SinghaLvr said:
I need two power supplies. (Go figure ... two machines lost them
simultaneously!)
Specs:
- 2 hard disks
- AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Processor
- ASUS Mainboard / Gigabyte Mainboard (different boxes)
- ATI 9600XT / GeForce 4MX (different boxes)
- One box has a SCSI board and SCSI tape drive.
What RELIABLE power supply do I need that I won't have to replace in 18
months?
http://takaman.jp has probably the best power estimator available, and
it gives not only the watts but also the amps at each voltage, but its
+3.3V amp estimates seem to be way too low and should be tripled. A
good 350W or a really good 300W PSU should be able to run everything
you have. Few PSU reviews are good, with some of the few exceptions
being at
www.tomshardware.com ,
www.silentpcreview.com , and
www.xbitlabs.com.
Are you near a Fry's Electronics? They often feature an Antec at a
really cheap price, after rebate, like the case SKL1600 case w/ 300W
for $5 a few weeks ago (was $15 last week) or the 350W PSU for $15 back
in Sept. I expect them to have another such special on Dec. 26. Antec
increased the +12V amp capacity of these, to 19A for the 300W and to
21A for the 350W, but they haven't updated their website for this. The
newer 300W has bigger high voltage MOSFETs than my old one, 9.0A verses
6.5A. In comparison, my 350W Enermax has just a single 9A MOSFET.
Fortron-Source makes PSUs that are at least as good as Antecs but
usually cheaper, like $25 for a 300W from
www.newegg.com. They produce
several brands, including Sparkle, Hi-Q, PowerQ, Powerman, PowerTech,
Trend, Aopen, and sometimes CasEdge.
Brands used by big computer makers are really good, except those in
some E-machines. They include Lite-on, Delta, HEC/Heroichi/CompuCase,
Zippy-Emacs, NMB/Mineba, and Win-tact. Another one of these companies,
Channel Well Technology, the producer of most Antecs, is all over the
place on quality, but their good ones are labelled CWT-xxxAyy or
CWT-xxxByy, where xxx = watts and yy = AS, BS, AD, BD, ADP, or BDP.
Avoid their products labelled CWT-xxxATX, CWT-xxxISO, or CWT-xxx.
PC Power & Cooling is supposedly the best but also the most expensive.
The basic cores of their PSUs are by Zippy-Emacs, Fortron-Source, and
Win-tact.
It's OK to use Enermax (Casemart, Wavesonic, Cooler Giant) or Sirtec
(Thermaltake, High Power, several other brands).
Avoid Leadman (makes Robanton, Raidmax, and Powmax), Q-tec (not to be
confused with Q-technology, which are beefed-up Fortron-Source),
EZ-Media, Transworld, King Case, and anything by Deer (Austin, Allied,
Codegen, L&C, Logic, PowerUp, PowerStar, Duro, US-Can, Eagle, Foxlink,
Foxconn, Hyena, Qmax, Mercury).
