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What is the BEST Power Supply Manufacturer??

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What is the BEST PSU Manufacturer??

Total: 416 votes (302 blank votes)

  • APEVIA/Aspire
  • 3 %
  • Coolermaster
  • 10 %
  • Coolmax
  • 2 %
  • Powmax
  • 1 %
  • Raidmax
  • 1 %
  • Rosewill
  • 4 %
  • Silverstone
  • 11 %
  • Thermaltake
  • 17 %
  • Zalman
  • 3 %
  • Anything else but these... (please list below)
  • 53 %
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*edit* I noticed your title says "Power Supply Manufacturer" and in the thread you say
Quote:
What is the best motherboard manufacturer based on reliability, performance, customer service, warranty/RMA etc.


No PC Power & Cooling? They are Tier1! :o  I vote for them anyway. I'm very pleased with the Silencer 750 (although, I would like one with removable cabling, so I can get the unused stuff out of the way) Warranty isn't half bad either.



Power supply Expert

It would have to be a tie between PCP&C and Seasonic on the PSU.

Based on the parameters, Gigabyte would win the MB battle. ASUS is good also, but no better at the higher price.
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I do wonder about the person who voted for the Aspire/Apivea. That's a tier 5 psu. Further, I had the unfortunate experience of buying an Aspire 680wt psu years ago when I didn't know better. I had a number of troubles, such as crashing and video card slowing to a crawl until I replaced it. I'd never buy one again, and if someone gave me one, I'd likely take it to a rifle range for use as a target.
Power supply Expert

With the exception of Silverstone and Thermaltake (only their more expensive PSUs) they all SUCK.

1. PC Power & Cooling
2. Seasonic

I only buy PSUs made by those two manufacturers. Seasonic makes the Corsair HX series; I didn't list Corsair 'cause they don't actually manufacture their own PSUs.

Seasonic also makes some Antec PSUs, but Antec likes to cut corners here and their so I don't bother with them at all.

Seasonic also makes the Silencer series for PC Power & Cooling.

PCP&C, SeaSonic and high-end Silverstone are among the best. Even the lowest end of these three are Tier 3 and above, so all very good quality.

I believe the VX-450W Corsair is SeaSonic make, but the VX-550 is CWT which produces industrial PC power supplies for the most part, and that is a good thing, as those are meant for full 24/7 use at decent loads. I do not know about the Corsair TX series, but my guess for the 650W is SeaSonic, because it seems to just be a unified rail version of a normal SeaSonic(SeaSonic has 52Amps over 4 rails, Corsair has 52 on one rail, and the same measures for all other rails). I'm not sure about the 750W, but it is most likely SeaSonic or CWT again.

OCZ should be avoided. At high loads, they had voltage ripple issues that weren't present on other power supplies tested in the same price range at the same amount of load.

PC Power & Cooling, FSP, Seasonic are the best ones I am aware of. My OCZ Gamestream 700 is a very good one also. However from what I understand it is manufactured by FSP. By the way..OCZ this year purchased PC Power & Cooling but they are still doing business under their own separate names. That may change in 2008.

Traditionally Cooler Master has not been the best far as PSUs however there new RS line of power supplies look very impressive.
- 6 Rails (an industry first)
- 80 Plus Certified
- superb heat dissipation at (17 dBA) of fan noise.
- An amazing 5 year warranty!

I think with this new RS line Cooler Master is making a serious attempt to be a major player in the PSU market. But don't waste your money on the old Cooler Master RP line. It is not even half as good.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The thing I love about my OCZ Game Stream 700 is the blue LED fan in it. It looks very good if you have a PC case with a side window.

APEVIA has power supplies that give a similar effect but they are crap power supplies. Read all of the reviews on new egg from users that had them burn out.

Quote:
OCZ should be avoided. At high loads, they had voltage ripple issues that weren't present on other power supplies tested in the same price range at the same amount of load.
Do you have a link to that about the OCZ Power Supplies? I never heard of such. Perhaps with some of the lower voltage ones but the Game Stream Series are some of the best PSUs on the market. My OCZ Game Stream 700 watt PSU currently has over 523 reviews on new egg with an average 5 egg rating out of 5. 4 rails, 80 Plus certified. I have never even heard rumors of any aspect of that PSU being anything less than supurb.

Wow, the way you talk you'd think that more rails is better! The more rails you have, the lower your per-rail limit, and the more likely you are to overload a rail.

The BEST power supplies have ONE +12V rail

I have recently been introduced to that philosophy. The only place I have seen that one rail is better than more is on PC Power & Cooling's website. At one time the industry as a whole believed more was better. Now I am seeing some news that one may be the best. Until I do more research I don't know what to believe.

I've been around a while. The first time I saw a rail limit was when the guys at The Inquirer were having trouble getting a Crossfire settup working a few years back. They were using a 2-rail power supply with both PCI-E connectors on the same rail.

The idea of multiple rails has nothing to do with stability, it's to reduce the maximum current that can pass through a multi-wire connector. IE, it's a safety thing, not a stability thing.

Crashman said:
I've been around a while. The first time I saw a rail limit was when the guys at The Inquirer were having trouble getting a Crossfire settup working a few years back. They were using a 2-rail power supply with both PCI-E connectors on the same rail.

The idea of multiple rails has nothing to do with stability, it's to reduce the maximum current that can pass through a multi-wire connector. IE, it's a safety thing, not a stability thing.
I have always thought of more rails being more stable. It is like choice of riding in a car with one shock absorber or 4 shock absorbers. The current would be distributed more evenly amongst multiple rails thus decreasing the peaks and valleys of the power flucations thus giving more stable power to your components thus extending their life.

rwayne said:
I have always thought of more rails being more stable. It is like choice of riding in a car with one shock absorber or 4 shock absorbers. The current would be distributed more evenly amongst multiple rails thus decreasing the peaks and valleys of the power flucations thus giving more stable power to your components thus extending their life.


In theory, this seems to be the case, but in reality, the lack of stability caused by a single rail design is underwhelming. There are also losses inherant to the multi-rail design. Any honest power supply will list the total 12VDC power output to be less than the sum of its rails. The one and only purpose for reducing the amount of amperage carried on a single rail is safety.
Power supply Authority

As said, its more about safety then anything. Think of what 60+ amps can do to the 16 and 18 gauge wire found in most psu's.....Lucky for us vary few components will overload the wires anyway....unless you try to chain everything off one cable...

Technically 99% of the PSUs out now are really single rail, with the pseudo rails only separated by current limiters. This is to avoid fire if there is a short. They did this to be compliant with the ATX12V specification. A true multi-rail PSU would have a voltage regulator for each rail. These are very expensive and very hard to find.
Power supply Expert

Gravemind123 said:


I believe the VX-450W Corsair is SeaSonic make, but the VX-550 is CWT ...


Nah, I believe the VX-450W is also made by CWT. From what I remember they use the same capacitors and green "plastic wrap".

I got this from XMSYellowbeard, he works for Corsair tech support.
Quote:
Official Corsair Tech Support. If You Need Help, Just Ask.
Just to be clear,the OEMs that build our PSUs are:

HX520 = Seasonic
HX620 = Seasonic
VX450 = Seasonic
VX550 = CWT (Channelwell)
TX650 = Seasonic
TX750 = CWT

rwayne said:
I have always thought of more rails being more stable. It is like choice of riding in a car with one shock absorber or 4 shock absorbers. The current would be distributed more evenly amongst multiple rails thus decreasing the peaks and valleys of the power flucations thus giving more stable power to your components thus extending their life.


Nope. 4-rails simply means 1 transformer gets split across 4 circuit breakers. They just use the word "rail" to confuse you into thinking you're getting more than just the added breakers.

rwayne said:
Quote:
OCZ should be avoided. At high loads, they had voltage ripple issues that weren't present on other power supplies tested in the same price range at the same amount of load.
Do you have a link to that about the OCZ Power Supplies? I never heard of such. Perhaps with some of the lower voltage ones but the Game Stream Series are some of the best PSUs on the market. My OCZ Game Stream 700 watt PSU currently has over 523 reviews on new egg with an average 5 egg rating out of 5. 4 rails, 80 Plus certified. I have never even heard rumors of any aspect of that PSU being anything less than supurb.


http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_details.php?id=35&page_...

Right there, to take a direct quote on this issue: Things were satisfactory until test 3. During test 3, I started to see ripple on 12V1 and 12V2 that was nearly 100mV. By test 5, the ripple was 100mV on 12V3 and 12V4 and had exceeded 100mV on 12V1 and 12V2. By test 6, the ripple on 12V1 and 12V2 had exceeded 150mV.

ATX specification has an "allowance" for 120mV. Mind you, test 6 was very stressful, pushing the power supply to it's limits, but it doesn't change the fact that the ripple exceeded spec and this is the first power supply to date I have had do this.

What's wrong with too much ripple? Well, if the voltage fluctuates too erratically, it can over work other regulators used to provide Vcore to the CPU, GPU, etc.

frozenlead said:
i've heard a lot of good about pcp&c, but i've never owned another psu but a thermaltake, and i've been more than satisfied with them all, sometimes amazed.


I've owned a number of power supplies, both good and bad. The last two were Thermaltake Toughpowers, which were rated equaly with a PC P&C by Jonnyguru. The Toughpower was reported to have an annoying buzz while the PC P&C had a loud fan. Some people get very particular to one type or another, whether its PC P&C or something else. Mainly, I think its best to check the reviews and then choose the particular things you desire among the best companies, whether or not its single rail, modular, or whatever.

^always good advice. Do some research on your own. Come up with a few that look good to you and then ask for opinions about the ones you choose. Just about everyone will have a different story to tell about a particular company.

cb62fcni said:
In theory, this seems to be the case, but in reality, the lack of stability caused by a single rail design is underwhelming. There are also losses inherant to the multi-rail design. Any honest power supply will list the total 12VDC power output to be less than the sum of its rails. The one and only purpose for reducing the amount of amperage carried on a single rail is safety.
Well how does this whole thing work out then? Say a power supply with 12 power cords has 4 rails. How is the power distrubuted?

12 Power Cords / 4 rails = 1 rail dedicated to each group of 3 power cords

Is that how it works?

Or does every single one of the 12 power cords have power pushed to it from all 4 rails?

Which basically would mean the power is split between 4 passage ways then reunited at the end of the rails in to basically 1 rail.

If multiple rails are bad then why to some of the higher end PSUs push for a higher number of rails? Why was Cooler Master compelled to be the first PSU on the market with 6 rails with their new RS series? Why did the feel the need to do that?


Gravemind123 said:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_details.php?id=35&page_...

Right there, to take a direct quote on this issue: Things were satisfactory until test 3. During test 3, I started to see ripple on 12V1 and 12V2 that was nearly 100mV. By test 5, the ripple was 100mV on 12V3 and 12V4 and had exceeded 100mV on 12V1 and 12V2. By test 6, the ripple on 12V1 and 12V2 had exceeded 150mV.

ATX specification has an "allowance" for 120mV. Mind you, test 6 was very stressful, pushing the power supply to it's limits, but it doesn't change the fact that the ripple exceeded spec and this is the first power supply to date I have had do this.

What's wrong with too much ripple? Well, if the voltage fluctuates too erratically, it can over work other regulators used to provide Vcore to the CPU, GPU, etc.


WOW! I know this is late getting back to you Gravemind123 but thanks for the link. I had no idea about the OCZ Gamestream PSUs. I wish I had known that before I bought mine. I thought I bought a good product.

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