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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."
It's all just electrons, and any power supply large enough will power your computing needs. I suppose painting it metallic blue is cool because, of course, it's inside the case where looks really matter.
In the submitter's defense, he does have a point. 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. Do you think AC turns into DC magically? You need a quality full wave rectifier.
Plus there is the MTBF issue as well. I just had to trash my current Antec PSU because it started arcing and spewing smoke. If I hadn't been at home when this happened, my whole place could have burned down. Luckily, it didn't damage any of my other hardware.
Why does the PSU have to be internal?
Why can't it be external like for laptops. That way heat isn't dissipated inside the computer case.
Can someone straighen me out here?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
It's more troublesome then some really understand.
I can really appreciate the UL listings on the back of a television monitor after dealing with so much much equipment that doesn't have any listings.
When performing an evaluation... I had a friend recommend just getting an amperage meter tool to check the system needs. It really doesn't take in account the initial power spike, but it helps when things are poorly documented.
So... all I can say is...
Over spec, over spec and well... you know... over spec some more.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
"I think more users underestimate the value of a half-decent surge protector, and many of those that think they are using one are actually using a plain power strip."
Those cheap consumer surge protectors give a false sense of protection. A whole house surge protector/ power conditioner with excellent grounding is much better.
"On the power rating, the problems I've run into in the past is finding the power consumption ratings of all the devices I expect to use, and how much power is used from the respective voltage rails."
That's what a good meter's for.
I have noticed that I run a bit undervoltage according to PC Probe on the +5 and +12 lines but the stability is rock solid so I havnt worried about it (athlon 64 on a 480W I believe)
Bottles.
I couldn't find a US reseller though.
Was the most expensive one:
Topower 420
It was in my gaming PC to protect the expensive components. I turn that thing on once a week at best. I also have a no-name PSU that cost me $30 with the case that has been on for the past five years with zero problems. Go figure.
...but the build quality is awful. Check this image: cramped cables (without need), restricted airflow, solder joints holding weight, bent circuit boards, minuscle heatsinks, panel mount parts glued with silicone... no wonder it needs two fans (and one is 120mm)!!!
Come on, i know ATX power supplies are limited in size, but i have an "el-cheapo" Chinese 300w PSU which works like a charm and it's much better designed and built. It looks cool, and it seems that it's very good at regulating the output voltages, but you can get that elsewhere without the glitz. No mention of it's price either.
To be honest, i wouldn't want that powering my PC.
Rectifier? I hardly knew her.
But seriously, folks. Getting DC sufficient for digital is really not that difficult. Any noise in the power supply will just translate into noise in the outputs of the transistors. And as long as that noise is within the margins of the logic, it disappears at the next transistor, so that the noise never "cascades" like it would with analog processing. That's the magic of digital. Hard to believe it would be hard to convince people of that on /. of all places, but I guess people loves them their pretty blue power supplies.
Power supply noise isn't an issue below some critical value.
However, in PC's that critical value tends to be a lot higher than one expects. Far too often, PC power supplies get really noisy when pushed to anywhere near their maximum rating. The results can be very mysterious - all kinds of components from hard disks to ram "randomly" failing.
I've literaly seen the benefits of improved power sources myself - over on avsforum there was an EE freak in the canadian boonies who was all about making sure you have copious amounts of clean power available to assure maximum stable performance in a PC. He used to sell personally modified versions of video-capture cards. He would take a garden-variety $30 NTSC capture card, replace the caps and a few other components in the power supply path and resell it for about $100. The end result was the cleanest video capture short of pro equipment in the $1K+ price range - all because of his improvements to the power circuitry on the cards.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
A "quality full wave rectifier" can be made with four power diodes at less than a dollar each; the PX6007 springs to mind, or the BR106 bridge package if you need really heavy currents.
;-)
To be honest, I'd much rather be using a mercury arc rectifier - semiconductors are for wimps!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I'm not quite sure that thing is very accurate. It does not take into consideration other hardware, nor does it take into consideration of any mods of the like that people may do.
As it is, I run an AMD xp, 5 80mm case fans, 1 120mm exhaust fan, cd-rom, dvd drive, 2 hard drives (both 7,200 RPM) and 3 nVidia graphics cards (tripple monitor. 1x agp, 2x pci) and 1gb of DDR memory (two sticks)
You must also realize, that if you have *just enough* power from your PSU to power your system, that you're going to make that PSU work harder to produce that power. Which means, quite honestly, more heat and we all know what more heat leads to. A bigger PSU doesn't have to work as hard to supply power to all your parts.
As it is, I run an Antec 550watt True Power 2.0, and although I'm not maxing it out (yet), it does get a strain on startups.