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Hiper Type-R Modular Blue Line 580W PSU Review
MrIcee2 writes "XtremeResources today has on the test bench the Hiper Type-R Modular Blue Line 580W Power Supply Unit . Our European Senior Reviewer Grace evaluates the high end modular Power Supply Unit solution powering her Intel P4 3.73 EE, Asus P5AD2-E premium based test bench. Read along as she determines the flexibilty this unit offers in it's modular construction, and takes a look inside to see what make this unit the powerhouse that it is.
"Most users underestimate the necessity of a good, reliable and high quality power supply unit. They usually do not understand that it is the driving force for the whole system and it can affect reliability and stability substantially. An inadequate power supply unit will cause instability of the system at best, it may overload and burn out attached components in the worst case scenario. Hiper (High Performance Group) recently released the Type-R modular blue line HPU-4B580 power supply unit, which is competitively priced and claims to be able to offer everyone what they want and require. Hiper was nice enough to have us take a look at the unit, so we will shortly know if it can stand up to its claims."
Well, this is Slashdot: Ads for Nerds. :P
I always thought the ads were supposed to go in the panel on the top of the window, not in the "articles" section.
Aeris Died For Your Sins.
It seems to me that one of the whole points of digital is that as long as the power rails are above some sufficient level of performance, any improvement in performance is pointless. Power supply noise isn't an issue below some critical value. This reminds me of the crooks who try to sell people on $100 digital audio fiber optic cable for "higher fidelity."
Well, there are quality supplies and there are crap supplies. I'm not saying this one is any good but you owe it to yourself to buy a quality power supply as it is literally the most dangerous component of your system.
I have had several el-cheapo supplies go up in smoke on me. Foretunately I was in the same room each time and could yank the power. Once at a place I worked they had the same thing happen (another cheapo supply) and the machine was in a server room. Foretunately the fire alarm alerted the sysadmins. The case of that machine had a 2 inch hole burned through the side.
I have never again bought a cheap power supply. If I really like a case and I can't get it without the power supply I usually just toss it and put something good in.
Duh. A fraction of the power of an electric space heater. Duh. Way less than a microwave. Duh. Less than a water heater. Duh.
First of all, wtf is with that name? All it needs is a few more Xs for Xtreme.
Anyway, thanks for a bunch of pictures of the PSU without actually telling me anything. If you want a real review of PSUs, head over ot X-bit labs. All of their reviews contain actual power data with power draw vs rated voltage graphs and scope readings of rail fluctuations. And one picture of the PSU if you actually care.
If that cheap (but bigass) PSU doesn't put out a clean DC voltage, you're going to see some weird (and possibly intermittent) blips happen to your hardware.
Yes, exactly.
For instance, a lot of hard drive failures are actually PSU-driven. Either the simple case where the PSU isn't giving enough juice to start the drive up, in which case switching to another rail or PSU will fix it, or worse, the PSU sent a transient down the line that fried your onboard electronics. And of course there are cases when the PSU problem just messes with your very-sensitive non-ECC onboard cache RAM and the other, more robust components happily write garbage to the platter.
The mechanical components in a modern drive are usually pretty reliable -- they're in a sealed (well, except for that little vent hole with the good filter) case assembled in a clean room to tight tolerances. Nothing's getting in there to mess them up as long as you keep the temperature and humidity in spec.
But the circuitry is connected to your cheap-ass PSU, which is connected to your mains, which are connected to your air conditioner, your vacuum cleaner, your neighbor's blowdrier, and so forth.
That's OK, though -- just repeat to yourself "it'll probably never happen to me."
"Type-R" is well-known among the racing enthusiasts, as a tuned up version of the original platform to its maximum output
Nope. Actually, I know it to be mostly used for badge engineering- aka posturing.
There's a strong preference among many car enthusiasts for vehicles that just don't stand out. We call them "sleepers", and their performance and subtlety speak for themselves.
For example, with just a litre more displacement- helps to have 5 cylinders instead of 4) and a turbo- I've got around 150-180 more HP than them. A manual transmission (don't laugh, half the ricers drive automatics), all wheel drive, and not a single badge on the car except rings on the trunklid and 'quattro' in the front grille.
Kicker? Blue book value is probably half to a third what a new base-price honda coupe costs. Granted repairs are a little more common, but in the end, for some of us, the occasional hassle is worth it :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Well, it looks pretty enough. Not a single mention as to any of the important stats, however. Modern hardware sucks up an incredible amount to juice, and this review did not mention how many amps on each rail, or decibels when the PS was running under load.
Been burned on crappy 'high wattage' power supplies before. Worth reading the Watts don't mean Jack sticky and a few others in the form if you are looking to build a SLI system.
Type-R... It was bad enough to buy a DFI 'LanParty UT SLI-DR' board, of which only three letters told me anything about it. What is with these marketing people?
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
This is supposed to be a review of high-end power supply specs and it never mentions ripple? How about overvoltage protection? Aging? Brownout or surge protection? So how stable is the output of this supply? Real stable. Oh, OK.
... may blow up". Yeah, I think I saw this on Star Trek last week. If they would only stop making those cheap supplies out of TNT.
Then there are statements like this in the review: "Cheap power supply units
No price anywhere. Can it unseat the competition? Who knows?
The use of Honda's unrelated Type-R performance label tells me they are appealing to quality by association to something they deserve no merit for.
The review site talks up the need for a beefy PSU, but shows no methodical testing whatsoever.
Seems to me the editors are a bit detached from if not journalistic integrity, at least some base duty they have to give us relevant stories. This is a clue to the sort of fuzzy logic is used when choosing submissions. Choices seem related more to pandering than genuine identification with the interests of slashdot readers.
No wonder they got rid of John Katz, lest it be too obvious. He writes for MSN now.
That calculator counts only continuous power usage.
I punched in system that I measured to take ~500W when powering up, due spinning of drives, and that calculator recommended that I should use only 280W power for that system.
300W psu couldn't start that system, or if it even powered up, it would most likely burn while spinning up the drives.
Calculators like that are crap.
Just make a list of the components you're planning to use and search for their datasheets, they're available online almost without exception.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
*runs & hides*