Seasonic Vs Tagan Vs Hiper

[chriswood_7]

Hey guys

Gonna order a PSU this very day and really confused as to what to buy...

I have a few choices as scan have a great range:

480W Tagan EasyConnect
530W Tagan 2Force
500W Seasonic S12
580W Hiper Type R

I have heard great things about all of the PSUs but really need to upgrade and I am confused as to what to buy. I hear that CPC have a good article out in this months issue but I cant get into town to pick up a copy and was hoping to order before the end of the day

Thanks

Chris

[zulander]

What are u upgrading? and are you botherd about it being quiet? Seasonic all the way if you like things quiet. Hiper seem to be a hit and miss, tagan are loved by most on here though ive never used one

[sawyen]

Depends whats it for and how many components do you have.. If you're going to run 7 250GB HDD in RAID 5 and 0 and SLi Ultras then 480W Tagan maybe a little pushing it..

I've never had experience with Seasonic.. I used to have an Enermax and I currently run 2 Tagans and 1 ULTRA.. I think its safe to tell you that the 530W Tagan EasyCon is very stable.. split rails.. very low ripple and pretty high-ish efficiency.. runs really quiet too..

[chriswood_7]

Ill be going PCI-E later in the year and want something powerful and stable enough to run everything smoothly.. and something thats gonna last a while. Im not wanting to spend any more than £70 and wont be needing extra hard drives running this or that.

Itll be basically to run my rig as is but on a PCI-E mobo and possibly a 7800GT

[OmarSantiago]

ack: wrong reply!

Tagan EasyCon: Only worth considering if you'd benefit from the modular design. If you need to use more than three quarters of the cables you may as well buy one with captive leads. From personal experience it's very quiet, runs quite cool, though the 12v line is a little weak on mine (and it seems on a few others).

Tagan 2Force: Never tried this but looks to have a slightly more powerful 12V rail and a good airflow design which doesn't rely on heated air rising from the CPU to cool it's internals.

Seasonic S12: Very quiet, very efficient though for the money you'd expect a braided or shielded harness at the very least. I like Seasonic and I use them extensively at work as they're extremely reliable. Mind you, for another £10 you could get the 600w SLi version which would save you some hassle if you ever went for this.

At the moment I'm using the EasyCon 580 and despite the slightly low 12v rail (11.6v) it happily powers 4 Raptors and 2 6800s all day long and most of the night, and it's quiet enough to keep in my bedroom. It's well made, nicely packed and the cable layout is very well thought out; but again, only get a modular PSU if you really need it.

All three are good choices, I doubt you'll be unhappy with any that you buy

[Koolpc]

What about a Nexus 500w PSU?

[specofdust]

I would advise the Hiper 480 Type R, 580watts is utter overkill for anyone. Assuming the power supply can even give 500 watts thats alot more then almost any PC will need.

If not the Hiper 480, go for the Seasonic imo, they're very quiet, and often reccomended for HTPC's, where not just quiet, but silent is required, so they wont make any noise I'd imagine.

Course I'd go Antec or Enermax, but thats personal preference. Lastly, if you're not running any extra drives, just a regular PC, one HDD, one or two opticals, and a 7800GT/X then you certianly don't need 580, 480 will be way more then enough for a system like that.

Keep in mind that most power systems(with mulitple hard disks, multiple graphcs cards) dont use more then 300-350 watts. Of course Power Supplies often can't supply the power they say they can, but get a good one, and you wont need such a high rating

[chriswood_7]

So 500W is a bit much right?

[Koolpc]

I would say that 500 is just right. I am looking at getting either the Seasonic 500w or the Nexus 500w.

[specofdust]

500W is considerably more then any regular person will need.

Like I say, often, I run 4 HDD's, an optical drive, all the usual PC bits, and 7 fans of a 330W antec. Everything overclocked. Now that runs fine, with no problems. A high end power PC is likely to use around the 300W mark, so for safety, the highest you'd ever need to realisiticly go is 480, and thats not a bad thing to go for, but a high quality 480 will be more then you'll need for a good few years yet.

[chriswood_7]

I like the look of the seasonics, but why dont they have nice neat braided cables? Its the only thing I can see that lets it down and puts me off it...

[specofdust]

Braiding cables isn't hard, I don't know why they havn't done it, I can only assume its either a cost issue or they find they're cusomters would rather do it themselves.

But like I say, cable braid can be bought dead cheap, can easily be applied with some heatshirnk, its nothing to do it if you're bothered about it

[chriswood_7]

I braided the cables on my old PSU and it was a right fart on. The heatshrink didnt shrink and I didnt have a molex removal tool to be able to do all of the cables LOL

Id just prefer to buy one as is...

[dodgybob]

I have the 500w seasonic and it is by far the quietest psu that i have used. The first time i tested it I thought it was faulty as i couldn't hear anything only to look down and see the fan spinning. I've had no issues with it but then it wont be under a lot of load until i go a64.

To be honest as long as you've got some cable ties you don't need wire braiding, you can get just as neat a finish. One nice little trick with the seasonics is that they have twisted cabling, apparantly as it improves the performance of the wire or some thing like that but it does mean that the cables are a lot easier to manage than other unbraided psus.

[Hans Voralberg]

500W is considerably more then any regular person will need.

Like I say, often, I run 4 HDD's, an optical drive, all the usual PC bits, and 7 fans of a 330W antec. Everything overclocked. Now that runs fine, with no problems. A high end power PC is likely to use around the 300W mark, so for safety, the highest you'd ever need to realisiticly go is 480, and thats not a bad thing to go for, but a high quality 480 will be more then you'll need for a good few years yet.

Most of the PSU rating is Peak Wattage, not continuous. The peak one can only last for some seconds, so look carefully into how much it can provide continuous ly

[Fuzz]

Hey guys
I hear that CPC have a good article out in this months issue but I cant get into town to pick up a copy and was hoping to order before the end of the day

Thanks

Chris

The PSU rated best was the Seasonic 600W. I know you're looking at the 500W model but the 600W model is only £9.75 EXTRA!.

Both in stock and available at Scan Computers.