PSU recomendsations

[dunfer9]

Can anyone recomend a good PSU with a PCI-e connector? System is AMD Athlon 64 3500+, case is microATX. I don't need anything massively powerful.
All help is appreciated.

[specofdust]

Anything by Antec, Enermax, or Akasa. Read the PSU roundup on hexus, its fairly good, although imo doesn't explain to people enough which are the good ones and which are the really bad.

Stick with the three names above and you'll be sorted

[dunfer9]

Thanks.

[autopilot]

Seasonic worth a look too. Their PSU (forget which one) won the CustomPC PSU round up.

[specofdust]

Yeah, Seasonic are good(often used in HTPC's), very quiet I believe. But if Im not mistaken they're actually just a rebranded PSU from the states. The pre-brand ones are very cheap too, like £30 where a seasonic would cost £60. But finding them would be an issue. Anyway, g'luck, hope that helps

[Thorsson]

Seasonic are Seasonic, as far as I know, they are not rebranded anythings, unlike many other makes.

[specofdust]

Ah, perfectly possible it was another brand, I was really cramming stuff in then, going from zero to as much as possible for knowledge on HTPC's. Seasonic did come up as a very good PSU though, and thats the important bit.

[car7er]

I was very chuffed with my hiper 580w type-r psu , being a lazy sod it was great to have all the psu cables ready braided, it also looks great i got mine in a black finish. Saved a lot of time during the build, seems to be a very stable psu , recommended.

[BUFF]

& don't forget Tagan.
Solid, dependable

[Thorsson]

Read this http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20...sstest-18.html so you see why to avoid the Hiper.

Here's some spiel written a few months back by Tagan as to why their units were failing in THG's CPU stress tests:

"The results of our revisal of the defective Tagan TG480-U22, which failed within THG Stress-out tests by the Intel system are the following:

The Tagan TG480-U22 power supplies, which we have given to Tom's Hardware Guide for the live-stress-out test between Intel and AMD systems, have been pre-production items. We are glad to detect that something needed to be enhanced before we have started the mass production of the new generation of Tagan Power Supplies.

Within a close examination of the components we figured out that only one transistor - Q1 was defective and the Schottky diode - D30 on the secondary Heat Sink was defective too, moreover the fix screw of this D30 on the Heat Sink was slightly loose. The other components like transistor - Q2, fuse and +5VsB output were all in good condition.

From the defective components we analized that the loosing situation of the lock screw on the D30 Schottky diode caused the heating conduction is not completed and the temperature rising accordingly; this overheat Oscillation of D30 Schottky diode caused the PG signal unstabile and causing the system to be reboot. When the overheat Oscillation of D30 Schottky diode last too long it will cause the Q1 defective.

The reason to cause the D30 Schottky diode to be loosing, we assume, happened by transportation. Within the mass-production of the Tagan TG480-U22 we will take care, that the fixing point of the D30 Schottky diode will be enhanced to avoid such kind of failure in the future.

MaxPoint Handelsges mbH"

Tagan are designed in Germany, but made by Topower in China. Topower make a range of PSUs, from cheap, no-name brands to ones for OCZ at the expensive end of the scale. It has been noted before that their quality control can be lacking at times.

[Darth Sidious]

because its -12v rail is .1 out and therefore notspec.

lol so that means its gonna blow up and kill your machine eh

[Thorsson]

because its -12v rail is .1 out and therefore notspec.

You read, but do not understand. The -12v rail is 1.32v out. That's outside the (overly) generous +/-10% ATX spec.

Did you also not notice: "It should be noted here that the manufacturer's operating manual provides an incorrect specification for the noise ripple measurement. Instead of the 50mV prescribed by the ATX specification, Hiper lists a value of 70mV."

I agree that this doesn't mean that Hipers will blow up, just that they're a bit more likely to blow something up than other PSUs that stay within spec.

Their efficiency score of 76.4% isn't the best around either (Seasonic is 83.4%). That means they use more electricity and have to dissipate more heat. Oh yeah, and they can be a bit noisy too...

But hey, it's your computer. If pre-braided cables are more imprtant to you than solid power, then buy the Hiper.

[Decemoto]

I've just bought a Tagan Easycon PSU, and I'm over the moon about it! I can't imagine ever going back to using a standard PSU after using a modular one, it just seems to make a lot more sense. It's also very quiet, and I've seen absolutely stability problems with it. I'm sure the other modular PSUs available offer good performance too, so pick one that suits you. My vote goes to the Tagan every time though

[Darth Sidious]

You read, but do not understand. The -12v rail is 1.32v out. That's outside the (overly) generous +/-10% ATX spec.

Did you also not notice: "It should be noted here that the manufacturer's operating manual provides an incorrect specification for the noise ripple measurement. Instead of the 50mV prescribed by the ATX specification, Hiper lists a value of 70mV."

I agree that this doesn't mean that Hipers will blow up, just that they're a bit more likely to blow something up than other PSUs that stay within spec.

Their efficiency score of 76.4% isn't the best around either (Seasonic is 83.4%). That means they use more electricity and have to dissipate more heat. Oh yeah, and they can be a bit noisy too...

But hey, it's your computer. If pre-braided cables are more imprtant to you than solid power, then buy the Hiper.

go over to Ocuk forums there is a guy there slaughtering the seasonic 600 for its voltages.

The hiper has no problem extracting the heat and has been rated to run cooler then most PSU's

[Stompy]

The -12v line is nowhere near as important as the other lines, I wouldn't worry too much.

[specofdust]

I wouldn't go for a tagan to be honest. Theres some international test they dont pass, like the kitemark, only international and for electronics only.

Also, they're still relatively new PSU's on the market, and imo their reliability isn't as proven as Antec or Enermax. Tagan had that bad batch as well, where alot of people had serious issues.

My vote goes to the Tagan every time though

Because you've had it for what, a week? The thing with PSU's is you can't fully judge them till you've had them for a while. I mean, lots of people are happy with Q-tec for months, or even years, but those things are still crap. I'm not trying to suggest Tagan are rubbish, I'm just saying that you can't fully judge a power supply like you can a CPU or RAM once you stick it in and turn it on. It needs to prove itself dependable before that.