Best Power Supply

[ACI]

Hey guys i'm fairly new to the forums. I have had an antec power supply is most of my systems and i also work at a small computer store and most our systems we use antec but we see now more then ever bad caps in the PSU. What is a good Quality PSU for a good price?

Thanks or email me at
Brian@acipc.com

[Shroomie]

Re: Best Power Supply

Well, that's a matter of opinion and experience. I'd recommend Fortron/Sparkle (although they've been occasionally spotted with badcaps as well) and Enermax (generally JPCE [TUR] - miles better than the Fuhjyyus that Channel Well, who builds most Antecs, is fond of. Not good caps though).

I'm sure there's more coming.

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Best Power Supply

You could try Tagan. I used to run a very powerful overclocked system last year when I was guild leader in World of Warcraft (before selling my account on ebay for £250 / $500) , but it kept blowing up the power supplies. After buying different brands I found only Tagan worked without blowing up, it's also my
most quiet PSU. Their new Dual Engine Series looks promising.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Best Power Supply

I would recomend Seasonic S12 models for 12v powered systems or the OEM lines from them. In most cases they are using united chemicon caps. Some of the lower power units are spotted with teapo and Ost, wich aren`t that reliable than UCC. Any way, they should be way better than thos Fuhiyu. As a generall rule of thumb i would say, if it should be cheap, forget any thing abouth silence. Mediocre caps and not good cooling is a realy bad combination. Even those Fuhijy caps last long, if keept cool.
If customers want a silent system, i am afraid they have to pay for the good caps.
Enermax is a good choice too. For the ultra cheap solution, may be LC-Power are ok. But certainely not for the real high end systems.
Another choice is, to buy a somhow good PSU and replace the caps. I have done this with the Seasonic ss400FS units, as the desing of them was realy good, but the AUX supply caps couldn`t stand the heat & ripple. Thus i bought those units realy cheap (abouth 10€ to 15€) and replaced the caps with Panasonic Fm ones. For soket A systems they are very good. For these day`s systems, they are a littel short on the 12v rail. Crossloading is a mather too.

[UraBahn]

Re: Best Power Supply

I don't go by numbers or price, I just go by first-hand experience and reliability. In this respect, it's hard to recommend any of the big name PSU makers anymore, because they all use terrible-quality capacitors. I guess Delta would be the easiest for me to recommend anymore because at least they're IMO better built than FSP, and I've only seen one dead Delta in my entire life (and I've seen many Deltas, mind you). But since most Deltas are OEM units, they're difficult to acquire, and they often don't go higher than 300-350W...

Any PSU which requires you to void the warranty by pre-emptively replacing the capacitors is not what I'd consider a good PSU by any stretch of the imagination. At least those new Corsair units look like they *might* use good caps.

[trodas]

Re: Best Power Supply

These higher end Enermax and Seasonic models are winning each true test they are in, so I would suggest these.
Antec ones aren't as bad either, but given the caps they use it wise only if you are ready to recap it in about a year or so... Neverless they are pretty high in the stress tests in terms of ripple and silence - some even use Rubycon caps (jay!) on the imputs, but as I say before - get ready with Pannyes as it come to long turn. Clearly not use PSUs with bad caps for server or any mission critical stuff, that is a big no-no

From all PSU's I ever had, only Antec killed my mobo, so... It run well with bad caps, but just for a while.