Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

[ham3r]

Hello guys.

I'm new at badcaps, pretty nice forum.
As begginer, i don't know which caps are good.
I need PSU for low load PC based on dual core Sandy Bridge.

I found two similar priced PSU's: Seasonic S12II-380 and Be Quiet! L8 430W.
The first one is made by Seasonic, but another one is (foregin for me) HEC.
I found some pictures of SS, and there they are:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...-Review/1590/2

For BQ PSU i found some pictures, but of 630Watts version:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/n...-cm-630w-l8/4/

I don't know, how 430W version looks like.

Which PSU could working better and longer?
Which is better choise?
Maybe are there some PSUs better than these, and priced like those?
Thanks in advance.

PS: my English skills aren't good, sorry.

[mariushm]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

I'd take the Seasonic any time of day over that beQuiet.

If you have the Seasonic G-Series 360w in your stores and you can afford it, get that one instead... it's much better than both.

It's a modern design that can deliver all those 360w on the 12v rails, and generates the rest using dc-dc converters inside, so it's actually more comparable to a 450w power supply.

Say what online shops you prefer to buy from and budget and we may be able to recommend some good power supplies.

[shovenose]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Seasonic is hands down one of the best PSU manufacturers. Right now we have five Seasonic power supplies in service all are running great.

So I would definitely recommend that one!

[ham3r]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Thing is that, i don't need PSU over 100W. I want just new, very silent, stable, and of course good quality PSU. PC never reach 100W load power (~50W).

I'm from Poland, so i want to buy in polish on-line shops.
BeQuiet L8 is priced at 237 PLN, that means about 75 USD (that's maximum, what i can spend).

Seasonic SSR-360GP is priced at 220 PLN = 70 USD.

@shovenose
I prefer Seasonic too, but some users of local forums tells "L8 is better, quieter and bla bla bla". I'm embarrassed.

PC config:
Celeron G550, B75 ASRock motherboard, 1 RAM stick, Crucial 64GB SSD, and ASUS DVD.

BTW. i can write some words in english, wow

[Behemot]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

BeQuiet has chance to steal much of sales of traditional manufacturers IF they will go the way of using ONLY quality caps. Now they use mix of teapo craps with Chemi-Cons mostly and as such their PSUs cannot be considered great, good at most. They can be silent and blabla, but in years, the caps will went. The same used to be said about Nexus couple years ago. Now all of their FSP Group-based PSUs are getting caps vented…

So for now, go with Seasonic. As for future models, I will keep an eye on them

[mariushm]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

There is some truth in what the guys say on the forum. The beQuiet L8 fan may be slightly less noisy throughout its range and be less noisy at the highest speed, but at low power usage both those power supplies are just as silent.
However, the quality of the electronics inside the Seasonic is better.

This being said,

Go for the SSR-360GP, you won't regret it.

Here's a review for it: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story&reid=313

It's gold efficiency, so it doesn't get hot as such low loads (100w or so), therefore the fan will spin at a very low speed when you don't use much power.

And like I said, even though it says 360w on it, the current distribution on rails makes it similar to a 450w psu so you'll have no problem reusing it at some point in the future with a fast video card and so on.

[Behemot]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Actually, this kind of quality PSUs handles overloading quite without any problem. I won't be surprised if you could pull over 400 W for long time without any possible damage to this PSU. It's limits are much higher than even the protection is set.

[mockingbird]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

I've sold many of the S12-II 380, so far so good... The Antec HCG-400 is basically the same thing and should be the same price. You would be lucky to find either of these stocked anywhere, as they don't make them anymore...

The SSR-360GP is supposed to be very good, but I don't like those Taiwanese polymer caps they use in them... For what they're asking for for a 360 watt PSU, they could have used Japanese polymers.

Here are pics of the L8 430W from a review at KitGuru:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/po...-psu-review/4/

Keep in mind that in your first post you mentioned the S12-II 380 and then you go on to mention the SSR-360GP... These are NOT the same PSUs. I would take either of them over the HEC one.

[Behemot]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Well, as for polymers, there are so far no proves of chinese ones being unferior to japanese if I am not mistaken.

[ham3r]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

For now i prefer SSR-360GP over S12II-380. This unit looks great and is priced between BQ and S12II. Now i need sleep...it's 3 am.

[mockingbird]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Well, as for polymers, there are so far no proves of chinese ones being unferior to japanese if I am not mistaken.

There's plenty of evidence so far of Apaq and Lelon being unreliable polymers. I don't like Enesol either, though I've not seen any reports on them.

[Behemot]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Could you show me some? I have only seen exploded Apaq, but that was because of extreme overclocking using liquid nitrogen. Other than than nothing actually.

I still remember how PC_BONEZ said something like there is no such thing as bad polymer…

[mariushm]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

I'd suggest not scaring the guy for no reason. Move the discussion in another thread if you care to continue.

I've seen Enesol capacitors in lots of high end power supplies and didn't hear of anyone complaining about them.
It's perfectly fine. At least they're well known brand and Seasonic are using the same brands of capacitors unlike other companies

[mockingbird]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

Could you show me some? I have only seen exploded Apaq, but that was because of extreme overclocking using liquid nitrogen. Other than than nothing actually.

I still remember how PC_BONEZ said something like there is no such thing as bad polymer…

Here's an example, from our own board:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24377

Lelon OCRZ.

[ham3r]

Re: Seasonic S12II-380 or Be Quiet! L8 430W, which is better?

I'm going with Seasonic G-360.

Thanks guys.