On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 06:33:49 GMT, Wes Newell
<w.newell@TAKEOUTverizon.net> wrote:

>On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 17:58:17 -0500, David Maynard wrote:
>
>> Wes Newell wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 05:49:42 -0700, neworder7 wrote:
>>>
>>>> So does this mean i should be getting a 500w PSU or is a 400watt PSU
>>>>fine.
>>>
>>> You should be getting the largest you can afford. And you can get 600W for
>>> under $20, 550W for under $15, and 500W for about $12.
>>>
>> And at those prices not a one of them will actually put out the stated watts.
>
>And neither will some name brand models that cost 5 times more, so what's
>your point?

"Some"? Sure, one can buy a pseudo-name brand instead of a
major PSU manufacturer name-brand and get stung, but in
general, no, there is a clear correlation between
name-brands having significantly higher output per labeled
wattage.

>Hmmm.... I need 400W, so I buy a 400Antec that will put out
>400W for say $50, or I buy a 600W for $18 that will only put out 550W.

This is where you keep going wrong, time after time it's
been pointed out to you but you don't even do the testing
necessary to draw a conclusion. Your $18 pseudo-"600W" PSU
_CANNOT_ put out 550W. You're making up nonsense and have
no evidence whatsoever that it can even put out 400W
long-term. There are of course kids out there that draw
ridiculous conclusions akin to "I ran a 500W car amp from
one therefore it's fine"... which is fine if that car amp
were using 500W continuous power but that's not how audio
works, it wouldn't be listenable at all if the peaks were
all chopped @ 500W.

>Now
>which is the best deal?

The one where it works as labeled instead of supporting
fraud. The one where you can use specs to determine what
you need instead of it being like a lottery.

> But wait, you say the Antec has larger caps. Wow,
>so instead of the system crashing in 5ms during a brownout, the Antac will
>go for 10ms.:-) Spend the money you save on a UPS. That's muxh more
>important than a name brand PSU.

You show your ignorance here. There is NOTHING an inline
filter before the PSU, nor line conditioner, nor UPS, can do
to change the problem with insufficient capacitors on the
output of a SMPS. However, if I were you and trying to use
one, I'd build some kind of buffer board that plugs into a
4-pin molex, with the caps the PSU should've had in it to
begin with. The time and cost will offset the low cost of
the generic though, and be of lesser benefit, but at least
it attempts to combat one of the problems.

Then of course you'd have to replace the fan(s) too.

>
>My cheap 600W that some name brand zealots predicted would be dead within
>a year is now into the 18th month of 24/7 operation Both my cheap PSU's
>for my K7 systems are still going after 5 years, and the really cheap 400W
>in my current backup K7 system is still going after about 3 years. if you
>want bragging rights, buy a name brand.

Yeah, you want to claim systems that need roughly 100-250W
total output are a test of a so-called 600W PSU. Hint- If
you only needed 250W output all you had to do was buy an
accurately rated ATX12V 300W PSU, so your ideas about 5X the
cost are unfounded... and this doesn't even consider that
for these systems you have running, PLENTY of people have
had their generic PSUs fail, then had to buy another PSU, a
better one, wasting money on the generic the first time
around and some even frying parts along the way.

The issue is that rated wattage is a primary factor in
qualifying a PSU for any particular use. You'd like to
discount one-part-at-a-time but then fail to accept that
after all these downgraded parts are considered, the unit
doesn't actually have similar output capability long-term
and cannot be qualified for higher-end uses based on it's
rating.

Who is claiming a system usually needs a "550W" PSU though?
The numbers you're citing are essentially fictional and
can't be applied in any context except what's printed onto a
generc PSU's label. Determine accurate system needs then
pair with a PSU proven to be able to supply that... it IS
possible to select a generic that can do it, but even then
you face other issues like the fan quality or protection
circuitry.