Who's Who In Power Supplies: Brands, Labels, And OEMs

[nikrusty]

awesome article...that y I love ya Toms.

Sharing this link on India's Premiere Tech Forum
http://www.techenclave.com/pc-peripherals/whos-who-power-supplies-brands-labels-178740.html

 

[grind_305]

Great article, a little surprising of how unsafe some of the lower end PSU's are

 

[kategra84]

Great article!!! This is what Tom's was all about, not those not tech news about somebody getting robed while using his iPhone, Blackberry, HTC or whatever. Thank you Igor Wallossek and who ever helped you on this!!!!!!!!!

 

[kategra84]

Great article!!! This is what Tom's was all about, not those not tech news about somebody getting robed while using his iPhone, Blackberry, HTC or whatever. Thank you Igor Wallossek and who ever helped you on this!!!!!!!!!

 

[jednx01]

I have a corsiar HX1000 psu and love it. My first one went bad within two days of building the system so I called corsair support. They replaced it almost instantly and it had worked out wonderfully. I would DEFINITELY buy a power supply again from them in the future.

 

[malnute]

Nice article.

 

[SSBrando]

Very good article. I didn't know half the things that was said. On that, I do remember Tom's a while back saying a good rule of thumb is the heavier it is, the better. For the Price anyway. Years ago, my friend and I bought a "Diablo" PS because it had high wattage and looked cool. In a month mine zapped out when I turned on the PC and burnt the P1 connector. My friend's literally went up in smoke. Rule of thumb; they were light as a feather. If I had seen this article, that could have been avoided. I personally like Zalman's PSUs. I have the 850w. It's modular, stays very cool and I've have never had a problem with Zalman products including this PSU.

 

[master9716]

Ok great job ,Excelent but I still dont know wich companies are goog or bad. Can you also do this for Lcd Monitors plz

 

[hunter315]

It will be a good article once they fix the false information in there, particularly the PFC section. Power factor is in no way related to efficiency, and doesnt affect the end user, and since active PFC circuity is "active" it uses power and actually reduces the efficiency a tiny bit. Anyone who believed that the 0.8 power factor of passive units was the reason why they were less efficient needs to go read the jonnyguru PSU faq, its more accurate and in depth than page 2 of this article.

 

[Guest]

This explains a lot!
My PSUs could have been built by 3 different OEMs even though they were Antec branded.
After building 2 fairly basic systems (8400 CPU ,9600 GT Vid card with a 500w Antec PSU included in the Sonata case) and having both dying within months of each other (12 -18 months from new!) with similar faults,(wobbly 5v causing USB problems)(not being able to run the 1066 memory at that speed because of instability from new)I have over specced my replacement PSU so I do not have this grief again. The motherboard recommended a minimum 500w PSU so considering my modest system it should have been fine.The Antec rep was more interested in saving me from the "perils"of a single 12v rail PSU but I was in no mood to repeat the frustration of a similar replacement.
The most illuminating thing about this was that my memory was NEVER stable from new until the PSU was replaced. Now it is no problem whatever. Definitely a problem with 2 PSUs having the same problem within a similar time period.

 

[blackjellognomes]

XFX PSUs are manufactured by Seasonic.
Jonny has an existing list of PSU OEMs.

 

[yose3]

i got a Thermaltake 600 wat is it any good brand?

 

[alyoshka]

Had to suddenly recheck all my PSUs... Really amazing job with the article, more informative than I could have ever thought of.....

 

[haschid]

I recommend this page "http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/type/2". Look for the title "Power". The tests are relly good and thorough.

 

[Dragh0n]

Very informative article, kudos.

 

[treefrog07]

Really good, informative article - with specifics and the link to check the actual manufacturer's ID through UL. I think it is good background to know. I still feel the need to research specific PSU(s) for the technical reviews and conclusions for each I consider for my builds. There are so many manufacturers, "brands," and models, I think it would be almost impossible to generate a "List of the Best."

 

[WarraWarra]

Tired of paying top dollar for pathetic quality 3 weeks / DOA PSU's and now using max $20 specials no name / unknown name for several months and no issues yet.

All of it is made in China for $3.00 in sweat shops and labeled as this or that name so you are paying for the name.

 

[sudeshc]

Very interesting article. Some thing new that i didn't knew earlier

 

[randomstar]

Personal Experience: just like with anything else, if you stay in the middle of the road you will most likely be happy.

also, the Logisys products- had a total of 8 in the last year as a local distributor was offering good deals on them, all have failed. . ALL of them. also, CoolerMaster 380, Coolermaster 420, 6 of each- all failed. just bought a case of Enermax 400's- seem much more reliable and solid. bought a RoseWill 650 at a customer's request, and quite satisfied at the quality and performance so far- but cost more than the Enermax so I will be doing a value/performance comparison ( and NOISE is a factor as well!)

 

[gm0n3y]

Have been using a Seasonic M12 for the past ~5 years and no problems. Most of my friends have Seasonic PSUs as well, no problems from any of them. Most PSU failures that I've ran into are from cheap pre-build PCs (HP, Dell, etc). Dust buildup can also lead to PSU (and other component) failure.

 

[Guest]

So much information, and so much is wrong. PCP&C was NEVER a designer of power supplies. Their TurboCool units were simply rebadged, stock, off-the-shelf units from Win-Tact. Their Silencers, first built by Sparkle, then by Seasonic, were simply tweaked from the base Seasonic units they were based upon....tweaked to meet PCP&C's ripple/noise, voltage regulation and side draft 80mm fan requirements.

Sadly, all the PCP&C units listed in this article are long gone from the market and are now simply OCZ rebrands, which are rebrands from Sirfa/Sirtec....not exactly known as one of the premier OEM manufacturers by a long shot.

PCP&C was as much a "designer" of power supplies as Corsair and Antec are.

 

[gwolfman]

[citation][nom]ohseus[/nom]Perhaps should should consider running PSUs for the money articles like they do for CPUs and GPUs.[/citation]
I very much like this idea Toms!!! Do it!!!

 

[Guest]

This article was not very helpful because he didn't do a comparison chart on the brands out there so we could see how they rate against each other. And the engineer lingo is above most people's heads. If he would have done a Consumer's reports type of article we'd all be informed with something useful.

 

[Elderlybloke]

I learned a lot about PSUs in this article.
I purchased a Corsair PSU for my computer after checking up on reliability .
Thought they manufactured them but I see it is made by Seasonic.
So I do have good quality, which is what I wanted.

 

[AtlantaTerry]

Showing a picture without a caption explaining what we are seeing is nearly worthless. Please remember not everyone reading articles like this is an electrical engineer who may understand what you are trying to show.

Please remember the other half of the expression, "Show and Tell".

Thank you.

Terry
Atlanta