The Power Supply Unit tier list Discussion thread

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Could you add some Xilence psu's to the list, I don't expect much quality, but they seem to be selling lately on european sites. Also, I don't see Thermaltake's entry level Smart series or Hamburg PSU's I think they'd be about tier 3 :)
 


No reviews of the Thermaltake Hamburg unit are around at this time. Also, no Xilence units have been reviewed by the top tier PSU reviewers e.g. Jonnyguru.
 
Update 15th October 2014 -

More removals of discontinued units from 2011 include in ascending order -

ACBel Polytech units
Akasa units (Until some reviews of their Cobrapower lineup show up)
AMS units (Possibly pulled out of consumer grade market)
Asus units (Pulled out of PSU market)
Athenapower units (No longer making consumer grade PSUs)
FSP Everest
Futurepower units (Company currently MIA)
Hiper units
HiPro units
Huntkey units

Kingwin -
Lazer
Mach 1
Their budget PSUs

Masscool units
Mushkin units (Pulled out of PSU market)
NorthQ units (Company currently MIA)
OCZ / PC Power and cooling units (OCZ defunct, all assets of their PSUs are now under the Firepower Technology brand)

Rosewill -
(Their older PSUs)
Xtreme RX

Scythe (Lack of reviews)
Seventeam units (Lack of new reviews of their newer models)
Silverstone F Prefix
Sparkle units (Pulled out of western market completely)
Spire units (Lack of new reviews of their newer models)
Superflower Amazon
Supermicro / Ablecom units (Out of consumer grade business)
Tagan units (No longer making PSUs)
Topower units (Possibly out of computer hardware business altogether)
XClio units (No longer making PSUs. Now focused on chassis and fan design)
Xion units

All InWin PSUs re-reviewed and moved to specific tiers -

Commander III - Tier 3
Glacier - Tier 4
GreenMe - Tier 3

Kingwin's Powerforce units moved to Tier 3

That's another major update finished. More updates when possible.
 


Well I did find a review on overclockers.com for the Thermaltake Smart 530w if you'd like to take a look at it:

http://www.overclockers.com/thermaltake-smart-series-530-power-supply-review/

and I found a database on Techpowerup for some of the Xilence PSUs I was talking about:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviewdb/PSUs/Xilence/

Some are in German, ignore those, but some are in english (like the second serie a review). Just letting you know :)
 


Smart series moved to Tier 4 due to poor ripple suppression and bad soldering.

Xilence Peformance A series moved to Tier 3
Xilence XQ series moved to tier 4, due to the crapacitors used i.e. X-CON, CapXon and loose ripple suppression and voltage regulation.
 
Sirtec could go either way. They are capable of making very good units and they are just as capable of making something you wouldn't trust to power a toaster. That's why we wait for reviews. 😉

Rosewill has done fairly well with Sirtec as an OEM in the past though. I would expect it to be pretty good.
 


Their lastest unit, the Astro GD 1200w, did very well in the dungeon of JonnyGuru 😀
 
It might be worth leaving the XFX Black Edition in the list (formerly a Tier 1), as the marketing is pretty poor on the box, so the mistake could be made that it's a pro series model. It even says PRO1250W and the phrase "pro series" on the unit I have, as well as black edition, however it doesn't say black edition ANYWHERE on the box...
 
I see the XFX XXX edition units were removed, as they were discontinued; but PCPartPicker has a few XXX units in their PSU list. I checked out who was selling them, and which units they were: NCIXUS is selling the 850w XXX edition (P1-850X-XXB9); Amazon and mwave are selling the 750w XXX edition (P1-750X-XXB9); and a few places are selling the 650w XXX edition (P1-650X-XXB9). I did find it interesting that a few places selling these units did not claim the units were the XXX edition on the page, but they had the same parts numbers, and the pictures did depict XXX units.

I'm slightly confused. Are there companies selling units that have been discontinued for 3 years, and are likely 3 years old at a minimum, or has XFX been pumping out units that simply bear the XXX edition markings, though they are not always marketed as such? Neither one would really surprise me, but it would definitely help to know. I think someone also had one of these discontinued units in their build sheet recently, but I'm not sure if they bought it. And, while I'm not opposed to buying old electronics, I do wonder if buying PSUs that have been sitting on the shelf for years would be too risky. I have a feeling it would be.

There was also a 550w unit that had the XXB9 part number, but was blatantly a standard TS unit. That got me wondering if the part numbers are being reused? It wouldn't make sense, but I'm starting to wonder what's going on.
 


Probably tier 2.


The number of older, discontinued models still in circulation depends on the number produced and sent to retailers. Just as a for instance the Corsair TX V2 units were around and being sold years after Corsair had moved to the third version of the TX and in fact the entire TX series has been discontinued now but they are still available in some places.
 

But what do I make of the fact that there are companies selling these units? Since they are discontinued, and have been for a while, would it be smarter to just buy a unit that hasn't been sitting on the shelves for a few years? Nobody is even selling them as NOS, which is what bothers me the most.
 


Some sellers count on uninformed buyers to buy the discontinued stock.
 
I had a feeling that was the case. I wonder if there's a legal liability with not advertising NOS on discontinued stock? That I'll definitely have to look into, although I don't suspect there to be one.

Why must electronic components degrade? I'd buy them if they were discounted, and they wouldn't run the risk of harming my computer.
 
I've heard that with Corsair's discontinued PSU models that are still within their warranty period and suffer a failure they will just replace it with the equivalent or better current model. Manufacturing date will come into play if you don't have a receipt that shows purchase date.

Unopened discontinued stock is still considered new and unused. It should still have the manufacturer's full warranty.

Usually when a model is being discontinued there will be a sale on them to clear any remaining stock in the distribution channel before the new model arrives.
 
^ Yep. Here in the US the warranty is from date of purchase although I'm sure not everywhere has the same legal rights though. And it's not like it's degrading in the box. You are still getting a quality unit, it just not would not be as good against newer units as it would have been against units manufactured at the same time.

A large number of power supply designs have been around for longer than you would think. The Seasonic KM platform was first introduced in 2010 I believe. It' s the basis of the still excellent X and Platinum series.
 
OP, It might be worth tiering all discounted models and putting them under the list in a spoiler or something, I'd be happy to compile the list. Just so people can see what tier discounted models that they can still buy are.
 
Hmmm, I hear a lot of mixed things about using old electrical components. Any data on the ageing process of the internal components, or of similar components? Definitely would like to see some information on that; very sceptical.
 
I saw someone list a Thermaltake SP-850M in a build they just recently completed, and I'm having some difficulty with figuring out where it stacks up. According to HardOCP, it passes their testing; however, I don't know if that's enough to rank it. Dottorrent did say in an older thread (2013) that the SP-850M was made by Sirtec, and it should be "fine." I'm wondering where it would rank, if it ranks on here at all.
 
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