Internals


Given the target market, we don't expect a top quality internal design. Most companies say those for their higher end models, for the simple reason that such designs cost more and no one is going to want to spend over $100 on a 300W power supply. We can only hope that one day we will begin to see better topologies on lower wattage models.

As far as the QFan, we see minimal components on the input filtering stage in the internals are very sparse in comparison to higher-end PSUs. Of course, if you only need to output 300W to 450W, you don't need a lot of extra components. We find a standard CWT design three heatsinks, two for the primary side. Thermaltake uses Hitachi capacitors for the primary and SamXon caps on the secondary side. We don't have any complaints about the Hitachi caps, and even though SamXon is a cheaper offering, we haven't encountered any problems with their capacitors in previously tested power supplies.

Cables and Connectors Testing with the Chroma ATE Programmable Load
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  • Slomo4shO - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link

    Would it be possible to include CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX, PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS420X, OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ400MXSP, and OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP in your upcoming write-up?
  • Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link

    Yep, have them already here.
  • Havor - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link

    Hi Christoph nice review

    But if you really be cool if you would put all the tested PSU's in a database.
    ware you can select a power rating (like say 400~450W) and see on a graf how all the PSUs performs in that W-rating
    http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/3/11/20/f_PSUg...">http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/3/11/20/f_PSUg...

    A other thing that would be nice would be if you would give all PSU a grade from 0~100 ware 100 would be a PSU perfect PSU <15db/100% eff./DC output perfect flat/temp <30c/PFC = 1/build quality perfect

    And then turn it in a graf. and cross it whit personal most important part for HTPC builders that would be db, for people building a server it would be high % efficacy
  • Mr Perfect - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link

    It would be interesting to know what Seasonic is up to these days. Their old S12 line was quite impressive in it's day.

    Oh, and anything that has more then just one 6pin PEG connector. Someone with a reasonably powered system might still want to hook in a 4870 or GTX260, seeing how games are generally GPU limited today.
  • Netcraazzy - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link

    I'd love to see a head-to-head comparison between these PSUs and similar units from Antec, OCZ, Seasonic, Sparkle and others. I'm especially interested in the 400w-500w range.
  • Amart - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link

    Opinion seconded, well done with the review. I especially appreciate the attention to quality and ripple graphs, as these are of prime concern when recommending a PSU.

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