Slashdot Mirror
Thirty Four PSUs Tested - Is Biggest Best?
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."
This is a pretty worthless comparison without even one sample from Antec or PC Power & Cooling.
Chicken and egg.
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".
liqbase
like all things in life, if you cut corners [price wise] you'll get burnt...
... don't act very surprised.
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
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why did the testing procedure involve powering the supplies from what looks like a serious piece of kit delivering bang on 230Vac/50Hz. Surely an important consideration in choosing a power supply is how well it copes with a dirtier mains input?
Why doesn't the submitter just post the Coral Cache link straight off? Then we wouldn't have this problem. Or am I being dense? Surely there's no point pushing a server over if it's obvious to all that it will not survive the slashdotting.
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, 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.
But, if you do buy a 600 watt power supply that is 10% more efficient than the 300/400 watt power supply you're not necessarily going to use all 600 watts all the time. In fact, if you put the same load on the 600 that you were going to put on a replacement 300/400 watt supply, you'd come out ahead.
So, the SUV comparison isn't exactly valid, unless the 600 watt is horribly inefficient.
Karnal
one or two words depending on how you look at it, but let me put it in slashdot style
1) Split story onto many many pages
2) Sell more ads
3) Profit!!!!
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Not on all of their PCs. Some, like the Dimension 4x00, 8x00 and Optiplex GX400, use real ATX power supplies. Most of their other models require a rather inexpensive adapter in order to run with a standard PSU.
Some networks don't allow requests to nonstandard ports like 8090 that Coral Cache uses.
Parent (ghostmaker) is exactly right. Despite 10 years of computer building experience, I spent a good part of last week diagnosing what went wrong with my 3.2Ghz P4 'baby' that I built a year ago. The intermittent startups, shutdowns, and freezes screamed "RAM problem!" but even after swapping out the RAM, the problem persisted. Not wanting to believe that it could be a CPU or Mobo related problem, I scoured the internet for symptoms of a faulty PSU, but there is surprisingly little information. Before dropping 150-300$ on another replacement part, I hooked up a friend's 300W PSU, and VOILA! Sure enough, my cheapo 400W PSU was throwing out crazy, fluxuating voltages, thus freezing the CPU. This accounted for the highly variable success in starting the computer.
I purchased a new PSU this weekend based on the PSU ratings at http://www.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!
If you want them to pay the postage on the RMA, then you're going to end up getting that rolled into the up-front retail cost of the item. So you'll end up paying for an RMA on EVERY item, whether you actually need to RMA it or not. If you only pay for the RMAs that you actually NEED, then you'll end up coming out of it on top in the long term. $30 for RMA shipping is STILL cheaper than $100 to buy a brand new replacement.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
No idea why Hexus didn't review any Seasonics, especially given their reputation in the SPCR community. Yes, some people just care about pure wattage and 12v rails, but Seasonics have accurate wattage, high 12v rails (my S12-380 has 25a on the 12v rails) and are nearly *silent*. Yet nobody seems to have heard about the company because relatively few mainstream sites review their PSUs. Go figure.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
1) Templates. A template for a large article wouldn't be usable for shorter (1-page) articles.
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.
And clicking on the "next" button is somehow more interactive than clicking on the scroll bar?
If you find someone that is sure enough that their power supply won't break down that they're willing to pay the postage if it does, then maybe it's a better part?
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
I couldn't disagree with you more. People who read articles online are not the sort... Oooh, look - a button!