Brand Names Take On Generics In PSU Showdown

The Raindog writes "The power supply is perhaps the most overlooked element of a modern PC, and yet it's the one component that can irreparably damage the rest of a system. The market is littered with generic PSUs that are often much cheaper than name-brand alternatives, but can you trust them? The Tech Report aims to find out in its latest power supply round-up, which compares the performance, efficiency, and noise levels of a collection of reputable PSUs with some budget, no-name competition. As it turns out, any money you save on a generic PSU purchase will likely cost you more in the long run."

Overlooked

[pauloncall]

Why does every article on power supplies feel the need to remind us that power supplies are probably the most overlooked component? Judging by the number of online reviews and by the 560 (!) power supplies available at Newegg, I think it's safe to finally retire the "overlooked" cliche.

Re:Also check your UPS

[gnick]

Plug in a Kill-A-Watt. $24.99 on Amazon. [amazon.com] It'll tell you your line voltage (with or without load), power consumption, and energy usage for the duration it's plugged in. If nothing else, you can figure out where your electricity is going, how much energy your computer(s) is/are using, and how well your UPS is living up to its promises (unplug it and watch its performance).

I don't work for them or anything, it's just a good way to see what your UPS is up to and learn a little about your household energy usage.

Of course, if your problem really is your PSU rather than your UPS, all this unit does is narrow down the problem rather than solve it... Still, I consider it worth my $25.

Re:These days, you can't really be sure

[Sycraft-fu]

Google may use cheap shit, but they can do so because their reliability comes in the form of redundancy. When you have a lot of systems, you can set them up so that no one failure has any real impact on your service. It's like a RAID-5 array. The disks themselves may not be that reliable but the overall array is because if one fails, you lose nothing you just replace it. Likewise a RAID-6 is more reliable since two can fail, and so on.

However, people at home don't have that luxury. I have one main computer. If it fails, I'm SOL until I get replacement parts. If a bad PSU takes out other components, I'm more screwed. So I have to go through reliability of the components themselves, get better components so they fail less often.

Re:Also check your UPS

[amirulbahr]

*knock* *kno<NO CARRIER>
... would have been so much funnier.

AngryTec is the worst.

[Ostracus]

"You can hide a multitude of sins behind one of those "Warranty void if broken" paper seals. ;)"

Slashdot has one of those.

Spotting a winner.

[Ostracus]

"We've narrowed our focus on PSUs in the 350-500W range, which should be enough power for most budget and mid-range systems."

This isn't quite true. The more important question is the amps on the +12V Rails? Even better if yours has a monorail design were all the power-hungry parts can get what they need. Also sustained rating is important. Not peak. And last even the better brands can be/go bad. My PC Power & Cooling 750 silencer was recieved DOA. It happens even to the best...much like hard drives.

Re:In other news...

[N1AK]

I've never underclocked a CPU, don't replace fans unless they break or get noisy and turn my computer off an average of two times a day. Never, ever has a computer broken even though I'm ignoring 3 of your rules.

The thing is my above observation means absolutely nothing as the sample is far to small to be of any statistical significance. I expect the same is true for your experience with PSUs. If someone has done testing on a reasonable scale, in monitored condition then it would be of real use to people buying 100s of units who want to minimise TCO.

I tend to buy reasonably good PSUs but mainly because I'm after energy efficiency (which is also why I power down twice a day).

No PC Power and Cooling?

[Xabraxas]

The review isn't even worth reading because they don't compare a PC Power and Cooling PSU. I don't trust anything else because even the other big name brands use a bunch of gimmicky crap in their PSUs.

Re:Also check your UPS

[Kaboom13]

Dual power supplies are your friend. 1 plug goes to the UPS, the other to an independent UPS or the wall. That said, UPS failures are rare if you perform regular maintenance (AKA replace batteries etc BEFORE they fail on you). I suppose it depends a lot on the individual area, but in an are alike mine where severe thunderstorms are common, power outages happen a couple times a year minimum, vs UPS failure that are very rare. Not to mention, you get what you pay for. Office Supply store brand UPS are not going to be reliable.

Re:In other news...

[bcrowell]

Don't turn it off! Computers that are turned on/off every day last a few years. Servers that are babysat, running 24x7 at a consistent temperature run damn near forever. This costs money, so run the numbers to see what uptimes vs power consumption really costs you.

Lots of problems with this statement:

1. On modern hardware, I believe the best evidence is that leaving the machine on continuously doesn't increase its longevity. In any case, the correlation has always been extremely tenuous, to the point where its existence is extremely difficult to detect.
2. A server left on 24 hours a day may maintain a fairly constant temperature, but a desktop machine will not. While you're not using the computer, it cools off.
3. Your advice to run the numbers doesn't make sense, because there is no reliable data quantifying the supposed cost savings from leaving it on in hopes of making it live longer. Those cost savings are probably within error bars of zero.
4. Your advice to run the numbers also ignores the environmental damage you're doing.
5. Most people replace desktop machines within about 3 years. The mean time to failure is much longer than 3 years. Therefore even very high-value maintenance, like dusting, is unlikely to make the difference between failing before replacement and failing after replacement.

Another problem is with your advice to buy cheap power supplies. Cheap power supplies are made out of less environmentally friendly materials, and are also less efficient. The lower efficiency is both an environmental issue and a money issue.