Hardware What is the best 400-599W PSU?

Fair enough, I'll rephrase for you.

Each PSU was tested by drawing the amount of power that the manufacturer claims it can produce. i.e. if the manufacturer says 450W, then we drew 450W from it.

 

meh, if you want real, unbiased professional reviews of hardware, goto tomshardware. I just come here to see project logs.

 

You're kidding, right? Tomshardware has sucked for years. If you want to geek out on PSU reviews, get thee to HardOCP or Anand - they'll get down to brand and series of caps, soldering quality, etc, along with all bit has here. For the rest, check many sites - eventually you'll figure out who to trust for what.

That said, appreciate this guide, BT - just wished you'd had one up a year ago when my 400W fried and I had to replace it (with a 450W BFG - decent, but if I hadn't been in a hurry, I would have gotten an Antec Earthwatts.)

Would love a Seasonic, but they're a little on the dear side for me yet - maybe on the Bulldozer build (btw, where's my FX, AMD?)

 

Great review and good testing...I wish there was a proper conclusion to it though.

 

Although I agree in principle to your hint, I disagree for two reasons:

• In most cases PSU fans are amongst the quietest in a system, especially true when the fan is a 120+mm one, as all these are. My PSU is a PC P&C Silencer with an 80mm fan. It is inaudible in an otherwise VERY quiet gaming system. My other low-power-optimised gaming system (for when I want to play older games) has slow, low powered fans, and has a Corsair HX with a 120mm fan. It is also inaudible over the quiet 120mm CPU/system fans.
• There is more to a fan's quality than volume. Often the motors or blades give off annoying buzzes or drones or hums that a meter just won't measure.

Which is why I am satisfied with the subjective evaluation given in each PSU entry. If the fan or component noise is note worthy, it is mentioned and given some analysis (what kind of noise and under what circumstances).

I'm pleased that BT has done this round-up, and hope that it is semi-regular as PSU go through product refresh cycles. Can we look forward to other segments? 600-999W and 1000+W perhaps?

I'm not so bothered with the lack of final summary, as each PSU is given a separate write up with a subjective look at how it fits within the round-up. The problem with a final summary is that even within the limited span of capacities the person thinking of buying a $40 Thermaltake isn't the same person who is thinking of buying a $126 Seasonic. The individual summaries allows the reviewer to deal specifically with the PSU at hand as well as put the PSU into the wider context. I'm happy with the results.

I think that these types of reviews aren't being done as much any more, with a focus on the sexy CPU, GPU and SSD reviews to the detriment of the enthusiast who like to keep informed about ALL the components in their system. I may be in the minority, but I spend at least a day researching like mad before I impulse buy. Often I will mull a purchase for months before committing. Some people like turtles, I like fan reviews and the like.

There have been a distinct lack of reviews of PSU and mechanical HDDs over the last couple of years (all over, not just at BT), and I have really felt this lack of hard numbers with HDDs. HDD speeds can vary quite a bit depending on capacity, number of platters and even which part of the platters are used. A review of a 2TB model often isn't very useful when you are in the market for the 750GB version.
At the moment I'm in the market for a 2TB 7200rpm HDD, and finding a review that tests current model Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung and Hitachi drives was quite difficult. Perhaps this is something BT could do instead of that 6th GTX560 review with different cooling or 10MHz speed bump ("XXX eXtreem Super OCers Maxx WHUT UP! Edition"). Even here among enthusiasts, most people buy HDDs over SSDs.

I recently had to buy a new DVD-RW for my media PC, my first DVD purchase in over two years. Have DVD drives become so commonplace and commoditised that there is no distinction between manufacturers and implementations? It used to be that you looked for one model because the *chipset* was better than the other.

I feel old and cranky and I keep wanting to throw out the odd "In my day...".

 

This is the reason I read Bit-Tech, because the CPC articles end up here.

...not really, but I thought it was an amusing angle.

 

Makes me glad I've stuck with Seasonic PSUs for most of my PCs down the years. Moved briefly to Coolermaster, but am back using a Seasonic X-650. I think a good PSU should be invisible to the end-user (in terms of maintenance & noise), and that's why I will always spend a sizeable amount on a decent one.

 

Good review but I'm disappointed that nothing from OCZ was in the test.

 

I think the conclusion is important, I don't want to read through each individual review to find something that might suit my needs. I thought it was a badly laid out and not very clear article.

 

Same here.
I agree that measuring the absolute noise level isn't that interesting, but I'd like to know if it's audible or not, and (for PSU) if it "Whines" (some do).
I understand that media-drives are not tested because noone cares about the speed anymore (fast enough) But a sound test would be nice (don't want a humming drive to watch a movie from)

Same with HDD's. Do I notice 5% difference in speed? No. But i hear the drive all the time (or preferably, I don't)
I tried to get the info from Samsungs webpage on how many platters there are in one drive, they simply don't say it.
(same volume on less platters is usually cooler and faster through higher density)

 

I'd like to see efficiency levels at around 100W load. That's where the majority of systems will be spending the majority of their time if you are just browsing the web or watching videos etc.

 

This makes me wishfull for the CPC webpages. They where not afraid to blow up PSU while testing. 100% load over 24 hours and all the threats from the Manufactures sent didnt stop them. O well i am glad I still sub the mag. But I guess thats the point realy, isnt it. To be always one step behind or lower quality then CPC mag.

 

i guess everyone is entitled to their opinion...
if i wrote articles, i wouldn't care about a small percentage of lazy readers that think they are professional news editors and know how a "well laid out" article is supposed to look and/or want their hand held. the purpose was information, and the best way to get that information is to read the article.
most posts i've seen by you have for the most part been fairly helpful, so a little surprised at your attitude towards the article...but hey, we all have our days

 

Thats fair enough. I did try to use it for reference to specify a PSU for my brothers new PC build but there is no quick way to get information from that article, you do have to read it fully which I will admit I didn't.

To me it isn't easy to find a PSU for a specific wattage without looking at the tables which are at the end of the article. Each PSU review starts with the manufacturer, part number, price and then supplier. There is no way to tell what the wattage is from the review itself which seems lazy to me as I would imagine most people are using the article to specify a new PC build or upgrade and not having the wattage stated in the product review just doesn't seem like a good layout design.

The final points, percentage given and awards section on page 83 is very hard to use to appraise the PSU's, how do you find the one that has the best value for money score? (table form would be much easier to look at but it might be a bit dry for some).

To me it would have been better to give each PSU 1/2 columns with the key info at the top (price, wattage, manufacturer) Then the text review but in a shorter form and then the information from the table and the CPC percentage and and awards. The article would be clearer and easier to read.

Just my opinion on the matter and I know that I don't have any experience in magazine layout.

Sorry to have lowered your opinion of me!

 

AS YOU SHOULD BE!

i get it, and everyone has there preferences for how they think it should be laid out...just thought it was a little harsh, and i'm usually the one who is harsh, so maybe i was more put off by the fact that you were out-harshing me.

i've never been really fond of the new scoring system myself...seems like it gets a bit subjective in to many areas...maybe modular is important to me, but not important to someone who has a ton of components and would rather have everything hard-wired in because they will use it anyway...so to penalize a unit that isn't modular by, say, 25 % of their features score may not be a vaild score for some. but is there a better way...meh

but like someone else mentioned, not too many sites do a compilation of commponents and review them these days, so i appreciate that...as far as the details like ocp, max wattage, stuff like that, i'm headed to guru or the like...and i would recommend that be a final reference point for anyone about to make a purchase

 

Ha I don't think I was harsh, just correct!

True, not many places have multiple reviews of PSU's but if you are going to put the effort in to doing all this work then surely it is worth writing a brief conclusion? Even if it says that they don't have a favourite PSU then I at least know that I need to read each one to get a good idea of my best buy.

I read the reviews for a "professional" opinion on the PC kit, I love the forums but most people only experience say one or two GPU's every two years so can be a little biased and un-informed.

I have also just subscribed after reading that there has been a refresh of the mag hoping for good things!

 

Great Review - props to the Bit-Tech Staff.

One criticism - it is unfair to compair Corsair's $46 lowest-end PSU to Seasonic's $130 PSU which is almost a $100 more expensive. Perhaps the TX Series would have been a more fair comparison. Heck, you can buy the HX 750 for $130 and it is a much better PSU with a much better warranty.

Really? Next time it would be good to compare apples to apples. That being said, it is still a great review by Bit-Tech with a lot of valuable information.

 

Antec High Current Gamer HCG-550 Plus Review

Our load testing of the HCG-550 Plus showed some excellent results at 10 and 50 per cent load, with all rails reporting voltages within the ATX spec. Unfortunately, however, there was one fly in the ointment. The HCG-550 Plus’ nemesis proved to be its 12V2 rail, which dipped to 11.2V – that’s 0.2V below the ATX specification under 100 per cent load.

the quote above shows that one of four rail of hcg-550 plus is worst...
is it malfunction or all of psu's do so?
thx