PSU league table?

[Cuzman]

I'm looking to get a new PSU, after my 350W generic one fried my mobo. I
know that the likes of Antec, Enermax and Fortron are considered to be
respectable for their 'true power' ratings, but I'm wondering if there is a
'league table' as such, which indicates how good (and reliable) all the PSU
manufacturers are.

I don't want to pay the equivalent of US$100 to $150 if there is a cheaper
reliable option available. I also don't want to pay $50 for a 600W Q-Tec
PSU that craps out on me within a year.

You can slate me all you like, but I will also be getting another K7S5A Pro
to replace the melted one. The system I need it for is listed below, so I
shouldn't need a 'true power' 550W PSU. My next upgrade will be a Radeon
9800 Pro, and once Microsoft release a retail 64-bit OS I will be doing a
new-build on a much larger budget.

- Tsunami Sagittarius ATX case & 350W PSU
- 3x Arctic-Cooling Pro2L TC case fans (2 front, 1 top)
- ECS K7S5A Pro (030811 BIOS)
- AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 266FSB
- Arctic-Cooling Copper Silent 2L HSF
- 2x 512MB Kingston PC2100 KVR266X64C2/512 DDR-RAM
- Western Digital Caviar 80GB 7200rpm 8MB HDD
- Inno3D GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB AGP4x graphics card
- Gamesurround L-8738-6C sound card
- 3Com 3C905B-TX 10/100 NIC
- Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive
- LG DVD-ROM GDR-8161B 16x48
- LG CD-RW CED-8083B 32x4x4
- Round IDE and FDD cables
- Windows XP Professional SP1

 

[S.Heenan]

I'm looking to get a new PSU, after my 350W generic one fried my
mobo. I know that the likes of Antec, Enermax and Fortron are
considered to be respectable for their 'true power' ratings, but I'm
wondering if there is a 'league table' as such, which indicates how
good (and reliable) all the PSU manufacturers are.

I don't want to pay the equivalent of US$100 to $150 if there is a
cheaper reliable option available. I also don't want to pay $50 for
a 600W Q-Tec PSU that craps out on me within a year.

You can slate me all you like, but I will also be getting another
K7S5A Pro to replace the melted one. The system I need it for is
listed below, so I shouldn't need a 'true power' 550W PSU. My next
upgrade will be a Radeon 9800 Pro, and once Microsoft release a
retail 64-bit OS I will be doing a new-build on a much larger budget.
- 3x Arctic-Cooling Pro2L TC case fans (2 front, 1 top)
- ECS K7S5A Pro (030811 BIOS)
- AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 266FSB
- Arctic-Cooling Copper Silent 2L HSF
- 2x 512MB Kingston PC2100 KVR266X64C2/512 DDR-RAM
- Western Digital Caviar 80GB 7200rpm 8MB HDD
- Inno3D GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB AGP4x graphics card
- Gamesurround L-8738-6C sound card
- LG DVD-ROM GDR-8161B 16x48
- LG CD-RW CED-8083B 32x4x4

The K7S5A Pro has known power issues. IOW, it works best with a good 350W+
power supply. You current hardware demands call for a 350W unit. Adding a
9800 Pro video card raises current demands again. If I were you, I'd opt for
an Antec True Power 430, which is currently ~$68 USD. You could save a few
bucks on a cheaper PSU, possibly at the expense of other hardware if it
decides to go south.

As always, YMMV.

 

[larrymoencurly]

I'm looking to get a new PSU, after my 350W generic one fried
my mobo. I know that the likes of Antec, Enermax and Fortron
are considered to be respectable for their 'true power'
ratings, but I'm wondering if there is a 'league table' as
such, which indicates how good (and reliable) all the PSU
manufacturers are.

I will also be getting another K7S5A Pro to replace the melted
one. The system I need it for is listed below, so I shouldn't
need a 'true power' 550W PSU. My next upgrade will be a
Radeon 9800 Pro,

- ECS K7S5A Pro (030811 BIOS)
- AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 266FSB
- Western Digital Caviar 80GB 7200rpm 8MB HDD
- Inno3D GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB AGP4x graphics card
- LG DVD-ROM GDR-8161B 16x48
- LG CD-RW CED-8083B 32x4x4

www.silentpcreview.com and www.tomshardware.com have tested some power
supplies, the latter until they burned out or shut down, and
www.overclockers.com, in one of its discussion forums, has a power
supply FAQ.

Other top-notch PSU manufacturers include Zippy-Emacs, Lite-On,
Sensatron, Win-tact, Astec, NMB-Mineba, Delta, and Newton. Channel
Well Technology, the maker of almost all Antecs, including their
TruePower and SmartPower series, makes both very good and bad PSUs,
their best being their "A" and "B" series, i.e., CWT-350BD (D = double
fan), CWT-430ADP (P = power factor correction), but their others, like
those with model numbers ending in "ATX", "ISO", or anything else.
In general, look for a big transformer. It's usually wrapped in
yellow tape (some clear case PSUs have transformers wrapped in red or
blue tape instead) and located between the two large heatsinks and can
be seen through the grill or fan openings.

The K7S5A Pro needs lots of +3.3V and +5.0V combined power because it
uses the +5.0V rail for CPU power. This also means that the CPU
shouldn't be run faster than about XP2700+ speed or the mobo used
with a fast graphics card that doesn't have its own power connector
because the 20-pin power connector may overheat and burn or melt.
OTOH this also means that the PSU isn't required to put out much +12V
power because it's not used for anything but the disk drives and some
video cards.

http://takaman.jp has an online spreadsheet for estimating power
consumption, and it's it doesn't overstate the power needs nearly as
much as others do, although it still guesses too high. It also
estimates the amps for each voltage rail, although I've found it to be
way, way off for the +3.3V rail (actual +3.3V amps may be 3x as much
as it says).

A good 350W PSU should be able to run your K7S5A Pro system, even with
the fastest graphics card.