Cheapish/Good PSU (If such a thing exists)

I remember a few years back there was a silverpower PSU going for about £30 everyone raved about.

It seems these days if you don't spend £200 (exaggeration alert!) on a PSU it will blow your computer up taking your family and neighbours dog with it when it goes.

I'm sticking together a cheap build for a friend, any suggestions on a half decent PSU at about £30?

E6500
Gigabyte GA-P43-ES3G P43
2gb random generic DDR2 mem.
Sticking my old 8600 in it for now.
320gb Samsung F1

Also, I realise the X3 425 is probably better at this pricepoint but he wants the option to stick in a core 2 quad in future, which is fair enough I suppose!

Any suggestions on a PSU would be smashingly welcome.

Thanks

Just because you used the word 'smashingly'.

Either

380w Antec Earthwatts - £36.31

or

Corsair CX 400w - £37.58

Both are kind to dogs and neighbours.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

Just because you used the word 'smashingly'.

Either

380w Antec Earthwatts - £36.31

or

Corsair CX 400w - £37.58

Both are kind to dogs and neighbours.

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Sir, you are a gent and a scholar. Thanks very much!

The Colours are quite good,
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...source=froogle

i have used these on a number of occasions and never had a problem.

I would get the OCZ 400W StealthXStream as it is a better PSU than the Corsair CX400W IMHO!!

It can deliver its rated power at 47C and also has efficiency of upto 85%!

Here is a review:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/794

It is under £40 too:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?ocz-s400

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505

You can also get cashback from Novatech using Quidco and TopCashBack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

380w Antec Earthwatts - £36.31

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£34.06 on todayonly @ scan

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/#13 to be exact :)

Ahh smashing. Thanks chaps. It's on the list.

One last question. If I'm not interested in RAID, never overclocking and will never, ever have more than 4gb of mem is it worth an extra £20 for a P43 board over the P31?

It's pretty and all, it just seems superfluous and for £20 on a budget build it could be better spent elsewhere perhaps?

Again, opinions muchly sought and appreciated!

wouldn't have thought so. I believe the only real difference is the support for PCI-E 2.0, and with a 8600 I doubt there would be the slightest difference in performance

Big thumbs up from me on the Earthwatts 380. It used to come in the Sonata case as standard and I've built 2 heavy use machines with one (a workstation and a Domain server), both of which have been working flawlessly for years.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AshMcD

Ahh smashing. Thanks chaps. It's on the list.

One last question. If I'm not interested in RAID, never overclocking and will never, ever have more than 4gb of mem is it worth an extra £20 for a P43 board over the P31?

It's pretty and all, it just seems superfluous and for £20 on a budget build it could be better spent elsewhere perhaps?

Again, opinions muchly sought and appreciated!

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nope, more usb ports, pci-e 2.0 and better overclocking options is all the difference.

if all this pc is being used for is internet&email&office type stuff you can also drop the 8600gt and stick with the onboard graphics quite happly.

OCZ seem to strike a good balance between value and quality.

I'd be wary of those Colors PSU's, 16 quid for a good PSU just doesn't equate.

CIT are not a strong contender for the decent PSU crown...

I'd steer clear TBH... They don't give you much cable wise either... So they're not very practical anyway, unless you want to string all of your devises off a single molex chain... (including GFX cards)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AshMcD

Also, I realise the X3 425 is probably better at this pricepoint but he wants the option to stick in a core 2 quad in future, which is fair enough I suppose!

Any suggestions on a PSU would be smashingly welcome.

Thanks

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You could always stick in an Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4 at a later date in an X3 425 based build!! :)

/Mini-hijack...

What is the word on this PSU? I would really like my server to have modular PSU. At the moment I've got this one in there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Singh400

/Mini-hijack...

What is the word on this PSU?

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Seasonic OEM, so a good base unit, good PSU TBH :)