Ok, sometimes I'd like to slap Aris for some of the things he says in articles and in his videos. No doubt he's a really intelligent guy, on another level really, but those are exactly the sort of people, exceptionally smart people who often lack common sense in a lot of cases, but sometimes the things that come out of his mouth just simply make me want to cringe or laugh.
I am personally very skeptical of warranties past the 3–5 year mark. Think about it: You buy a new car, and in the majority of cases, the warranty period ranges from three to five years. Yet with a power supply, you suddenly have a warranty of 10 years, which looks awry, at least to me.
Nobody with any common sense would say this, because they'd understand that a power supply has VERY FEW parts to have to worry about suffering a premature failure as compared to a vehicle which has THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of parts on it when you consider the full body with it's control system and electronics, the power and drive trains with their full control systems and electronics and all the mechanical moving parts throughout the powertrain, drivetrain, brake system, expansive body systems, and the continuous exposure of ALL of those systems to harsh, rigorous environmental factors like heat, cold, water, salt, oil, fuels and so on.
A power supply in a PC doesn't ever have to worry about being exposed to, or withstanding any sort of conditions like that so why would they be compared against each other?
What would make a person think that a power supply should have a similar warranty structure as an item that has all those things going against it from the start to worry about. By comparison, a PC power supply has VERY DAMN FEW things to worry or be concerned about, so that there is no way you could ever possibly have the same concerns about longevity with a power supply as what you have with a vehicle, in order to justify that they ought to have the same warranty considerations.
Car manufacturers have an average of 5 year warranties because they know that is the age at which many of the components in those systems are simply going to begin failing at due to age and use. If power supply manufacturers are choosing components that they know, because of research and development testing, will last 7 to 10 years, then why would it be unwise to warranty those components for that long? It wouldn't, and that's why it's a nonsense statement from an otherwise no-nonsense engineer and respected reviewer.
As far as the Chieftec unit itself, I couldn't care less if Seasonic themselves were building the units for them (Or Super Flower. Or CWT. Or Delta. Or whoever). Unless that was the case, and they had some terrific sale where the units were half off, it would still be nothing I'd ever purchase because I'd know that I could go buy units from those manufacturers or from other brands who use them and are well known, trusted, and have far more ability to sell with lower margins than any lesser volume label, and get the same platform for less money.
Good to know though in case somebody DOES happen to have one of those units, we can know that it isn't complete trash right off the bat like most of their units are. And I say "most" because this is not the only model or series that Chieftec has ever sold that was halfway decent, but even so, they are few and there have a believe been problems with longevity even on the one or two decent platforms they've sold in the past that weren't just fire hazards. Maybe this series is better than previously, but the fact that they have cheap secondary Teapo caps, a cheap noisy fan that can only do Standard++ noise rating, loose regulation, a 2 year only warranty and the other laundry list of problems Aris noted, is more than enough for me to never recommend these units to anybody regardless of whether it's a DC-DC unit or not.
This is another of those newer platform models that I'd recommend people avoid out of an abundance of caution.
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