PSU recommendations

Tommy the commie

Tommy the commie

Geek Trainee
Just entertaining myself by working out a new system (ill probably crack and buy the thing tho:ohah: )
Im looking at Power supplies at the mo and wondering if anyone has any recomendations for this proposed system.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+
MOBO: Sapphire PURE Innovation Gruper Radeon Xpress 200P
G CARD: ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB

I'd preferably lilke one of those nifty ones that have removable power cables.

Cheers:D
 
The ones that come with the removeable cables are referred to as modular power supplies. As a general rule, they're not recommended because of the modular nature. Each connection creates resistance in the electrical circuit, which adds more work to the power supply. Additionally, these cost more than comparable wattage power supplies.

Some of the recommended ones are:
Enermax EG565P-VE 535W
Enermax EG701AX 600W
Antec TruePower TPII-550 550W
OCZ520ADJ 520W
OCZ600ADJ 600W

If you want a modular power supply, I know Hiper has some, but I don't know the model #'s. However, they seem to be pretty easy to get ahold of in the UK, and seem to be pretty high quality. Off the top of my head, the only modular PSU that you might check out would be the Antec NeoHE 500. If you do go with a modular power supply, make sure the main power connector is 24-pin AND is permanently attached to the power supply.

Other brands that are good: Tagan, Hiper, PC Power & Cooling (tend to be rather expensive, but basically the best you can get), Fortron/Sparkle/FSP Group (same company, different brands), Silverstone. Any of these brands with a power supply around 500W ought to be sufficent. These companies conservatively rate their power supplies not inflate them. The problem with wattage ratings is that there's no set standard of defining them beyond the math. I'm sure you've found out that there's more than one equation to get a number, and that's part of the problem. The other issue relates to the performance at a specific temp. An Antec power supply may be able to pump out 500W up to 80*C, but a cheaper brand (let's say Q-Tec) may give up at 45*C. Additionally, the better companies use better components, which means you have a better quality unit. Of course, there's some brands that you don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole...

Avoid the following brands:
Ultra
Q-Tec (also Q-Technology)
Aspire
Coolmax
 
I just wanted to add credence to what B is saying, especially regarding the Enermax PSUs. He is an expert on PSUs and everything hardware, so take his advice seriously.
 
Just doing my best to get the word out. Power supplies really used to be a non issue because computers didn't require a grunty power supply to work and stay operating. However, since the launch of the Prescott-core Pentium4's (which is why Intel needed to go to the LGA775 socket over the mPGA478 one) and the Athlon64 line, the power supply has become one of the most important parts you can buy. The need has been building, but with the newer technologies, like SLI/Crossfire, increasing friendliness toward overclocking, multiple hard and optical drives...it's become something that needs to be paid more attention to, especially with cheap power supplies claiming 500W that have specs more akin to high-quality 350-400W units. Outside of buying a good motherboard, your most important purchase is the power supply. If either of these two are not up to par, the rest of the system is going to suffer.
 
The ones that come with the removeable cables are referred to as modular power supplies. As a general rule, they're not recommended because of the modular nature. Each connection creates resistance in the electrical circuit, which adds more work to the power supply.
Click to expand...

I mainly want the modular psu because i will have a bunch of unused connectors. Surely if I only have a few connected this will be less than a standard psu? thus making less work for the psu???

Had orginally decided to use the Antec TruePower 2.0 550W PSU.
But the new Antec NeoHE 550W Modular ATX2.0 PSU has become available. Surely these modular power supplies are designed to work fine even with all connectors plugged in?:ohah:
 
I don't think you're quite following. Ultimately, the best connection is a soldered connection, but, that would really void a few warranties. This would create little to no hiccups in the wiring itself. Where you have a device feeding off the wiring, there's a connection. However, since the wiring isn't directly soldered to the device, there's a gap between the connectors. It's not huge to us, and should be a tight fit. Unfortunately, we're dealing with subatomic electrons here, so what's jack to us, is worlds apart for electrons. A solid soldered connection doesn't really have that gap, so the transfer is smoother.
 
Assuming you go with a high-quality one like the Antec NeoHE 500, you shouldn't run into problems. Some motherboards may be a lot more picky than others, but over all no. I'd be worried more about the modular ones that have the main ATX connector as being removeable. There's no reason for this since it's always required and thats where you really don't want any more gaps than you absoultely have to. Then, of course, there's the old-fart geek in me that's wary of these new-fangled changes. However, there is the reality to what I'm saying, and you can ask an electronics engineer if you want a second opinion.
 
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