Enermax Infiniti Dies on 2nd Birthday

[TooNice]

Ditto. Back in 2004-ish, Antec and Enermax seemed to be the brand I heard the most whenever I looked up PSU. PC Power & Cooling got serious mentions too, but typically in US centric forums, and as far as I know, they could not be easily found here at the time.

I only started coming across the Seasonic brand a year or two later when I started paying attention to system noise. Oddly, Seasonic is *much* older (probably older most forum members here) than Enermax. But its only around that time I started hearing it mentioned more.

Q-Tech eh? Isn't that the infamous cheapy PSU from Ebuyer? 600W at £25 when a reputable 400W PSU would cost north of £80? I am pretty sure it got quite a few mentions here on Hexus, known as the PSU that would most likely blow up and take the rest of the system with it

[Blitzen]

As far as the Infiniti goes (and the Galaxy), they did seem to have high failure rates.
For some reason, these two models were a bit of a white elephant.

With the MODU+ and Revolution series though, it has planted Enermax right back at the top of the best PSUs around.

Toonice:
PC P&C PSUs were great machines.
Unfortunately OCZ got their hands on them and they havent made a top class PSU since the Powerstreams a few years ago.

[Sputnik]

Q-Tech eh? Isn't that the infamous cheapy PSU from Ebuyer? 600W at £25 when a reputable 400W PSU would cost north of £80? I am pretty sure it got quite a few mentions here on Hexus, known as the PSU that would most likely blow up and take the rest of the system with it

Exactly! And yet his one is still going strong after all these years.

Blitzen, The Enermax Coolergiants also had high failure rates IIRC. I'm not saying that every PSU made by Enermax is Rubbish or likely to fail but, It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.

[Blitzen]

It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.

I agree. It may well put me off aswell.

I cetainly believe 100% though that the MODU+ and the new Revolution series are a cut above anything else on offer at the moment.

[AshMcD]

I know when I built my 939 system a few years back I used a Hiper Power 580w Type R Modular. I know that got a few bad reviews and apparently was prone to failing.

The one I bought is still going happily in my friends business and it's switched on pretty much 24/7 and has been for the last four (ish) years.

You win some you lose some eh. Power supplies aren't as cheap as I remember them! Seems you have to spend >£100 these days.

[peterb]

Exactly! And yet his one is still going strong after all these years.

Blitzen, The Enermax Coolergiants also had high failure rates IIRC. I'm not saying that every PSU made by Enermax is Rubbish or likely to fail but, It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.

But you don't know who actually makes the PSU (I doubt Enermax do - but I am willing to be corrected) so it depends on te spec Enermax gave the OEM, and whether the OEM built them (and tested them) to Enermax's specifuication.

The problem is that while a cheap PSU may be poor quality (because there is the drive to keep down the price) there is no gurantee that an expensive one is high quality - it could be cheap and nasty priced up.

Basically (unless you have your own testing facilities) you have to go by brand and reputation, becayuse the better the brand reputation, the more the brand owner will want to protect it. A reputation hard one is easily lost, and hard to replace. Reputable brands will do more to ensure that quality standards are maintained.

[Sputnik]

But you don't know who actually makes the PSU (I doubt Enermax do - but I am willing to be corrected) so it depends on te spec Enermax gave the OEM, and whether the OEM built them (and tested them) to Enermax's specifuication.

The problem is that while a cheap PSU may be poor quality (because there is the drive to keep down the price) there is no gurantee that an expensive one is high quality - it could be cheap and nasty priced up.

Basically (unless you have your own testing facilities) you have to go by brand and reputation, becayuse the better the brand reputation, the more the brand owner will want to protect it. A reputation hard one is easily lost, and hard to replace. Reputable brands will do more to ensure that quality standards are maintained.

Ok let me Re-phrase that -I'm not saying that every PSU with an Enermax badge, box and price tag is Rubbish or likely to fail but, It does knock peoples confidence buying a brand if it is known to fail and they are at the higher end of the price range.

It's commonly known that computer parts are manufactured and badged for different market prices.

It could well be that Enermax gave the high level spec to the manufacturer and they produced something of a lesser standard or it is possible that Enermax themselves were trying to shave a few pennies off the cost of production. Which ever way - the end result is not good for the consumer.

[TooNice]

AFAIK, Enermax, do make their own PSU. Unless various online sources are wrong, which is plausible of course, but I would have expected at least one source to have stated otherwise then.

The way I see it, unless the failures are almost epidemic (IBM Deathstar being a prime example), a good brand is not going to be damaged that easily by the odd failure because those can always be brushed off as the odd one out (which may, or may not be the case).