon auf unter PC-Welt gerutscht. So richtung Computerbild..zoblace - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/psu_reports/THERM.......on that page they tested Thermaltake Smart 430 and it acheived 80+ Bronze eff. no problem....
after that could we trust online tests at all....