There's a large difference between Polymer Capacitors & Electrolytic capacitors; CapXon's reputation comes from the quality of their electrolytic capacitors, not their polymers. Polymer capacitors, in general, are pretty hard to mess up though. You'd really have to try to make bad poly's.
Perfectly so. CapXon is one of the ten largest and most reputable companies worldwide. They do have a mediocre reputation, half due to a couple of bad series and half because their products were used in horrible designs, but claiming that they are bad when therea re three dozen worse companies, or trying to suggest that only Japanese companies make good capacitors (in Taiwan), is...not useful.
I can't objectively comment on the quality CapXon capacitors, but i've personally had a poor experience with them in the past and if you google for CapXon you see nothing but criticism and poor reviews. They are very commonly called crapxon on the internet. I don't see how any of that equates to being reputable.
I sort of learned this lesson with my Antec Smart Power 450W. (If you know caps, you know what was in that.) Once I figured out there was a possible problem with my PSU I did what I could to prevent it. I blew the dust out every three months, and kept the tower as a whole as cool as possible. Then I after a year or so I bought a better PSU, the EA500. I don't remember the system it powered back then, probably my E6600 and 7750. My roommate needed a PSU after I upgraded it and I stuck that in there telling her to be gentle with it. Her system was an old P4 with a 9800 I think. (ATI 9800, not Nvidia 9800.) She didn't listen and stuck her case in that sweat box some/most desks come with because "that's where the computer goes right?" Needless to say the PSU didn't last long.
The point I'm trying to make is even bad caps can do their job if you are nice to them. And just because a cap doesn't come from X region doesn't mean it's bad.
I'm not familiar with the reputation of individual manufacturers, but even assuming that every capacitor make and model meet their manufacturer's specifications, you can still end up with capacitor death.
Capacitors have a defined expected lifetime, at a specific temperature, voltage, and ripple current. The "headline" ratings usually put you in the ballpark of a few thousand hours life expectancy, which is only slightly better than how long a classic light bulb lasts before burning out.
In a poor design, the voltage and temperature limits are usually met by the design, but ripple current spec is exceeded (if we presume the designer aimed for half decent usable life). Temp and V can be checked by average Joe user, ripple current is trickier.
I wonder if the "reputable" jp manufacturers have strings attached to sales, to make sure nobody blows up their capacitors...
Wow, that scope is pretty ancient and crappy! I mean, at least go for the Rigol DS1054Z -- twice the sample rate (max) and tons of features for a really great price.
As someone that isn't particularly well versed in oscilloscopes, would a "better" model make a difference in the results of an Anandtech review? I know you all strive for the highest quality in your reviews, but is this an example of little return on investment?
Not more accurate results on the current tests, but a better oscilloscope would allow for more tests. It will happen eventually but, with a price tag of nearly $9000, it will take a while.
I feel sorry for the people in Europe where this is one of the best options they have, when North American market has so much competition from EVGA, Corsair, Coolermaster and Antec, making be cool! pretty irrelevant here.
If I were going to recommend a PSU in this price class I'd go for a pure-breed Seasonic unit or a PC Power and Cooling unit while you can still find them...
But EVGA's 10-year warranty is killer, especially since the only PSU failure I've had was after 5 years.
Actually, on the whole, the only thing European Consumers have more choice in is cell phones and possible automobiles. Electronic choices reign supreme in North America, especially computer component selection. Corsair only markets three of their eight models in the EU because only 3 were certified by the restrictive regulatory requirements.
I own a G2 750 and it's perfectly quiet under heavy OC.
Temperature performance is worse than the RM? How so? In cooling? I don't believe that, considering the extremely agressive passive fan profile of the RM. Performance at temperature? Perhaps. The RM does feature good vreg on some rails and efficiency is not bad. Not that I'd spend even a second of my time looking at the RM750 though, with those horrible electrolytics.
Except the RM has had terrible user ratings because of generally terrible quality on that line of PSUs. Whereas the EVGA G2 PSUs and P2s are Superflower made.
Depends what wattage you take, the 750W is excellent. No fan till about 375W as well, without having to worry that your cheap ass capacitors will fail after 5 years because of the heat..
I've had 4 of 5 Antec supplies eventually die on me (2 SmartPower 350, 2 Earthwatts 380). All died gracefully (usually the standby voltage ie. failing to turn on or resume from standby the first symptom). I think the shortest lived one was maybe a year and the longest lived about 4 years. My Earthwatts 500 still works and powering my E8500 based system. I'm not convinced they are a quality brand, especially at the lower end (the kind that are bundled with their cases). They are a rebrander too, so you really don't know what you're getting. TBH I don't expect power supplies to last forever, you just hope when they go they go peacefully.
be quiet! were one of the first companies to provide silent components. They had the top quality a decade ago, but the Asian and American companies caught up in the meantime.
Also, 50% of the German population have a significantly lower income now than they had 15 years ago, so be quiet! started to put more focus on having cheap products as well. That should not have affected their top-line, but apparently it does.
I've owned one PSU from be quiet! It was about a decade ago and they were one of the few companies that tried to market quiet components at the time. Unfortunately that PSU didn't last long. After only a few months it blew up and I ended up replacing it with a top of the line CoolerMaster unit. This was a bad move as CM just didn't know anything about the design of PSU's at this time. So less than a month later I had another dead PSU and took to frankenstein together a few PSU's I had laying about about just so I got my machine up and running. The day after I got myself a Zippy/EMACS 460W PSU. (HP2-6460P)
If you've never heard of them it's fine. They have next to no presence in the retail market, but are very well known for their server PSU's. If you read between the lines you will realize that this means they are built like tanks and about as stealthy as a M1 Abrams. It also cost about twice as much as the retail brand PSU's but they are nearly impossible to kill and can deliver way more current than what's specified, and they are still in production today...
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maeda_toshiie - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
"CapXon is a reputable company and their polymer capacitors are among the best worldwide"????? You do know CapXon's reputation and its position in the cap quality rankings...?!
Tator Tot - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
There's a large difference between Polymer Capacitors & Electrolytic capacitors; CapXon's reputation comes from the quality of their electrolytic capacitors, not their polymers. Polymer capacitors, in general, are pretty hard to mess up though. You'd really have to try to make bad poly's.E.Fyll - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Perfectly so. CapXon is one of the ten largest and most reputable companies worldwide. They do have a mediocre reputation, half due to a couple of bad series and half because their products were used in horrible designs, but claiming that they are bad when therea re three dozen worse companies, or trying to suggest that only Japanese companies make good capacitors (in Taiwan), is...not useful.dishayu - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
I can't objectively comment on the quality CapXon capacitors, but i've personally had a poor experience with them in the past and if you google for CapXon you see nothing but criticism and poor reviews. They are very commonly called crapxon on the internet. I don't see how any of that equates to being reputable.4745454b - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
I sort of learned this lesson with my Antec Smart Power 450W. (If you know caps, you know what was in that.) Once I figured out there was a possible problem with my PSU I did what I could to prevent it. I blew the dust out every three months, and kept the tower as a whole as cool as possible. Then I after a year or so I bought a better PSU, the EA500. I don't remember the system it powered back then, probably my E6600 and 7750. My roommate needed a PSU after I upgraded it and I stuck that in there telling her to be gentle with it. Her system was an old P4 with a 9800 I think. (ATI 9800, not Nvidia 9800.) She didn't listen and stuck her case in that sweat box some/most desks come with because "that's where the computer goes right?" Needless to say the PSU didn't last long.The point I'm trying to make is even bad caps can do their job if you are nice to them. And just because a cap doesn't come from X region doesn't mean it's bad.
shadowjk - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link
I'm not familiar with the reputation of individual manufacturers, but even assuming that every capacitor make and model meet their manufacturer's specifications, you can still end up with capacitor death.Capacitors have a defined expected lifetime, at a specific temperature, voltage, and ripple current. The "headline" ratings usually put you in the ballpark of a few thousand hours life expectancy, which is only slightly better than how long a classic light bulb lasts before burning out.
In a poor design, the voltage and temperature limits are usually met by the design, but ripple current spec is exceeded (if we presume the designer aimed for half decent usable life). Temp and V can be checked by average Joe user, ripple current is trickier.
I wonder if the "reputable" jp manufacturers have strings attached to sales, to make sure nobody blows up their capacitors...
extide - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Wow, that scope is pretty ancient and crappy! I mean, at least go for the Rigol DS1054Z -- twice the sample rate (max) and tons of features for a really great price.E.Fyll - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
The scope is old but it is reliable and excels the required specifications....and I want a much better oscilloscope too, but things do tend to be more complicated when you actually have to pay for it.
jordanclock - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
As someone that isn't particularly well versed in oscilloscopes, would a "better" model make a difference in the results of an Anandtech review? I know you all strive for the highest quality in your reviews, but is this an example of little return on investment?E.Fyll - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Not more accurate results on the current tests, but a better oscilloscope would allow for more tests. It will happen eventually but, with a price tag of nearly $9000, it will take a while.Mondozai - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Terrible prices. The EVGA G2 850W is an awesome PSU. It has a whopping 10 year guarantee and for half the price at that.Skip, skip, skip.
Samus - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
I feel sorry for the people in Europe where this is one of the best options they have, when North American market has so much competition from EVGA, Corsair, Coolermaster and Antec, making be cool! pretty irrelevant here.If I were going to recommend a PSU in this price class I'd go for a pure-breed Seasonic unit or a PC Power and Cooling unit while you can still find them...
But EVGA's 10-year warranty is killer, especially since the only PSU failure I've had was after 5 years.
E.Fyll - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Actually, you should not be. All those brands are readily available in Europe as well.Samus - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
Actually, on the whole, the only thing European Consumers have more choice in is cell phones and possible automobiles. Electronic choices reign supreme in North America, especially computer component selection. Corsair only markets three of their eight models in the EU because only 3 were certified by the restrictive regulatory requirements.SmokingCrop - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
One can buy all the Corsair series in Belgium/Netherlands: CX, CXM, RM, CSM, HXi, AX, AXi, VSOxford Guy - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
The G2 is noisy and its temperature performance is worse than the Corsair RM 850.tabascosauz - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
I own a G2 750 and it's perfectly quiet under heavy OC.Temperature performance is worse than the RM? How so? In cooling? I don't believe that, considering the extremely agressive passive fan profile of the RM. Performance at temperature? Perhaps. The RM does feature good vreg on some rails and efficiency is not bad. Not that I'd spend even a second of my time looking at the RM750 though, with those horrible electrolytics.
Antronman - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Except the RM has had terrible user ratings because of generally terrible quality on that line of PSUs. Whereas the EVGA G2 PSUs and P2s are Superflower made.SmokingCrop - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Depends what wattage you take, the 750W is excellent.No fan till about 375W as well, without having to worry that your cheap ass capacitors will fail after 5 years because of the heat..
darkfalz - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I've had 4 of 5 Antec supplies eventually die on me (2 SmartPower 350, 2 Earthwatts 380). All died gracefully (usually the standby voltage ie. failing to turn on or resume from standby the first symptom). I think the shortest lived one was maybe a year and the longest lived about 4 years. My Earthwatts 500 still works and powering my E8500 based system. I'm not convinced they are a quality brand, especially at the lower end (the kind that are bundled with their cases). They are a rebrander too, so you really don't know what you're getting. TBH I don't expect power supplies to last forever, you just hope when they go they go peacefully.Howard - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
phase != fazeHrel - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
44db at 500W? Seasonic blows this crap out of the water. I'm really surprised, normally stuff made in Germany is top quality.ShieTar - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
be quiet! were one of the first companies to provide silent components. They had the top quality a decade ago, but the Asian and American companies caught up in the meantime.Also, 50% of the German population have a significantly lower income now than they had 15 years ago, so be quiet! started to put more focus on having cheap products as well. That should not have affected their top-line, but apparently it does.
Cpt. Obvious - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
I've owned one PSU from be quiet! It was about a decade ago and they were one of the few companies that tried to market quiet components at the time. Unfortunately that PSU didn't last long. After only a few months it blew up and I ended up replacing it with a top of the line CoolerMaster unit. This was a bad move as CM just didn't know anything about the design of PSU's at this time. So less than a month later I had another dead PSU and took to frankenstein together a few PSU's I had laying about about just so I got my machine up and running. The day after I got myself a Zippy/EMACS 460W PSU. (HP2-6460P)If you've never heard of them it's fine. They have next to no presence in the retail market, but are very well known for their server PSU's. If you read between the lines you will realize that this means they are built like tanks and about as stealthy as a M1 Abrams. It also cost about twice as much as the retail brand PSU's but they are nearly impossible to kill and can deliver way more current than what's specified, and they are still in production today...
sawe - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
Main reason for buying one these are low noise and fan controller. There was no mention of the controller ?