Hi all,

I'm trying to pick out a power supply for my (hopefully soon to be) new rig. Can anyone comment on which PSU would be better:
Antec TruePower Trio 550W Power Supply w/ Triple +12V (C$110)
or
Mushkin HP-550 Enhanced 550W Modular Power Supply (2x +12V, C$90)

550W should be enough for my system. I'm only going to run one video card (probably a 8800 GTS 320mb, maybe 640mb), which is where the +12V rails become important (right?).

A quite PSU is important to me, so any comments on noise would be great. Though my current PSU is about 3 years old, so they will likely be quieter than I'm used to anyway.

Thanks.

Antec (seasonic OEM) would be my choice. Mushkin is a Topower OEM build.

thanks for the help.

I thought the Antec would be the better bet.

By the way, how do you tell the actual manufacurer? I know Seasonic has a great rep, so if I'd could have known that the Antec was Seasonic, if would probably have had my answer.

CPU (Computer Power User) magazine did a huge test on psu's last month, and even though the muskin wasnt tested the information was still interesting. On the low end psu's, >750w the Corsair HX620w came out shining like a diamond in the rough as they pushed it to 800w (180w over spec) and held it for several hours without any problems. Corsair also has a 520w design, and both are made by Seasonic. The Antec TruePower Trio 650w (also made by Seasonic and rated more powerful than the Corsair) didn't do so well, assumingly as result of the limited airflow of the case they used when building the test system; for some reason the Thermaltake Armor Extreme case is designed to have the psu on it's side with a hard drive cage next to it, thus severly limiting airflow to the intake of the psu. The Antec "grew too hot to touch" and shut down. I'm not sure what the problem was if anything other than heat, they obviously expected more from the Antec Trio 650w, but it just didn't quite make it. It doesn't make sense really, both psu's have the intake fan in the same place, both are manufactured by Seasonic; I really wonder if they just got a bad psu from Antec. However, the Antec Trio does not have a modular cable design as does the Corsair. At $120-$150, the 520w or the 620w Corsair's are top of the line in both quality and bang for the buck; or so it would seem as per this article. On a side note, the Antec Neo 550w "didn't even break a sweat" but this unit places the fan on the back (exhaust) side of the psu. I'd strongly consider the Corsair 520HX or 620HX; made by Seasonic, modular cable design, and the same 5 year warranty for $15 - $20 more. Just thought I'd throw a real world application thought into the picture. I like Antec but in this case their design just didn't quite hold up for some reason or another.

This is a really good look at the Antec. I can get the Cosair 520HX for exactly C$20 more, so maybe I should go that route. I've seen it rated to be more quite too (which is important to me).

I am probably looking to save $20 in the worng place. Maybe skimping on the thing that makes your computer go is not the best idea.