ThermalTake Smart Series PSU question

[Exia00]

Hi guys i am wondering about the ThermalTake Smart Series PSU if it is any good cause right now i am using a Apevia Beast 550w PSU and was looking at this one https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153232 which is within my budget but because of the reviews on newegg i know there tends to be a few trolls from time to time just hard to tell if those people are serious or if they are trolling the reviews.

Also the only reason why i am getting a new PSU is because i want to add things inside such as LED strips and a M.2 SSD and in time a bluray drive and already in my system i have inside a Ryzen 5 2400G with a 1050 ti and 16gb of memory with a 120GB 2.5" SSD and 2 Hybrids (1tb and 2tb) so i get the feeling if i add anything else inside of it that i might not have enough power so thanks if you can confirm if this would be a good enough choice.

 

[Darkbreeze]

You are right to want to replace the power supply, but not because it doesn't have enough capacity for what you want to do. None of what you want to add will use enough power to add a substantial increase in power demand. Your 1050ti would run fine on a very good 350w unit, so a fairly decent 450 to 550w unit would be enough to give you plenty of headroom for whatever bling you want to add and likely some decent overclocking as well if you were so inclined.

The reason you want to replace that power supply, is because Apevia is known for making power supplies that are more likely, by far, to burn down your house one day, or destroy some of your hardware, than a lot of other power supplies. Apevia should be avoided at all costs along with brands like Raidmax, Ultra, CIT, Apex, Supercase, Allied, Rocketfish and a slew of other REALLY crappy power supply brands.

This would do all you need, for what you have now, and what you intend to add later, so long as you don't add a much higher tiered graphics card. If you bump up a tier or two on the graphics card, you may need one with a bit more capacity depending on what card you go with. And, you may not. This might actually be plenty for a tier or two higher than you are now.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Total: $74.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-31 03:53 EDT-0400


It's a bit more expensive than that Thermaltake, but it's a much better power supply too. Not great, not fantastic, but miles better than what you have now and certainly better than any Smart series unit, which are not particularly good either. I would never recommend anybody buying one of the Smart series or TR2 Thermaltake units if they can get something better within a reasonably close price range.

If you can't swing the money for the Corsair, then the Smart series would at least be an improvement over what you have now by a fair measure. At least it has dependable protections in place. I wouldn't trust that Apevia unit to power a light bulb.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

I will just leave a +1 to the above comment XD

 

[Exia00]

darkbreeze i have actually been using this PSU for about 7 months now and i have no issues at all and before this one i used to have a Cooler Master 600w but that one burnt down and no not burning down my system more like i had it for 5 years and i never turned off my system before so it was a matter of time before it would die out and besides that when there is new GPU's that is out i do plan on going higher sort of something like the RX 570 but better when they make one because i plan on going all AMD for once with my system especially since i am using a FreeSync monitor (cause it was the only affordable 150$ 24" Samsung PLS monitor i could afford) and also the only other one that is cheaper on cost and better by brand is this one https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAH4G7VK3818 but the thing i don't fully trust is the seller for it since on newegg there is no reviews on the seller or the seller is not accepting negative reviews.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

Still a bit costly : https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/fZyFf7/seasonic-power-supply-s12ii520bronze

 

[Darkbreeze]

darkbreeze i have actually been using this PSU for about 7 months now and i have no issues at all

Nobody EVER had issues with ANYTHING, until they did. I am telling you, based on over 30 years experience, that power supply is a ticking time bomb and you are either very lucky to have not had any problems yet OR the only reason you have not is because you picked a model that is so far above your system requirements that the shortcomings of that unit have not become evident yet. They will, I assure you. There will probably not be any "problems" or "warning signs". It will likely simply fail, and when it does, it may do so rather spectacularly.

But it's your hardware, and you'll have to replace it if you choose to ignore the fact that it is a brand known for major issues and very low quality.

I would highly advise that you never use a higher tiered graphics card with a higher power draw with it. If it were me or one of my clients, it would already be in the trash pile.

That EVGA W1 series unit is not good either. Again, it's probably a lot better than your current unit, much like the Smart series is, but that still does not mean that it is very "good".

It is a waste of money to spent 80% of what will need to be spent, on a unit that is still not good. Be patient, and save your money until you have enough to afford a decent unit that will last you ten years or more.

This is the least expensive unit I would recommend, and understand, hardware is a lot more expensive where you are than it is in most places. Anything cheaper than this unit is probably a bad investment and I would recommend that you not get impatient and waste your money. Better still, would be one of the newer Seasonic Focus plus or Prime units, or an EVGA G2, G3 or BQ model. Antec true power classic and High current gamer are also good.

This would, at least, not be a waste of money though.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 650W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Total: $79.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-02 12:07 EDT-0400

 

[Karadjgne]

We understand about ppl using junk forever and having no issues, we see it a lot in the posts. But it's like an old man who walks his dog every day, takes his baby aspirin, doesn't smoke or drink etc. Sure, his heart is good, it's lasted this long with no issues. Now stick him on a treadmill and make him run 10 miles at a good jog. Call the paramedics.

Most cases it's where the psu is just good enough to cover whatever usage the owner needs, many cases it's where you have a pc that's pushing 150-250w at any given time and the owner swears his 750w psu is good for the last 3 years.

It's when you do something, like install a highly demanding, intensive, bouncy draw game, that punishes the psu with constant up/down hard demands, or add a better gpu that has much higher power draw etc, that's when things go nuts. That's when things start going wrong, crashes, burnouts etc.

And yes, newegg/Amazon etc reviews are worthless, all about fast shipping and just got it works great. 5 stars. What you don't see is a review 2 years later saying its only lasted 2 years, burned up, took out the mobo and gpu and was no longer covered by warranty. Ppl don't want to admit to foolishness.

 

[Darkbreeze]

And even worse is the fact that those sites like to promote the best, flashiest responses up front and center. The problem with that is those reviews are usually submitted by fools who don't own a thimbleful of common sense and have absolutely zero tech cred to their names, or paid shillsters from the company that sells the product who are simply trying to bolster the number of good reviews the product has despite it being worthless.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that any OEM style Seasonic or Delta power supply would be worth twenty five times what any aftermarket Apevia unit could muster up. And that's the plain vanilla OEM style units from those manufacturers. Apevia is pretty bad. I've seen them melt connectors to the motherboard when they short out inside, or burn up traces on the motherboard. The protections, if any even exist, are worthless on these units.

 

[Exia00]

And even worse is the fact that those sites like to promote the best, flashiest responses up front and center. The problem with that is those reviews are usually submitted by fools who don't own a thimbleful of common sense and have absolutely zero tech cred to their names, or paid shillsters from the company that sells the product who are simply trying to bolster the number of good reviews the product has despite it being worthless.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that any OEM style Seasonic or Delta power supply would be worth twenty five times what any aftermarket Apevia unit could muster up. And that's the plain vanilla OEM style units from those manufacturers. Apevia is pretty bad. I've seen them melt connectors to the motherboard when they short out inside, or burn up traces on the motherboard. The protections, if any even exist, are worthless on these units.

I do understand where you are getting at but just saying you can't really say all their PSU's are crappy just because a certain series fried someone's system because remember about a year or two ago there was a Corsair series that had bad capacitors which was frying peoples systems and people even took photo's of the fire that was coming out of their PSU which i remember in a lot of gaming forums people were telling other people to avoid getting a Corsair PSU or else their system would get fried.
One other thing i know is that Apevia might not be the best company but there is still a lot of people like myself that never came across those types of issues because for all we know if that this one could be the one that is causing the issues https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148065 because this is the model i am using right now at the moment https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148056 and the only reason why i am looking at that ThermalTake PSU as well is because it is within my budget right now and Lucky_SLS while that is a nice PSU it is a little too costly for me and also less watt what i want to get and remember GPU's like what i have right now wont be enough for in the future as well so if i was to get something like a RTX 2060 or the AMD equivalent (if it is going to be made) 520w seems too little which i always tend to have more than what i would require instead because when you add more things in a system it is always good to have that extra power.

 

[Karadjgne]

Power isn't a means to an end, and in the case of psus, more is not synonymous with better. You can power a gtx1080ti and i7-8700k with a good quality 550w psu. It's all about quality. Quality of output and build. There's more than a few 700w+ psus out there with dual rails rated at 12-18A each, with just a single 6pin pcie. That's a crying shame and an absolute falsehood.

Figure it this way.
Average cpu maxed out = 100w, 200w with OC.
Average decent gpu is 225w maxed.
Average pc, mobo, fans, drives etc is @100w.

Gtand total, with everything running at 100% would be 425w-525w. The kicker is that that's a physical impossibility. To run all drives at 100%, with a cpu at 100% and a gpu at 100% would lock up the pc. At best, you'd be looking for highest gaming loads total of @70% of the pc max, with most gaming running 50-60% of max. So if you game hard, at most you'll be looking at with an OC'd system, loads of @250w-370w. That's well within the capability of your decent 550w psu.

Even the RTX 2080ti is only 260w, so expect the 2060 to be closer to 150-180w at best.

You look at a psu as simply a power supply, they aren't all created equally. With the harsh demands of higher end gpus and near instant ups/downs hitting fast and heavy, lightweight psus like the TT smart series will cave in a short time, they simply are not designed for such usage. You really need to use a psu designed for gaming, such as the Corsair RM series or the Seasonic Focus series. Moving away from heavy duty only increases the chance of failure.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I do understand where you are getting at but just saying you can't really say all their PSU's are crappy just because a certain series fried someone's system because remember about a year or two ago there was a Corsair series that had bad capacitors which was frying peoples systems and people even took photo's of the fire that was coming out of their PSU which i remember in a lot of gaming forums people were telling other people to avoid getting a Corsair PSU or else their system would get fried.

There is a major difference. Corsair had a "not great quality" run of ONE series of power supplies. AND, we already know that the CS series is not very good either but it is also not intended for use with gaming cards or enthusiast systems, but it is still better than many of these fire starters if you only need a low capacity unit that is never going to see a gaming card installed. The rest of their units have always been either pretty good, or great, when it comes to quality and performance. Professional reviews back this up as to millions of happy customers and gamers.

I urge you to find ONE review of ANY Apevia power supply, from a REPUTABLE review site, that shows the unit is good. This is the only Apevia unit I could find that has EVER had a review from a REPUTABLE review site, and guess what. It's probably the BEST unit ever reviewed as well. It scored a 5.5, which is worse than ANY unit I have EVER seen in any review on the JonnyGuru website. They are all trash. Period. That is why I say even the Smart series, which are not good, are ten times better than anything that has ever been sold by Apevia.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story4&reid=92

 

[Exia00]

I do understand where you are getting at but just saying you can't really say all their PSU's are crappy just because a certain series fried someone's system because remember about a year or two ago there was a Corsair series that had bad capacitors which was frying peoples systems and people even took photo's of the fire that was coming out of their PSU which i remember in a lot of gaming forums people were telling other people to avoid getting a Corsair PSU or else their system would get fried.

There is a major difference. Corsair had a "not great quality" run of ONE series of power supplies. AND, we already know that the CS series is not very good either but it is also not intended for use with gaming cards or enthusiast systems, but it is still better than many of these fire starters if you only need a low capacity unit that is never going to see a gaming card installed. The rest of their units have always been either pretty good, or great, when it comes to quality and performance. Professional reviews back this up as to millions of happy customers and gamers.

I urge you to find ONE review of ANY Apevia power supply, from a REPUTABLE review site, that shows the unit is good. This is the only Apevia unit I could find that has EVER had a review from a REPUTABLE review site, and guess what. It's probably the BEST unit ever reviewed as well. It scored a 5.5, which is worse than ANY unit I have EVER seen in any review on the JonnyGuru website. They are all trash. Period. That is why I say even the Smart series, which are not good, are ten times better than anything that has ever been sold by Apevia.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story4&reid=92

Well i went looking around on other forums to see the Apevia model that would melt on them and they all talked about the APEVIA ATX-VSxxxW Venus (xxx being the wattage amount on it) and nothing about the beast model and even on your site i went looking to see if there was a review on there and there was nothing and this is the exact one i am using http://apevia.com/ProductsInfo.asp?KEY=ATX-BT550W and apparently on this site the beast model has a high score https://www.bestreviews.guide/apevia-cpu-fans so if people talk trash about a certain PSU the main one they are referring about if the Venus model not the Beast model.

 

[Karadjgne]

They also list the CXM as one of the top 7. In no way does the CXM even come close to the RMx for quality, design, thermals, protections, noise, efficiency, output regulation etc. Consider that entire review as a joke as none of the professionally reviewed units even made the list. Rosewill Stallion? Please. Rosewill only branded 1 good line and it wasn't the Stallion.

Basically that entire top 7 review is seriously wrong in so many ways. But, it's published on the internet so must be absolute truth.. Right?

Great looking unit, just installed and works great, super fast shipping, 5 stars!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Please note that I said REPUTABLE review. That means from a known and trusted PSU review site. JonnyGuru, Tom's Hardware, maybe three others, have reviewers that have the necessary equipment and actually know how to review a power supply.

The rest are simply unboxing and very, VERY basic performance reviews that do not use the kind of equipment, nor do they have reviewers with the actual skills and knowledge, to do a proper review that results in an adequate representation of what that power supply is actually based on (Platform, like, Seasonic G, Super Flower Leadex, etc.), what realistically are it's faults and where does it shine, how closely does it actually come to it's labeled specifications and can it actually sustain it's rated capacity when the unit is over 40, or sometimes 50 degrees.

All those others, and ALL of the user reviews, are worthless.

So, like I said, aside from that one review, you are incredibly unlikely to find any professional review of an Apevia unit, because they are not worth the time and resources it would take to review them. If you think you know better than those of us with 20-40 years experience and the cumulative experience of the professional review community, well then, you are of course welcome to continue using whatever power supply you wish to but it sort of makes it pointless to even come here and ask.

You came here for opinions. You got two of them that concur from two members with more time invested in computer systems than most our members have been alive, so you can take the advice or you can do as you wish. I assure you you will not be the first person to ignore the fact that they had a sub-par power supply and continued using it for a while. You also wouldn't be the first to come back later with a sad story about how you had to buy new hardware either. It's really just our educated opinions. What you do with it is up to you.

 

[Skyakimax]

Hi guys i am wondering about the ThermalTake Smart Series PSU if it is any good cause right now i am using a Apevia Beast 550w PSU and was looking at this one https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153232 which is within my budget but because of the reviews on newegg i know there tends to be a few trolls from time to time just hard to tell if those people are serious or if they are trolling the reviews.

Also the only reason why i am getting a new PSU is because i want to add things inside such as LED strips and a M.2 SSD and in time a bluray drive and already in my system i have inside a Ryzen 5 2400G with a 1050 ti and 16gb of memory with a 120GB 2.5" SSD and 2 Hybrids (1tb and 2tb) so i get the feeling if i add anything else inside of it that i might not have enough power so thanks if you can confirm if this would be a good enough choice.

I have this PSU still working. using since 2018--

 

[Darkbreeze]

I have this PSU still working. using since 2018--

Yes, ok. But the fact that it's still functional when in all probability it is only powering a very low end CPU and low tiered graphics card, or even integrated graphics, means nothing. You put any hardware with that power supply that actually NEEDS anywhere near 550w, or even 75% of that, and I guarantee it will crap the bed, if not burn the bed down.

Sorry 'bout the necro. It was necessary.