Enermax 350W or Q-Tec 550W PSU?

Mental_Implosion

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Jan 18, 2003
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I need a new PSU, since my old Aopen 235W is too old to bare with my Palomino :)
Now, I'm very budget limited, and I found two PSUs that should work with my new PC.

My current PSU:
+12V - 8A
+5V - 22A
+3.3V - 14A
-5V - 0.3A
-12V - 0.8A
I know, 8A on +12V is kinda low since 1700+ Palomino takes almost 7A :)

Q-Tec 550W
+12V - Max 14A | Peak 20A
+5V - Max 35A | Peak 40A
+3.3V - Max 20A | Peak 30A
-5V - Max 0.5A | Peak 1A
-12V - Max 0.5A | Peak 1A

Enermax 350W (tested on TH, http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/powersupplies-12.html)

+12V - 26A
+5V - 32A
+3.3V - 32A
-5V - 1A
-12V - 1A

The price is quite different between those two models, Enermax 350W is costing ~$70 while Q-Tec 550W is costing a bit over $50
I know many of you like Enermax, and will recommend it(look at its amps!), but this guy on http://www.bit-tech.net/review/123/ said that Q-Tec 550W did better than Enermax 431W!
I don't have a monster PC, and I'm not planning to put a bunch of components in it.
This is what I have:
AMD XP 1700+ Palomino
1x CPU fan
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
2x 256mb PC2700
1x GeForce3 Ti200 (AGP4x)
WD Caviar 80gb
LG 48x16x48 burner
Standard floppy
Printer, webcamera, mouse & keyboard(all USB)
With my calculating, both PSUs should be enough for my current PC, and maybe even some CPU overclocking and additional hdd.
Now, I'm asking YOU! :)
What do you think? :)
 

jamarno

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Feb 25, 2001
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That wasn't a real review, just a brief test drive around the block because it's highly unlikely that anything close to a full 550W load was applied. More likely, the load was less than half that, but no load numbers were published, and it wouldn't surprise me if the author didn't even know what the amp loading was. And while I'm not one who believes that power supplies can be judged merely from appearances, that Q-tec seems unusually light in the heatsink department, and the transformer (7th picture, the largest of the 3 yellow objects, with a red round sticker on top) is substantially smaller than those found in other 550W supplies or even some 400W supplies.