What power supply to get

[orangat]

The psu is one of the most important components of a pc. A faulty marginal psu can be the source of hard to diagnose borderline problems including crashing and data corruption. It can also damage other expensive components like the cpu/cards/mb. There should be more emphasis on getting a quality unit instead of being contented with the freebie that come with the case.

Obsolete pcs-
Old systems may require the -5V rail. It will not need a strong 12V but a strong 5V rail instead. Any psu post ATX12V v1.2 may not supply -5V although many still do I think.

Super high end sli-
All dual rail psus no matter how high the wattage which follow the ATX12V specification to the letter will not be able to support sli/xfire with high end cards like the x1900xt. A psu with single rail or tri/quad rail would be needed unless the manufacturer ignores the spec and allows more than 18-20A on a single rail.

Typical systems-
The capacity of the 12V rails is the most important factor when sizing psus because newer cpus and video cards practically draw everything from the 12V rail. The typical draw from the 3.3V/5V rails should be around a measly 30W combined. A high end P-D cpu like the 820 can pull as much as ~11A on the 12V rail (135W). Dual rails on smaller psu's - anything less than ~350W would be pointless since it limits flexibility. A single rail would do.

Quality-
I don't know where Antec got its reputation for good quality psus from since it still uses very low quality fuhjyyu caps in all of its lines including the NeoHE which is oem'd by Seasonic. Despite the glowing 5-star reviews in newegg, this is a brand to stay away from. Delta, Etasis, Zippy/emacs are top quality brands. Pcpower and cooling, seasonic, enermax are very good. Enhance, Fortron/Sparkle (FSP models, not AX/ATX) are quite alright. This is just a short list of decent psus and there is some overlap since some manufacturers do put out lower quality price leaders.

The bad-
These psus are pure junk with poor build quality and components. Listed are some of the worst manufacturers and their oem labels.
Deer - Codegen, L&C, Mercury
TTGI - Superflower
Youngyear - Xconnect, Aspire
This thread lists more psus/manufacturers. Its not a static list, some of the manufacturers can make quality psus. link

Standards
ATX v1.3 and below are for obsolete pcs with the 20pin main plug.
ATX12V v2.x specify a 24pin power socket with an additional 4pin cpu power socket.
EPS12V/SSI is a server spec but the main difference from ATX12V is the 8pin cpu power socket.
Using an old ATX v1.x psu for anything newer than P3/Athlon is asking for trouble unless the 12V rail is beefy enough.

[hoom]

Is that a quote or personal experience?

[DukeofSerbia]

What about Chieftec? I have at home Chieftec and for almost two years it work perfect.

[orangat]

What about Chieftec? I have at home Chieftec and for almmost two year it work perfect.

I don't know alot about Chieftec. It had a few changes of oem partners. Its current oem is sirtec which has a decent reputation. Chieftec cases used to have Deer psus which are the absolute worst in the industry.

[orangat]

Is that a quote or personal experience?

If you are referring to my section on quality, Be specific.

Manufacturers like Etasis/Delta/Zippy are high end server psu manufacturers and well regarded oems. They have excellent design and build quality, use only good caps like rubycons and perform very well in testing. Many psu which are still running in very old Dells are probably Delta's.

[Lemur]

Just to help out, when orangat refers to "caps" he's talking about capacitors. Bad capacitors can destroy your system. There was a problem with motherboard caps that began in 1999 which continues to the present. I found a whole org-ish discussion board devoted to the "bad caps" issue, which you can enjoy here.

[caravel]

Personally I've always used the cheap psus that came with the cases and never had any problems. I always check the voltage levels with a multimeter and on the rare occasions that I've found a bad voltage I've opened up the psu and retuned it to within tolerance via the relevant pot. Though that has been rare.

[orangat]

Personally I've always used the cheap psus that came with the cases and never had any problems. I always check the voltage levels with a multimeter and on the rare occasions that I've found a bad voltage I've opened up the psu and retuned it to within tolerance via the relevant pot. Though that has been rare.

I never had any _noticeable_ problems either in my old pc's with low quality case psu's because the power consumption is very low compared to current systems. My old 9600pro only drew around 1.5A at max.

No cheap case psu will work well with anything above a modest gaming pc especially if it is a dual rail design.

[hoom]

Sorry orangat, it just seemed like you might have been quoting a third party rather than speaking from experience, I've been trying to find someone with experience.

So I have currently a 420w Thermaltake (18A on 12V) running an A64 3200+, 1GB DDR400, 4HDDs & a 9800np, good & stable :)

Have ordered a new conroe E6600 with 2GB DDR2 667 & X1900GT, will be looking to upgrade the GPU to an R6x0 series when they are out & will initially be running only 2 HDDs but will add more later.

I've been planning on sticking with this same PSU in the hope that it'll be ok in the meantime & then upgrading the PSU later as a mini upgrade.
I have my doubts that the current PSU can handle it though.

If I get a better one, I want it to be good enough to handle an R6x0 (which are rumoured to be power hogs)
There is such a wide range of PSUs out there, an apparent dearth of quality reviews & no clear guidance on what sort of power needed for a specific setup that I've been pretty confused

I've been thinking of a Coolermaster iGreen Power 600W but a Zippy Gaming Power 500W EPS12V is not too much more pricy & there seem to be many Enermaxes around similar price

[tibilicus]

wooo go me a 250 w psu powering a amd 4200 x2 + and an asus eax 1600 pro. :PNo problems so far mind.

[orangat]

Sorry orangat, it just seemed like you might have been quoting a third party rather than speaking from experience, I've been trying to find someone with experience.

So I have currently a 420w Thermaltake (18A on 12V) running an A64 3200+, 1GB DDR400, 4HDDs & a 9800np, good & stable :)

Have ordered a new conroe E6600 with 2GB DDR2 667 & X1900GT, will be looking to upgrade the GPU to an R6x0 series when they are out & will initially be running only 2 HDDs but will add more later.

I've been planning on sticking with this same PSU in the hope that it'll be ok in the meantime & then upgrading the PSU later as a mini upgrade.
I have my doubts that the current PSU can handle it though.

If I get a better one, I want it to be good enough to handle an R6x0 (which are rumoured to be power hogs)
There is such a wide range of PSUs out there, an apparent dearth of quality reviews & no clear guidance on what sort of power needed for a specific setup that I've been pretty confused

I've been thinking of a Coolermaster iGreen Power 600W but a Zippy Gaming Power 500W EPS12V is not too much more pricy & there seem to be many Enermaxes around similar price

I wasn't quoting from somewhere else and if I did I would've stated it quite clearly.

The conroe 6600 actually draws less power than the AMD 3500 but the x1900gt will put a load of at least 75W on the 12V rail. link.

The combined load on the 12V rail for the cpu+1900gt should be somewhere around 160W to compensate for vrm efficiency. Tack on 30W for drives and fans and the estimated typical draw at load would be around 190W which is very close to the maximum output of 216W of the Thermaltake. In short, its too weak.

I wouldn't recommend a coolermaster, its better than Deer/Powmax/Raidmax but there are much better psus for the same price.

As an aside I would recommend the 7900gt instead since its slightly faster than the x1900gt for around the same price or less and runs cooler to boot.

[DukeofSerbia]

I don't know alot about Chieftec. It had a few changes of oem partners. Its current oem is sirtec which has a decent reputation. Chieftec cases used to have Deer psus which are the absolute worst in the industry.

Everything is better than the cheap Chinese power supllies, which never had power as is written.

[hoom]

Thanks orangat, thats just the sort of info I was after
Looks like the Zippy Gaming Power 500W then.

The x1900gt stays, that was a carefully weighed decision & I'm sticking with it.

[orangat]

Thanks orangat, thats just the sort of info I was after
Looks like the Zippy Gaming Power 500W then.

The x1900gt stays, that was a carefully weighed decision & I'm sticking with it.

I wouldn't recommend the Zippy Gaming 500W. Its ok but there are better choices. That model is heavily biased towards 5V rail like old server and ATX 1.x psu's.

Get one of these psus instead if you are looking for something less than $100-
Silverstone Element 500W
Enhance 5150GH 500W

[hoom]

Hmm, yeah that silverstone looks pretty decent (& cheaper :) )

[DukeofSerbia]

Quality-
I don't know where Antec got its reputation for good quality psus from since it still uses very low quality fuhjyyu caps in all of its lines including the NeoHE which is oem'd by Seasonic.

Antec NeoHE is excellent PSU as is SeaSonic OEM as you wrote. And SeaSonic is one of the best PSU manufacturer.


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P.S.
I saw you in Anandtech's Forum.