How To Select The Right Case

Power Supplies Can Also Be A Pitfall

Last year, THG published an article about some of the pain and agony that we’ve experienced with power supplies. (Rant-O-Matic : My Fried Power Supply ) In this article, one of the main points was a caution to readers about the fact that the quality of power supplies had sank to a new all-time low.

Since this article was written, it would appear that times are changing and many users are really paying more attention to the quality of the power supplies in their PCs. Power supply manufactures have placed new attention on quality, and we are now starting to see power supply quality rise above what it has been in the past. However, this isn’t all good news, because the cost of these better power supplies has risen as well. Because of the increased power requirements of the new systems, a good power supply can now be one of the most important keys to having a stable system.

The trend of selling the more expensive cases without a power supply is starting to emerge. We continue to be puzzled as to whether this is in fact due to the quality of power supplies or the fact that retailers have realized that users want the choice of selecting the power supply that will work best for their application. Another possibility is that case companies who sell their cases without power supplies simply don’t want the warranty responsibility that comes with selling power supplies. Of course, leaving out the power supply means your initial impression might be that you’ve found a case that is as much as $40 lower.

Power supplies from Antec and Enermax are two companies whose power supplies have met with much success in everyday use within our labs.

We continue to have much success with power supplies from Antec and Enermax. We have found, over time in our informal lab testing, that both of these companies seem to produce power supplies that are a cut above the rest. This fact was echoed by several of the local retailers with whom we talked. Of course, this does not mean that you can’t find success with other power supply vendors as well, but these are the ones with whom we’ve had the most experience. (Judging by the avalanche of responses to the last article that asked us to recommend power supplies, we wanted to at least suggest a couple of vendors who have provided reliable power supplies to us in the past.)