Why you shouldn't cheap out on the power supply

Courtesy of Corsair comes this demonstration of a cheap power supply:

http://www.corsair.com/cinema/movie.aspx?id=622747

Not exactly an unbiased review of these PSUs (which seem to be from a certain Master of Coolers, judging from the box on the floor), but entertaining nonetheless.

Years ago, I used to use cheap, no name PSUs, and yep, this is precisely what happens given enough stress. It's not worth ruining expensive components just to save a few bucks.

Now I use PC Power and Cooling, arguably the best of the best, other than perhaps Tagan.

Maybe I got lucky, but my no-name psu came with a 50-60 euro case and since I bought it I've upgraded to a power hungry cpu and graphics card, added an extra hdd, extra case-fans with fan controller, a sound card and a tv-tuner card. I can only assume this unit runs close to it's peak when I'm gaming, yet it has been doing fine for years. In my case it really has been a good budget solution and the reason I wouldn't buy one again is because it is the single most noisy component of my pc.

On a side note, what were they thinking at corsair's marketing department? The video is really silly. Even if they experienced a 100% fail-rate with a competitors psu, it seems weak for them (well known for their quality psu's among pc-enthusiasts) to have to make themselves look good by making someone else look bad. And besides them not being a reliable source to present this kind of info, they seem to make no effort to make it believable (give details about their test setup, etc). If you then add the glimpse of the coolermaster logo you "accidentally" get at the end, that is just low imo..

Maybe I got lucky, but my no-name psu came with a 50-60 euro case and since I bought it I've upgraded to a power hungry cpu and graphics card, added an extra hdd, extra case-fans with fan controller, a sound card and a tv-tuner card. I can only assume this unit runs close to it's peak when I'm gaming, yet it has been doing fine for years. In my case it really has been a good budget solution and the reason I wouldn't buy one again is because it is the single most noisy component of my pc.

On a side note, what were they thinking at corsair's marketing department? The video is really silly. Even if they experienced a 100% fail-rate with a competitors psu, it seems weak for them (well known for their quality psu's among pc-enthusiasts) to have to make themselves look good by making someone else look bad. And besides them not being a reliable source to present this kind of info, they seem to make no effort to make it believable (give details about their test setup, etc). If you then add the glimpse of the coolermaster logo you "accidentally" get at the end, that is just low imo..

BLKR4330

What is so silly about it? It is just a form of marketing, which every company does.

It seemed pretty reliable. How do you know how much of a stress load you put on your budget PSU. In their video they showed that cheap PSU's have basically false specs. They showed that a PSU rated at 450w, could not even do 335w at room temperature. They say they all die within 3 minutes, I believe that.

Now if they set this up in a freezer the PSU might have gotten a little higher. Maybe you did actually get a decent budget PSU, but everyone I have ever seen has failed, when pushed with a load on it.

There are exceptions to every rule, some budget PSU's might last years, and some quality ones might go in the first week, but as a general rule, what this video showed is dead on.

Also I am pretty sure that is not a coolermaster PSU, it looks like they happen to get a PC case box in the shot with their logo. Could be wrong though???

Either way it is an interesting video.

That's not a Cooler Master power supply. If you look at the box carefully it's just for an Nvidia-branded Cooler Master case (or it's the biggest Nvidia-branded Cooler Master Power supply ever released that is the size of a computer case), most likely the SLI Edition Stacker 830 or SLI Edition RC690.

Yes, this is a bit of a cheap dig and definitely not something Corsair (or many other manufacturers for that matter) is exempt from, but you do get what you pay for, especially when concerning power supplies, which are easily the most overlooked component in any PC (except possibly for the monitor).

What is so silly about it? It is just a form of marketing, which every company does.

opamando

What's silly about it is that it's like me going to a bar, walking up to a girl and while pointing at a random guy say: "you see that guy over there, he beats his girlfriends, so you should come home with me tonight". With or without silly music in the background..

In their video they showed that cheap PSU's have basically false specs. They showed that a PSU rated at 450w, could not even do 335w at room temperature. They say they all die within 3 minutes, I believe that.

opamando

In their video they show nothing but exploding psu's, everything else is what they tell you you are seeing without anyway to confirm it.

Also I am pretty sure that is not a coolermaster PSU, it looks like they happen to get a PC case box in the shot with their logo. Could be wrong though???

opamando

I don't know if it's a coolermaster psu either, doesn't really matter though. What does matter is that it seems highly unlikely that the coolermaster box wasn't shown on purpose, especially since there is a fixed camera with all but the last of the exploding psu shots,

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the general message of the thread and this video, but the content of the video had nothing to do with that. It's just lame and I certainly won't be led to believe that buying a budget psu is practically the same as buying a timebomb.

BLKR does bring up a good point - they said they loaded the power supply up to 375w, but how was that load distributed? It wouldn't surprise me if those power supplies were overloaded on one or more rails. There's also a big difference between a mediocre budget unit and an actual POS like you'd find included with a budget case.RayvinAzn

335 Watts. (75% load). This scenario isn't farfetched.

335 Watts. (75% load). This scenario isn't farfetched.

Staryoshi87

375w on what rail? Even a Corsair VX450w won't be happy if you try to load 375w on the +3.3v rail.

Stop me if you have heard this one before. A couple of our guys were doing some load testing one day on some PSUs and had some fun with some "inexpensive" low end units.

The unit was rated at +3.3V@28A,+5V@34A,+12V@21A

We tested it with the 12V at 18A, the 3.3V at 20A, and the 5V at 10A on our load testers.

Check out the video clip, Why a high-quality PSU is an essential purchase.

Video Link: http://corsair.com/cinema/default.aspxYellowbeard

By yellowbeard on anandtech's psu section.

lol

I used to run this cheap 500Watt Cascom SPU in my old system with my old 7600GT, I didnt actually realise the risk I was running at the time.

Im glad ive got the OCZ 600W PSU in there now and its doing a grand job.

[QUOTE="Staryoshi87"]

335 Watts. (75% load). This scenario isn't farfetched.

RayvinAzn

375w on what rail? Even a Corsair VX450w won't be happy if you try to load 375w on the +3.3v rail.

I think 335W total system load, not just on one rail.

Anyways, this just goes to show that you shouldn't skimp on the one thing most important to all the other components in the computer

Nice vid but i have a "budget" powersupply (some noname) powering a quad core, 2 disc drives, mobo, 8600gt, floppy drive, harddrive, ram, etc etc and its only 350W Oo!!!

In 1 year ive had the comp it never blew up xD

Nice vid but i have a "budget" powersupply (some noname) powering a quad core, 2 disc drives, mobo, 8600gt, floppy drive, harddrive, ram, etc etc and its only 350W Oo!!!

In 1 year ive had the comp it never blew up xD

Helbrec

8600GT. I'd be seriously surprised if your rig even hit 300 under heavy load. And just because it doesn't blow up the minute you turn it on doesn't mean it's not slowly destroying your components.