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Steve · 05-22-2006, 05:24 PM

Brands

As I always say over and over and over again. Brand is extremely important in the realm of power supplies.
That is why this section is devoted to the few brands out there that I and other knowledgeable people
recommend or approve of.

First a quick list and then I will go into more detail on each brand.

Antec
Cooler Master
Enermax
Fortron
Hiper
OCZ
PC Power and Cooling
SeaSonic
Sparkle
Tagan/E-Power
Thermaltake

Here is an excellent list of PSU brands that you should never buy.
Thermaltake is on that list but that post has not been updated since 2005.

Here's a little legend for you all, cause I am gonna throw around some numbers that I
have calculated.

I went to New Egg's site and I collected the %age of excellent and good reviews of all the retail PSUs
that New Egg has in stock from each company.
NEAR Ex = New Egg Approval Rating Excellent = % of people who find the PSUs to be "Excellent" (5 eggs).
NEAR Gd= New Egg Approval Rating Good = % of people who find the PSUs to be "Good" (4 eggs).
NEAR Tl= New Egg Approval Rating Total = Sum of NEAR Ex and NEAR Gd.

Antec

August 25, 2006 stats: 17 retail PSUs ranging from $49.99 to $159.99. Total reviews = 1,371.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 66.27%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 13.67%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 79.94%

Antec PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-380 ATX12V 380W
Excellent 90.32% 28 votes
Good 9.68% 3 votes
There are no "Average", "Poor", or "Very Poor" votes.

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-480 ATX12V 480W
Excellent 90% 18 votes
Good 5% 1 vote
Poor 5% 1 vote
There are no "Average" or "Very Poor" votes.
The one person who voted "Poor" titled his review "Not Sure Who To Blame". The first one was DoA and
the second worked great until he tinkered with his other PC compenents. He ended up buying another
Antec PSU (a SmartPower) from Staples and he has had no further problems.

Antec PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Antec NeoPower NeoHE 380 ATX12V 380W
Excellent 27.27% 3 votes
Good 9.09% 1 vote
Average 9.09% 1 vote
Poor 27.27% 3 votes
Very Poor 27.27% 3 votes
Some people have issues because the supply won't work well with their motherboard and another user
who bought "10-15" of these PSUs had 3 fail on him due to the "glue Antec uses to secure components is
not strong enough or applied well enough, which causes components to be loose and flop around inside."

Antec NeoHE 430 ATX12V 430W
Excellent 45.45% 10 votes
Good 13.64% 3 vote
Average 4.55% 1 vote
Poor 18.18% 4 votes
Very Poor 18.18% 4 votes
Killed $900.00 worth of hardware, does not work with several Asus boards, will not power all components
at once and reports of the PSU becoming loud or making clicking noises.

Cooler Master

August 25, 2006 stats: 6 retail PSUs ranging from $33.99 to $119.99. Total reviews = 347.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 77.35%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 7.82%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 85.17%

Cooler Master PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Cooler Master RS-550-ACLY-SLI ATX12V/ EPS12V 550W
Excellent 82.35% 14 votes
Average 5.88% 1 vote
Poor 5.88% 1 vote
Very Poor 5.88% 1 vote
2 DoAs and 1 person bought it without realizing it was not ATX 2.0.

Cooler Master Real Power RS-450-ACLY ATX12V 450W
Excellent 82.83% 82 votes
Good 11.11% 11 votes
Average 4.04% 4 votes
Very Poor 2.02% 2 votes
1 DoA and someone got a whole new motherboard when it was just a bad PSU.

Cooler Master PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Cooler Master eXtreme Power 713001180 ATX12V 600W
Excellent 40.38% 21 votes
Good 15.38% 8 votes
Average 9.62% 5 votes
Poor 5.77% 3 votes
Very Poor 28.85% 15 votes
DoAs, it will boot up PC once then never again, and voltage dropping.

Enermax

August 25, 2006 stats: 19 retail PSUs ranging from $32.99 to $359.99. Total reviews = 688.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 75.67%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 10.68%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 86.35%

Enermax PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Enermax Coolergiant EG485AX-VHB SFMA 2.0 ATX12V 480W
Excellent 100% 4 votes

Enermax EG465P-VE 24P ATX 460W
Excellent 100% 11 votes

Enermax EG651P-VE FM(24P) ATX 550W
Excellent 100% 20 votes

Enermax Whisper II EG465P-VE FMA(24) ATX12V 460W
Excellent 92% 23 votes
Average 4% 1 vote
Very Poor 4% 1 vote
The person who voted "Very Poor" said that he bought 4 and all 4 failed. I find that highly unlikely.

Enermax PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Enermax Noisetaker II EG701AX VE(W) SFMA ATX12V Ver 2.2 600W
Excellent 42.31% 11 votes
Good 15.38% 4 votes
Average 7.69% 2 votes
Poor 7.69% 2 votes
Very Poor 26.92% 7 votes
DoAs random errors and sparks. One of them stuck with Enermax and received a PSU that has not quit on him yet.

Fortron

August 25, 2006 stats: 15 reviewed retail PSUs ranging from $34.99 to $149.99. Total reviews = 320.
6 of the retail PSUs on New Egg have no reviews.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 72.59%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 19.39%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 91.98%

Fortron PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Fortron FSP400-60THN-R ATX12V 400W
Excellent 100% 7 votes

Fortron AX400-PN 400W
Excellent 93.94% 62 votes
Good 4.55% 3 votes
Average 1.52% 1 votes
Average voter says it is not very quiet.

Fortron AX500-A 500W
Excellent 86.36% 57 votes
Good 4.55% 3 votes
Average 4.55% 3 votes
Poor 1.52% 1 vote
Very Poor 3.03% 2 votes
2 DoAs and another died after 6 months.

Fortron PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Fortron ZEN FSP300-60GNF-R ATX12V 300W
Excellent 60% 3 votes
Very Poor 40% 2 votes
One would not stay on in even a PIII system and the other blew smoke after it was repaired.

Hiper

August 25, 2006 stats: 4 reviewed retail PSUs all for $99.99. Total reviews = 70.
1 of the retail PSUs on New Egg has no reviews.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 89.57%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 9.35%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 98.91%

Hiper PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Hiper HPU-4K580-MS ATX12V 580W
Excellent 89.19% 33 votes
Good 10.81% 4 votes

HIPER HPU-4B580-MS ATX12V 580W
Excellent 91.3% 21 votes
Good 4.25% 1 vote
Very Poor 4.25% 1 vote
A PSU died after 8 months.

Hiper PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

The lowest scoring PSU has 7 Excellent votes and 2 Good votes, out of 9 votes. That is not bad.

OCZ

August 25, 2006 stats: 6 retail PSUs from $79.99 to $139.99. Total reviews = 447.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 79.04%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 10.86%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 89.90%

OCZ PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI ATX12V 600W
Excellent 88.24 15 votes
Good 11.76% 2 votes

OCZ PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

OCZ ModStream OCZ45012U 450W
Excellent 65.59% 61 votes
Good 16.13% 15 votes
Average 9.68% 9 votes
Poor 6.45% 6 votes
Very Poor 2.15% 2 votes
Failures at 8 days, 2 weeks, 33 days, 6 weeks, 6 weeks 3 months and 3 months.

PC Power & Cooling

August 25, 2006 stats: 5 reviewed retail PSUs from $169.99 to $509.99. Total reviews = 215.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 86.45%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 8.81%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 95.26%

PC Power & Cooling PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-Quad SLI T1KW-4E EPS12V 1000W
Excellent 100% 11 votes

PC Power & Cooling PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW EPS12V SLI, SSI
Excellent 69.7% 23 votes
Good 18.18% 6 votes
Average 6.06% 2 votes
Poor 6.06% 2 votes
It received 2 "Poor" votes due to louder noise levels than expected.

SeaSonic

August 25, 2006 stats: 5 retail PSUs from $54.00 to $159.99. Total reviews = 294.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 80.64%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 8.8%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 89.44%

SeaSonic PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W
Excellent 90.62% 29 votes
Good 6.25% 2 votes
Average 3.12% 1 vote

SeaSonic PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W
Excellent 65.05% 67 votes
Good 9.71% 10 votes
Average 2.91% 3 votes
Poor 7.77% 8 votes
Very Poor 14.56% 15 votes
Does not work with DFI NF4 motherboards, someone's 12V was only 6V, defective fan, DoAs, and
ugly wiring.

05-22-2006, 05:24 PM	#2
Steve The Progenitor Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Baltimore, MD Posts: 148 Video Card: GTX 580 SLI	Brands As I always say over and over and over again. Brand is extremely important in the realm of power supplies. That is why this section is devoted to the few brands out there that I and other knowledgeable people recommend or approve of. First a quick list and then I will go into more detail on each brand. Antec Cooler Master Enermax Fortron Hiper OCZ PC Power and Cooling SeaSonic Sparkle Tagan/E-Power Thermaltake Here is an excellent list of PSU brands that you should never buy. Thermaltake is on that list but that post has not been updated since 2005. Here's a little legend for you all, cause I am gonna throw around some numbers that I have calculated. I went to New Egg's site and I collected the %age of excellent and good reviews of all the retail PSUs that New Egg has in stock from each company. NEAR Ex = New Egg Approval Rating Excellent = % of people who find the PSUs to be "Excellent" (5 eggs). NEAR Gd= New Egg Approval Rating Good = % of people who find the PSUs to be "Good" (4 eggs). NEAR Tl= New Egg Approval Rating Total = Sum of NEAR Ex and NEAR Gd. Antec August 25, 2006 stats: 17 retail PSUs ranging from $49.99 to $159.99. Total reviews = 1,371. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 66.27% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 13.67% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 79.94% Antec PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-380 ATX12V 380W Excellent 90.32% 28 votes Good 9.68% 3 votes There are no "Average", "Poor", or "Very Poor" votes. Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-480 ATX12V 480W Excellent 90% 18 votes Good 5% 1 vote Poor 5% 1 vote There are no "Average" or "Very Poor" votes. The one person who voted "Poor" titled his review "Not Sure Who To Blame". The first one was DoA and the second worked great until he tinkered with his other PC compenents. He ended up buying another Antec PSU (a SmartPower) from Staples and he has had no further problems. Antec PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: Antec NeoPower NeoHE 380 ATX12V 380W Excellent 27.27% 3 votes Good 9.09% 1 vote Average 9.09% 1 vote Poor 27.27% 3 votes Very Poor 27.27% 3 votes Some people have issues because the supply won't work well with their motherboard and another user who bought "10-15" of these PSUs had 3 fail on him due to the "glue Antec uses to secure components is not strong enough or applied well enough, which causes components to be loose and flop around inside." Antec NeoHE 430 ATX12V 430W Excellent 45.45% 10 votes Good 13.64% 3 vote Average 4.55% 1 vote Poor 18.18% 4 votes Very Poor 18.18% 4 votes Killed $900.00 worth of hardware, does not work with several Asus boards, will not power all components at once and reports of the PSU becoming loud or making clicking noises. Cooler Master August 25, 2006 stats: 6 retail PSUs ranging from $33.99 to $119.99. Total reviews = 347. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 77.35% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 7.82% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 85.17% Cooler Master PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: Cooler Master RS-550-ACLY-SLI ATX12V/ EPS12V 550W Excellent 82.35% 14 votes Average 5.88% 1 vote Poor 5.88% 1 vote Very Poor 5.88% 1 vote 2 DoAs and 1 person bought it without realizing it was not ATX 2.0. Cooler Master Real Power RS-450-ACLY ATX12V 450W Excellent 82.83% 82 votes Good 11.11% 11 votes Average 4.04% 4 votes Very Poor 2.02% 2 votes 1 DoA and someone got a whole new motherboard when it was just a bad PSU. Cooler Master PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: Cooler Master eXtreme Power 713001180 ATX12V 600W Excellent 40.38% 21 votes Good 15.38% 8 votes Average 9.62% 5 votes Poor 5.77% 3 votes Very Poor 28.85% 15 votes DoAs, it will boot up PC once then never again, and voltage dropping. Enermax August 25, 2006 stats: 19 retail PSUs ranging from $32.99 to $359.99. Total reviews = 688. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 75.67% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 10.68% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 86.35% Enermax PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: Enermax Coolergiant EG485AX-VHB SFMA 2.0 ATX12V 480W Excellent 100% 4 votes Enermax EG465P-VE 24P ATX 460W Excellent 100% 11 votes Enermax EG651P-VE FM(24P) ATX 550W Excellent 100% 20 votes Enermax Whisper II EG465P-VE FMA(24) ATX12V 460W Excellent 92% 23 votes Average 4% 1 vote Very Poor 4% 1 vote The person who voted "Very Poor" said that he bought 4 and all 4 failed. I find that highly unlikely. Enermax PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: Enermax Noisetaker II EG701AX VE(W) SFMA ATX12V Ver 2.2 600W Excellent 42.31% 11 votes Good 15.38% 4 votes Average 7.69% 2 votes Poor 7.69% 2 votes Very Poor 26.92% 7 votes DoAs random errors and sparks. One of them stuck with Enermax and received a PSU that has not quit on him yet. Fortron August 25, 2006 stats: 15 reviewed retail PSUs ranging from $34.99 to $149.99. Total reviews = 320. 6 of the retail PSUs on New Egg have no reviews. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 72.59% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 19.39% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 91.98% Fortron PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: Fortron FSP400-60THN-R ATX12V 400W Excellent 100% 7 votes Fortron AX400-PN 400W Excellent 93.94% 62 votes Good 4.55% 3 votes Average 1.52% 1 votes Average voter says it is not very quiet. Fortron AX500-A 500W Excellent 86.36% 57 votes Good 4.55% 3 votes Average 4.55% 3 votes Poor 1.52% 1 vote Very Poor 3.03% 2 votes 2 DoAs and another died after 6 months. Fortron PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: Fortron ZEN FSP300-60GNF-R ATX12V 300W Excellent 60% 3 votes Very Poor 40% 2 votes One would not stay on in even a PIII system and the other blew smoke after it was repaired. Hiper August 25, 2006 stats: 4 reviewed retail PSUs all for $99.99. Total reviews = 70. 1 of the retail PSUs on New Egg has no reviews. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 89.57% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 9.35% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 98.91% Hiper PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: Hiper HPU-4K580-MS ATX12V 580W Excellent 89.19% 33 votes Good 10.81% 4 votes HIPER HPU-4B580-MS ATX12V 580W Excellent 91.3% 21 votes Good 4.25% 1 vote Very Poor 4.25% 1 vote A PSU died after 8 months. Hiper PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: The lowest scoring PSU has 7 Excellent votes and 2 Good votes, out of 9 votes. That is not bad. OCZ August 25, 2006 stats: 6 retail PSUs from $79.99 to $139.99. Total reviews = 447. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 79.04% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 10.86% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 89.90% OCZ PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI ATX12V 600W Excellent 88.24 15 votes Good 11.76% 2 votes OCZ PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: OCZ ModStream OCZ45012U 450W Excellent 65.59% 61 votes Good 16.13% 15 votes Average 9.68% 9 votes Poor 6.45% 6 votes Very Poor 2.15% 2 votes Failures at 8 days, 2 weeks, 33 days, 6 weeks, 6 weeks 3 months and 3 months. PC Power & Cooling August 25, 2006 stats: 5 reviewed retail PSUs from $169.99 to $509.99. Total reviews = 215. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 86.45% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 8.81% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 95.26% PC Power & Cooling PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-Quad SLI T1KW-4E EPS12V 1000W Excellent 100% 11 votes PC Power & Cooling PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW EPS12V SLI, SSI Excellent 69.7% 23 votes Good 18.18% 6 votes Average 6.06% 2 votes Poor 6.06% 2 votes It received 2 "Poor" votes due to louder noise levels than expected. SeaSonic August 25, 2006 stats: 5 retail PSUs from $54.00 to $159.99. Total reviews = 294. August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 80.64% August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 8.8% August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 89.44% SeaSonic PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers: SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W Excellent 90.62% 29 votes Good 6.25% 2 votes Average 3.12% 1 vote SeaSonic PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings: SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W Excellent 65.05% 67 votes Good 9.71% 10 votes Average 2.91% 3 votes Poor 7.77% 8 votes Very Poor 14.56% 15 votes Does not work with DFI NF4 motherboards, someone's 12V was only 6V, defective fan, DoAs, and ugly wiring. __________________ Intel Quad Core QX6700 │ MSI P7N SLI Platinum \| 4GB Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 \| Vista Ultimate 64 bit Zalman 9500 LED │ GTX 580 SLI│ Samsung 22" 3D LCD \| LG 55" Passive 3D LED HDTV Sadly the remote has vanished from the material sphere. So it's stuck on Animal Planet- Dr. Orpheus Last edited by Steve : 08-25-2006 at 07:48 PM.