Wes, how do you tell if a cheap power supply is any good? The problem with
buying a no-name supply is just that, it's no name, nobody stands behind
it and if it's a piece of crap no company's reputation will be sullied. I
don't doubt that you've been able to buy many cheap supplies over the
years that are just fine. The problem for the average consumer is that
there is no way for them to know if a particular cheap supply is any good.
The price of branded supplies is low enough that there is no reason to
take a chance. Saving $50 isn't worth it if it's going to cost you even 20
minutes of your time down the road.
When it comes to PSU's, I just read the labels. Not just the 600W part,
but the amount of current each rail will handle, and then compare that to
the 600w to see if they are about the same. I have seen one or two that
claimed high wattage and then when you added up the per rail wattage it
was 200W or more less. Obviously one should shy away from such a PSU. Once
I have found a good no name brand, I try to stay with it next time. When I
was buying for work, I bought all the same brand from the same distributor
for years, with the exception of one time I bought 10 really cheap ($2
each) ones. 2 of those failed within the first 60 days, but the rest are
still running OK afaik. That was about 5 years ago. Didn't buy any more
like that though. When my old 400W PSU that came in a case I bought
wouldn't power up my A64 system, I ordered 3 cheap PSU's for a total of
less than $50 and then tested them all in my A64 system. They all
worked under load. I left the 600W in, and put the other 2 in the closet
where one still sits. The other I gave to my brother when he upgraded from
a Duron to AN XP cpu and he only had a 250W. The original 400W had no
label other than a piece of paper with 400W on it. It's still running my
K7 system today and is about 4 years old. And just as I do with ram, I
always buy a PSU that's rated a lot higher than what I really need. So if
it's a little weak, so what. At todays price of $18 for a 600W PSU, why
would I care if it only puts out 550W or even 500W considering what a name
brand 500W PSU cost. And it's very possible the store name one and the
Name brand one were made at the same place. There's also a lot of name
brand PSU's that won't really reach there max rating. More than one might
think too. But most, just like the cheap PSU's, will at least come close
to it.
A quote from a recent PSU review at tomshardware.
"But even today, the no-name product market is showing the way. Dealers in
our comparative shopping segment tgstores are already offering power
supplies for as little as 17 bucks. For that you get a solid 300 watts,
which is enough for most PC systems and mandatory warranty provisions."
