Part 2: Four Cheap 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supplies, Reviewed

[Guest]

Ready for part two of our low-cost power supply round-up? Here are four more products, including Seasonic's SSR-360GP, which is 80 PLUS Gold-certified. Is this little 360 W PSU the bargain of the century, or is its Gold label simply pyrite?

Part 2: Four Cheap 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supplies, Reviewed : Read more

 

[Deemo13]

You guys aught to make a power supply hierarchy chart.

 

[pepsimtl]

Please, if you could say , if the power supply is compatible with Haswell .I think this is very important .

 

[benedict78]

I second that request. Does ANY of those PSUs support the new Haswell C7 state?

 

[ojas]

There's also a CX500M...

 

[jeffunit]

I am not sure why you think that a 40w bulb is purely resistive. Almost all bulb filaments are coiled, which makes them inductive. For example, http://www.donsbulbs.com/cgi-bin/r/b.pl/h4652|12.8v|40w|60w~usa.html shows a 12v 40w bulb filament, which is coiled.

Perhaps you should measure the inductance of your bulbs, rather than just stating they are purely resistive.

 

[vertexx]

A couple different PSUs for different applications. I use the Corsair CX 430 & 500 for budget gaming builds, and just this week I ordered the Seasonic for the first time for a home server build. Nice to see those choices validated.

Thanks guys, nice article!

 

[Someone Somewhere]

In spite of its low price, no important components fall victim to cost cutting.

In the CX500. I think Samxon caps count as cost cutting.

 

[flong777]

I have recommended the CX500 many times to budget builders and now I feel better about it. It is the clear winner. Funny TH says it is loud but it was nearly identical to the CM 520 on their chart in DB noise.

On sale you can pick up the CX500 for $40 which is about as cheap as you will ever find any PSU. If you compare how well that Corsair backs its products, there really is no comparison - Corsair is the only choice.

As far as the Seasonic 360, why on earth would you buy a 360W PSU? I just don't see the point. While I can justify a 500W PSU to a budget builder, I really cannot comprehend recommending a 360W PSU to anyone. I feel cautious with a low wattage 500W PSU. All of these PSUs will run hot and loud if they are stressed and so moving up to a 650W or even an 850W PSU really is not that more expensive.

I got the gold rated 850W Corsair HX 850 for $144.00 on sale. I can not even begin to describe how excellent this PSU is. It runs as something around 92% efficiency under load and I have never hear the fan even come on (it may be that low fan is inaudible). It comes with a 7-year warranty and is modular.

If you are not strapped with a low budget, moving up is the only way to go. If you are, the CX 500 is a good choice.

 

[vertexx]

As far as the Seasonic 360, why on earth would you buy a 360W PSU? I just don't see the point. While I can justify a 500W PSU to a budget builder, I really cannot comprehend recommending a 360W PSU to anyone.

I just ordered the Seasonic for a home server build. The higher efficiency is a plus since it will be running 24x7. Plus, the system really doesn't need the extra wattage.

PSUs run more efficiently under load. IMO, the trend has been to overkill on the PSU when it's not really needed. In reality, when you actually add up the max loads of all components a 350-450W PSU is more than enough to run most single GPU gaming builds.

 

[vertexx]

I am not sure why you think that a 40w bulb is purely resistive. Almost all bulb filaments are coiled, which makes them inductive. For example, http://www.donsbulbs.com/cgi-bin/r/b.pl/h4652|12.8v|40w|60w~usa.html shows a 12v 40w bulb filament, which is coiled.

Perhaps you should measure the inductance of your bulbs, rather than just stating they are purely resistive.

It's been a while since I've been involved in DC power calculations, but these bulbs are DC bulbs. At DC steady state, what role does inductance play?

 

[JimmiG]

Please, if you could say , if the power supply is compatible with Haswell .I think this is very important .

All PSUs are compatible with Haswell. It's only the C6/C7 idle states that *may* cause problems.

Any PSU that uses DC to DC for the non-primary rails will support these idle states. Most other PSUs will be just fine as well. Remember that even if the CPU is drawing almost no power, you usually have some fan, hard drive etc. that's active on the 12V rail. I've never had any problems with my 5 years old Corsair VX 450W and my 4770K with C6/C7 enabled.

Even if you end up having to disable C6/C7 sleep, it will only increase power consumption by 3W at idle. This may make a difference with laptops, but it's hardly an issue with desktops.

PSUs run more efficiently under load. IMO, the trend has been to overkill on the PSU when it's not really needed. In reality, when you actually add up the max loads of all components a 350-450W PSU is more than enough to run most single GPU gaming builds.

True. PSUs only reach peak efficiency under a certain load. With an overpowered PSU, you may never load it enough for it to reach peak efficiency. A smaller PSU might end up being more efficient.

My 4770K overclocked to 4.5 GHz and a factory overclocked GTX 670 reaches 405W at the wall when stress-testing the GPU and CPU simultaneously. In games, it's at 250 - 310W depending on the game.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

None at all...

Inductors react to change in current and attempt to counter it. On a constant voltage with a constant resistance, current is also constant.

 

[vertexx]

Looking at those voltage spikes, I'm wondering if the DC bulbs could be the cause of that.

A couple of other guys have commented on the inductance of the light bulbs. While I don't think inductance has anything to do with DC loading at steady state, it certainly can play a role with fluctuations in DC loading (i.e. startup, shutdown, and fluctuations).

Those spikes occur at relative minimums and maximum voltages within the minor fluctuations of each PSU. If I remember correctly, that would indicate points where current is changing. Since inductance resists changes in current flow, that could cause a spike in voltage.

Interested in your thoughts on that.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Retest with a lot of NiChrome wire in a bucket?

 

[InvalidError]

Looking at those voltage spikes, I'm wondering if the DC bulbs could be the cause of that.

Unless lightbulbs which are passive devices have something in them that can generate glitch energy at over 10MHz, no.

The spikes are caused by impulse noise that occurs during the brief cross-conduction when switching elements inside the PSU toggle from forward rectifiers to free-wheeling rectifiers. For the few nanoseconds it takes for one device to turn on and the other to turn off, both will be conducting at the same time and this will momentarily short out the transformer's output. Although this cross-conduction is generally undesirable, some of it is necessary since without it, EMF from output inductors could destroy synchronous rectifiers.

In a real-world application, the PSU would have over 10 000uF worth of extra capacitance from the motherboard which should considerably reduce if not eliminate most of the (very-)high-frequency noise from the PSU visible from the motherboard's point of view.

 

[vertexx]

Unless lightbulbs which are passive devices have something in them that can generate glitch energy at over 10MHz, no.

I'm not saying this is definitely the reason, but a passive inductive load absolutely can cause a voltage spike with a fluctuation in current. Although your answer sounds a lot more smarter than mine.

But the theory is sound - more detailed explanation here:
http://www.daycounter.com/Articles/Inductive-Voltage-Spike.phtml

 

[Onus]

Over at HardwareSecrets, there's a guy named c.hegge who is an Australian PSU reviewer. He has documented how bad the Samxon "GF" capacitors are. They don't like heat, and tend to fail. He has recapped Corsair "CX" PSUs with capacitor problems. This is also described on the badcaps.org forums. The Corsair CX reviews well, and looks great when new, but I won't buy or recommend them, especially in gaming PCs that tend to run warm.
Of this batch of PSUs, I'd take the Seasonic every time. As Vertexx points out, it offers sufficient wattage for most PCs with a single graphics card using just one PCIe power connector.

 

[InvalidError]

I'm not saying this is definitely the reason, but a passive inductive load absolutely can cause a voltage spike with a fluctuation in current.

Not if the voltage spike is too short for the inductor's current to change by a significant amount.

Also, a passive load being excited at 200-500kHz by the PSU's ripple voltage would not mysteriously generate noise at over 10MHz no matter how capacitive or inductive it might be unless you make/break contact but then it wouldn't be quite a passive load anymore since it is being actively switched on/off.

Additionally, the back-EMF spike only applies when you are attempting to disconnect an inductive load before its current drops to zero. Here, the light bulbs remain connected to the PSU so there would be no make/break spikes from whatever inductance those bulbs might have as described in your link.

 

[Maxx_Power]

For those who worry about the inductance of the light bulb, remember that the inductance is proportional to the amount of electrons in the conductor, and therefore, for a length of wire, is proportional to the length and diameter of the wire, as well as the conductance of the wire.

To put it in perspective, the wire in a coiled incandescent light bulb (there are non-coiled ones) is very very thin (sub-milimeter), and about 60 cm long (2 feet). Therefore, the max inductance of the wire is about the same as a single strand of a stranded wire in the PSU wiring or the bench-test box wiring, and thus, much much less than the total inductance of the system, just due to wiring alone. In this way, Toms correctly considered the inductance of the light bulbs to be negligible, when compared to the principal resistance of the light bulb (the resistance of the bulb-wire is high, particularly when it is heated up).

 

[rolli59]

Great to see PSU reviews again at Toms. After these two I am glad I vent with the Antec HCG400 when I needed a spare last year.

 

[vertexx]

For those who worry about the inductance of the light bulb, remember that the inductance is proportional to the amount of electrons in the conductor, and therefore, for a length of wire, is proportional to the length and diameter of the wire, as well as the conductance of the wire.

To put it in perspective, the wire in a coiled incandescent light bulb (there are non-coiled ones) is very very thin (sub-milimeter), and about 60 cm long (2 feet). Therefore, the max inductance of the wire is about the same as a single strand of a stranded wire in the PSU wiring or the bench-test box wiring, and thus, much much less than the total inductance of the system, just due to wiring alone. In this way, Toms correctly considered the inductance of the light bulbs to be negligible, when compared to the principal resistance of the light bulb (the resistance of the bulb-wire is high, particularly when it is heated up).

Makes sense.

 

[RedJaron]

As far as the Seasonic 360, why on earth would you buy a 360W PSU? I just don't see the point. While I can justify a 500W PSU to a budget builder, I really cannot comprehend recommending a 360W PSU to anyone. I feel cautious with a low wattage 500W PSU. All of these PSUs will run hot and loud if they are stressed and so moving up to a 650W or even an 850W PSU really is not that more expensive.

A 360W PSU actually serves quite a few purposes in the lower-cost category. Vertexx already mentioned a home office server, but this would also do very well for a basic home office desktop, a casual gaming rig ( anything up to a 7850, ) or even a workstation for the 3D tinkerer. Considering how hard it can be to find a quality low-wattage PSU for basic use, I'm actually pretty exited about this product. In such a case, the Seasonic 360W is under a 50%-70% load and in its efficiency sweet spot. Compare that to your recommended 500W PSU that would be around 35%-50% load with poorer efficiency. And I don't fathom your definition of "loud" when this Seasonic under load is quieter than most GPUs and CPU coolers at idle.

Likewise, what is your definition of "not that more expensive"? The Seasonic 360 MSRP is $60. A quick glance at Newegg shows the cheapest 650W PSU MSRP is $70 for brands like Diablotek, Rosewill, and Raidmax. If you want a good Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, FSP, or XFX, you're into $100+ range. Yes, you can find sales and deals often that let you score a 650W down in the $60 range ( the Seasonic 620 is actually $65 right now, down from $95, ) but then you might find the 360 down in the $40s too. So again, how is a 33% price increase "not that more expensive"? It gets even funnier that you're recommending 850W since you're lucky to find those under $100 even on sale ( MSRP usually around $150+. ) You do know that you can't even begin to stress that PSU without serious OCing and multiple GPUs, right?

The fact is a PSU runs better above 50% load than below it. Dropping a 650W PSU into anything below a mid-high range gaming computer is an absolute waste of power capacity and money. Going above that wattage for the same system is even more absurd.

 

[Onus]

I've used three of the Seasonic 360G PSUs recently. They are silent, and absolutely strong enough for the non-gamer PCs in which I used them.
The only reason I could not use one in my "Omega" build is because of the number of drives. I have a SSD plus a RAID1 pair. I also have a system backup drive, plus an optical drive. That's one more SATA device than the number of SATA connectors available. I can't use an adapter, because although only 2/3 molex are needed for the top SATA dock and fans, the one free one is too far away to reach the drive cages.

 

[vertexx]

Check your specs on the Seasonic. I'm staring at mine, and it's rated for 30A on a single 12V rail, 16A at 5V, and 12A at 3.3V. A full 360W at 12V and 80W max between the 3.3V and 5V.