Thirty Four PSUs Tested - Is Biggest Best? 276
SteveK writes "Hexus has been testing some 34 PC power supplies to see which is best. There are some interesting results. An Enermax 535 Watt PSU couldn't deliver much over 450W, while a cheap 250W PSU did exactly what it said on the box. There's also a video of a (very cheap) 650W PSU under 400W of load, requiring over 1kW of input power to sustain the load, before blowing up."
No Antec or PC Power & Cooling? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hexus = good reviews, shitty servers. (Score:2, Insightful)
Lots of slashdotters go there because there are lots of reviews.
When a new one is posted, it gets submitted and because its good gets posted here...
Either that or Hemos is taking backhanders from the hexus BOFHs to push for extra server upgrades "Boss, the servers keep going down, we need more power".
Amazing speculative conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Though to be honest I've always gone with Antec cases [Sonata series for instance] and never once had a problem with the case or PSU [specially on things like dual-core AMD and Intel processors with multiple drives and PCI-X cards].
If you paid 30$ for your 400W supply and it doesn't work
Tom
Clean input (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hexus = good reviews, shitty servers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Clean input (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amazing speculative conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH the 'no name' PSUs seem to perform much better.. they're also cheaper to replace when they explode (about once a year seems to be average).
Re:External Power Supply Macho (Score:3, Insightful)
Always suprised me on these new pizza box servers that I can't buy a pizza box PSU or two and save space enough in the main box for an extra CPU or two.
I think it's a basic issue of amperage and voltage drop?
You take the same wattage of power, coming in over 120v, and output it at various voltages under 12v, and your cables coming out end up being pretty large if you need to go 4+ feet. Cable size and weight varies with amps [powerstream.com], not with volts or watts, so for the same wattage, lowering the voltage makes the cable size grow, so it's more efficient to transport electricity around at >=120 volts rather than <=12 volts.
There might be more details like the PSU not being able to respond to spikes in current draw fast enough because of characteristics of the line too, but I bet the cable size/weight is the biggest part of it.
Re:In related news SUVs are better than cars (Score:3, Insightful)
So, the SUV comparison isn't exactly valid, unless the 600 watt is horribly inefficient.
Re:Hexus = good reviews, shitty servers. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Split story onto many many pages
2) Sell more ads
3) Profit!!!!
Re:Dell 250W (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amazing speculative conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies lie.
Companies sometimes lie without engineers initially knowing they're lying.
Government regulations do little to stop it.
Buyer beware.
Re:Amazing speculative conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
However, if it's too good to be true...
Coral cache (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yaaawwwwnnnn. Could there be anything more bori (Score:2, Insightful)
I purchased a new PSU this weekend based on the PSU ratings at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ [silentpcreview.com] because for me (and my roommates), an efficient, quiet PSU was essential, so I settled on the Seasonic S12 300W. It's great to see PSU reviews getting more press these days, as they are probably the last part of computer building that is very, very unreliable. Builders know where to get quality motherboards, RAM, CPUs, drives, and even cases at a cheap price, but power supplies are the wildcard. There is no governing body for PSU quality except Intel's "recommendations", and until lately, very little reviews besides NewEgg.com user comments to guide one's purchasing.
Thanks Hexus, Tom's, and SilentPCreview for filling in the gaps!
Re:Where's Antec? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amazing speculative conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a cheap PSU then check the specs for their output filter capacitors. When I see a flyback PSU with 20A outputs and filter capacitors rated for less than 1A ripple, I am mostly surprised that they lasted that long given that flybacks have the worst ripple currents of all switchers. While forward converters have much lower ripple, their 20-30A outputs often use 1A-rated caps... at ~50% load, the ripple current would still be over 5A RMS or worse if the 50% load point is too far below 50% duty cycle. (For universal PSUs, the 50% load point may even be below 25% duty cycle.)
If you have a 3+ years old $20 PSU (or free with $30 case), open it up and you will probably see that the output filter caps have leaked on the 12V and either 3.3V or 5V rails.
PS: In case of purists, I mean combined duty cycle rather than individual transistors/halves.
Re:Tom's Hardware's PSU Strees Test, Aug. '05 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hexus = good reviews, shitty servers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever. A well-designed, liquid web template will be usable whether there's 1 paragraph of content or 100 paragraphs.
2) Pageviews. Equals money in pocket.
Not when the server rolls over because it's getting more page requests than it's capable of delivering, it doesn't.
Re:Hexus = good reviews, shitty servers. (Score:3, Insightful)
And clicking on the "next" button is somehow more interactive than clicking on the scroll bar?
Yes, but . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hexus = good reviews, shitty servers. (Score:2, Insightful)