Hi,

I was just wondering what can you say about this PSU:

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspe [...] ia=BA21491

Here's the site the reviewed it:

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/rev [...] /index.htm

The SAME PSU is priced $39.99 at Newegg (weird price difference):
Here's the link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817101030

Anybody has this PSU? Is E-Power a good company?

Would it power this system with minor OC:

E2180 (stock HFS)
GA-P35-DS3L rev 2.0
1 SATA HDD 80gb Maxtor
1 IDE HDD 80gb WD
1 Lite-on 20x DVDRW SATA
1 case fan 120mm
Palit Daytona 7600GT 256mb
Audio is onboard

Thank you very much.

I wouldn't overclock it; be sure to have a spare ps if you get it. Also check the shipping weight; the higher the better. I've had lightweight ps fail in just days; one only weighed 2 lbs.

I, and I assure you everyone else on toms, will STRONGLY advise you to not purchase that POS.

Would it work? probably... but for how long is really uncertain.

lol .. what, that seems badnews ... thanks for the input

o1die, thats pretty cool thinking .. I havent thought of considering the weight of the PSU on shipment

Does anybody even own this PSU? lol

That review was from almost 4 years ago - Apr 2004. I'm pretty sure it wouldnt get the same rating four years on.
You usually get what you pay for and we all hope you get your $15 worth (shipping included) from that PSU.

Why is it that people always seem to think that you can skimp on the PSU? its probably THE most important piece of hardware in the system. Without it you get no power which means you $2000 worth of other parts cant do anything.

Its cheap for a reason its a POS

Absolute minimum i would get is this. $30 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371005

Oooh... nice paperweight.

Yes, after you cut hte cables off.

Not a bad power supply for an old junk P4 system without much 12 volt current demand.

Yes, after you cut hte cables off.

Not a bad power supply for an old junk P4 system without much 12 volt current demand.

It may not rate favorably against a newer PSU, but I doubt it's somehow deteriorated. If it was a quality PSU in 2004 it's still a quality PSU today, you just won't be able to but a high end CPU or multiple HDDs. I know this is a very unpopular opinion here, but I disagree with the idea that you have to buy name brand PSU. I'm not saying to buy just any crap, but I don't agree with saying something is POS just because it's not a name brand and doesn't cost a fortune. I personally like Ultra (Tiger Direct brand I think) and Dynex/RocketFish (Best Buy brands) for cheap PSUs. I got a free Ultra 600w with a video card that ran great, I only replaced it because I wanted one with modular cables and 1 120mm fan (as opposed to 2x80mm). I also bought several Dynex PSUs while working at Best Buy because I got them for $15. I build 3 systems with them and all run great, including one I still own which really pushes the 450w - I may switch it out with the 600w I still have. Do some research because you'll find a lot of times the same manufactures are making both the cheap and name brand PSUs. Working at Best Buy I found out that Antec either makes or uses the same manufactuer as the Best Buy brands.

Wow, thanks for the link. The reviews of this PSU is so high. One of the people who gave a review has the exact same setup as I got (except that he has a more powerful gfx card). That person also did some minor Ocing too, pushed it to 2.6ghz (E2180).

I think we have a winner here. Can I really use this 380W PSU for minor Oczing? I'm also planning to push it to 2.6Ghz

Thank you very much.

Since the main draws on the PSU (on the 12v rail) are Mobo, CPU and GPU. And the fact that the GPU you plan to use is a lightweight

"7600 GT _________####} 36W ²" from here:
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums [...] c=7&t=9354

So there is no way that, that machine will draw 380W

I just bought it!

Thanks for your advice.

Actually it is currently $19.99 after the rebate because newegg has a $10 instant savings on it atm. I have this PSU and got the exact same deal about a month ago. As far as PSU's for under 20 bucks goes the EA380 is the top of the line.

Choose something from here. You do not want to lose all your investment due to a $30.00 PSU.

Top Tier PSU:

http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Tiere [...] ngs?t=anon

Although I believe PurpleRat has a point, in general I will disagree. I spent some time on jonnyguru not long ago reading all the PSU reviews. There were a few surprises; I suspect there are some gems on tiers 4 and 5, but most of the cheap PSUs they tested failed, well below their ratings, and many of those failures involved special effects. The post-mortems often showed why.
It's a matter of risk too, and load. I'd run a Tier-1 or 2 PSU all day long at 90% of its capacity well before I'd even think of running a Tier-5 model at 50%, but I still have an old Aspire that I'd use if I only needed to pull 150W-175W in a non-critical application.
As many others have said, if you're spending $2K on a rig, is it unreasonable that a mere 5-10% go to the PSU? I don't think so.

I just love a websites PSU review where they just read off the voltage/power readings from a systems bios. No real load test at all, LOL
In the PSU arena you often get what you pay for.
Oh by the way, if a PSU review lacks an oscilloscope test photo from a unit under various levels of load it's a waste of my time to read.
I buy PCPower PSU's and will from now on.
My last PSU that I bought was a PCPower 750 Watt silencer quad from Newegg for $139, hard to beat that.









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