Power supply dilema? PLEASE HELP!

Hi,
I have lots of experience with PC's, working with them everyday. But customising them, overclocking them, getting them tweaked is not something I've had to get involved in - until now.

I've just built a PC, and my PSU blew up. It was a donor PSU though, so Im not too bothered. Problem is, my temporary el-chepo 400W is noisy and my brother says its cr@p and is doing my PC no favours.

So, I have an AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ (will be a 4200 x2 or better soon enough), a Sapphire x1950 Pro 256 Graphics card, SATA disk, 2 optical drives, floppy (old school) and lots of USB (potentially).

I've been told to look for "true" 400W at least.

Can somebody please make my decision for me? I want something quiet, and Ive seen the OCZ Modstream 450W. But I am on a very very tight budget, and if I really need to, I will spend the money, but cant I get something good for less?

What would you recommend, and is it worth me paying the 50+ for the OCZ or even more, the TG480? Akasa, Hiper, FSP... WHICH ONE?

TIA
Alan

Tagan TG480-U01. 480 watt, virtually silent, small, black and sexy, and with a single 12v rail at 28Amps :)

Oh, and welcome to Hexus !

FSP are great £/performance and are fairly quiet.
Tagan's are good, although unsure if the 'ticking' problem with them has stopped now?
Antec's are good.
OCZ's are apparently great too although never used them.

The FSP should do you no problems. :)

I would steer clear of Enermax (due to personal experience of them eating HDD's!).

No probs with any ticking in my Tagan :)

....and don't forget Seasonic.... which are always top of my lists......

I paid £50 (from Scan) for my Akasa 460W PSU and it's v.quiet and handles my system just fine.
Check out my profile on the left for more details.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EtheAv8r

....and don't forget Seasonic.... which are always top of my lists......

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Seasonic are fab PSU's.
If not the best IMHO.

But:

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Originally Posted by thommo41

...But I am on a very very tight budget...

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>.<

If you pick any of the brands listed here (except enermax of course) and compare prices - Get the cheapest. :)

@ Current Enermax users - Their older PSU's were fab too.
Their newer ones are a bit ropey.

I had an Enermax 500 psu which blew a couple of years ago during a power cut and to date that's the only unit I've lost (of any manufacturer).

I was considering getting a Galaxy in my next rig.. hmmm..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Captain Fizz

@ Current Enermax users - Their older PSU's were fab too.
Their newer ones are a bit ropey.

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To be honest, I have had recent models of Tagan, FSP and Enermax and I have to say that the Enermax has far better build quality. I have mentioned this a few times, but the FSP power supplies are cheap and nasty, right from the connectors, to the paint job, to the fans. The Tagan that i had, had the most ridiculous set of connectors and the supplied adapters caused short circuits after just a few uses, and the fans stuck on full. I havent had any such problems with any of the Enermax PSU's that I have had. Maybe I have been unlucky/lucky.

I've got an old Enermax running in my server - Been running for years no problems.
The last Enermax I had, there was a brown out - But PC stayed running.
Shutdown overnight in case of more brown-outs. (There were none)
2 x HDD's (200 GB total) completely dead the next morning.

Put in a spare 40GB... Installed OS. PC running fine for hours - Even gaming.
Left it on soft-off overnight - HDD dead in the morning.
Whenever I left the PC in soft-off it killed any HDD's attached.

If a PSU breaks, it should not take any other components with it.
(So to me, even though the power output was spot on... The failsafes are akin to QTecs. :( )


General public opinion accross forums (other than Hexus) seem to also follow this trend. That Enermax are not what they once were.

Noisy or not makes no difference to me.
The taking other components out does tho.
(Have to say I've been impressed by the FSP running my rig without any issues whatsoever - It is yet to fail but in a few years I'll let you know my opinion of their protection of other equipment! Cable wise/paint etc all seems spotty-dog with the Epsylon series)

EDIT - Never been to keen on Tagan...
But you should see Hipers if you think FSP are low quality! :p

Thats a bugger about the hard drives, just out of curiosity, what model of Enermax was it? A mate of mine had a 600w Noisetaker blow up (literally with a bang), luckily, it didnt take anything with it. I also had a 485w noisetaker and that was really heavily stressed for most of the year i had it, and no probels whatsoever.

My main gripe with the Epsilon was the connectors, they just wouldnt stay on the sockets, this included the 2x4 pin atx wires (really silly clip together arrangement), they would just pop out of the motherboard! The final straw was when the fan stuck on..it was only a couple of weeks old as well. Power wise, there was no problems, it was stable, but the overall build quality left me wondering what was going on inside.

As I said, Maybe I was unlucky, and maybe you were with the Enermax :)

It was the Noisetaker.
I have the replacement and when pressing & holding the power button to turn it off it would occasionally burst back into life when the power button was released again. :shocked2:
Using the spare Hiper I have lying about instead of it at the mo. :undecided

I was a strong advocate of Enermax PSU's... But since that issue, a few of my mates (one of which is into hardware even more than me) have advised of the general consensus around forums that Enermax's quality is lowering of late.

Didn't notice any issue with the connectors on the FSP...?
The sleeving on the cables is a little baggy, would have been nice to have slightly tighter wrap, but considering most PSU's don't have any - Suppose I can live with it. :p

If there are no troubles with the PSU's then I'm sure Enermax's will last for years.
I know the short protection on Antecs is awful, but unless someone is doing mods with black tape instead of soldering and slot-busses working loose - You shouldn't notice that. :o
(Not me... Nooooo... Only 3 x True series)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by g8ina

Tagan TG480-U01. 480 watt, virtually silent, small, black and sexy, and with a single 12v rail at 28Amps :)

Oh, and welcome to Hexus !

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No dont!
FSP/Fortron units are far better quality