2003 Power Supply Roundup Part II: Better Faster Cheaper
by Kristopher Kubicki on July 31, 2003 1:58 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
The most abundant PSU company in our review was TTGI. Most users have not even heard of TTGI before, let alone SuperFlower. Interestingly enough, that hardly upsets SuperFlower, who continues to mass produce products under various OEM and discreet labels. Given their unique market position, we took the chance to look at several offerings from TTGI. Their largest power supply is the 520SS, a 520W offering with 4 fans.
Again, the variable fan control makes an appearance. As you will see later in this review, the fan control is the Achilles heel for these power supplies. TTGI’s good prices and good features make these units very attractive, so performance becomes the most important issue with these units.
Features on the TTGI units are fairly bountiful. All of the units come in a glossy finish which really would look sharp in a case with windows or other acrylic. Our unit also came with one quad LED fan. In our opinion, it probably would have been more appropriate to ship the power supply the same color fan as the finish (or at least just one solid color). If you are particularly handy, replacing the fan will be no problem.
Wattages
|
|
3.3V |
5V |
12V |
-12 |
-5 |
+5vsb |
combined theoretical |
actual combined |
advertised total |
|
TTGI/SuperFlower 520SS 4Fan |
92.40 |
260.00 |
240.00 |
9.60 |
2.50 |
15.00 |
352.40 |
260.00 |
520.00 |
Like the Vantec Stealth, the TTGI 520SS has an unusually high +5.0V rail. The +3.3V rail is not penalized as much, so we will not criticize them on that. Do keep in mind that an Athlon 2200+ XP runs on about 60W, so overclockers should consider all the options when looking at these power supplies.
Pricing on the TTGI series is extremely aggressive. The 520SS runs around $85, much less than the other power supplies running about the same wattages. (The three fan version runs a little bit less, around $75).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
70 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
1. No amp measurements were listed, a serious deficiency because without them there is no way to know how well each PS met its amp specs, and many brands are known to fall short.2. No overload testing results for shorts, excessive power draw, excessive temperature.
3. Ripple is not just slow voltage variation also short term variation, such as for each AC cycle (60 Hz for the incoming AC, about 60,000 Hz for the output DC). I would have liked to see how the latter correlated with the memory noise test results.
4. I hope you were careful when you tested the PS heatsink temperatures because some heatsinks are live with high voltage.
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Well for the observent people who can differentiate between orange and blue, its not an issue. Also waiting a full second before clicking it reveals the location on both the bottom left and the mouse cursor. but i can see how it does get annoying.Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
yeah those in page advertisements are REALLY annoying...those have got to go. i never know when i'm going to link to another anandtech article or to an ad...i guess that's the point but it's still unacceptableAnonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I would like to see the review include a Heroichi Electronic power supply, I hear they are very good but I haven't used one.Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Some of your "In Page Advertising" links seem to be missing closing links tags or something so that it results in having a <link> in the middle or end of a sentence. Ex. "We had a lot of troubles with Vantec’s last power supply, the Stealth. We found an error in the production label<link>, which quickly led to a change in all the labeling on all Stealth power supplies."KristopherKubicki - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
#3 and #4, thank you for spotting these errors. I have updated and fixed them.Cheers,
Kristopher
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I hope the ripple for the PC Power & Cooling 3V wasn't 2.295.. Possibly 3.296??? 1 volt drop is unacceptable.Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
The REAL price of the pc power&coolinghttp://www.directron.com/pcpower.htmlAnonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
a little more content per page in some cases would be nice too......but good to see content on the site at all...and seemingly more regularly too...
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
woah guys, the tables need some work...