550W Roundup: Three PSUs at Different Prices
by Martin Kaffei on October 28, 2010 4:00 PM ESTYou Get what You Pay for!
Perhaps our conclusion should also include the warning: caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), because it's clear that some PSUs should never see retail shelves. The Techsolo Black Mamba 550W belongs in this classification if you want a 550W PSU; in fact, the Techsolo is a ~250 watts power supply without an acurate working power factor correction—not to mention the fact that the efficiency is always below 75%.
If you just need a cheap power supply that will function at loads under 250W, perhaps budget products will fit the bill, but we'd suggest looking elsewhere as long-term power costs (and the risk of damaged components) makes this a gamble at best. In our case, the PSU died at 50% load, and there are no real safety functions—not even an MOV in the entrance. Both main switches are undersized and exploded. The protective ground wire is connected to a mounting screw of the main PCB. Again: Bad idea!
While the product looks decent, Techsolo offers nothing more than a few cables ties, one PCIe connector, and very short cables (40-45cm for the main cables). The cable sleeving is a nice extra, but we'd rather have the cost put elsewhere. Nothing else even suggests that this is a quality power supply. The noise for example is always over 22dBA and reached up to 28dBA at "50%" load. Another problem is the noisy PFC-choke, which is really loud and emits a high-pitched squeal. Passive PFC is always a noisemaker. In any case, Antec and OCZ are quieter and better, so just give this one a pass if you happen to be in Europe.
The OCZ Fatal1ty 550W is no superhero on the market, failing to stand out from the crowd. Your system won't run faster, and we have to wonder how much Fatal1ty gets paid for the use of his name—and if it even helps with increased sales, considering he's been quiet of late. This is a minor upgrade of the older OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W, with slightly improved internal devices, but that's about it. The EMI filtering has most necessary components, excluding an MOV. OCZ has switched to Teapo (LH, SC), after the Chinese caps weren't helpful for their public image. We can't say that they have the best characteristics, but they do a good job in power supplies. Now there are more protective foils against short circuits as well. This progress is absolutely welcome.
The downside of the PSU is that the ripple and noise results are very high for an "actual" product. More than 70mV on +12V and about 41mV on +5V can be measured. The efficieny is low at 10% load and not to remarkable at 50% load. Otherwise the voltage regulation is satisfying (never below -2% on all rails) and the power factor is high (above 0.840). The 45cm 24-pin cable should be long enough for small and mid-size cases, while the 4-pin and 4+4-pin ATX12V cables for the CPU could be much longer; we wouldn't recommend this PSU for use in cases where the PSU is at the bottom. Six SATA and HDD connectors are provided and there is a floppy connector at 90cm. The red cable sleeving is cheap but at least it's something.
What about the noise level? It's not bad at all. At low load there is no more than 18-19dBA. Even at full load the fan stays below 30dBA. Overall it is as quiet as the Antec TruePower New, but takes a small lead at high loads. This isn't a bad power supply, and it's reasonably efficient, but the high amount of ripple on the various rails is a concern for long-term stability, particularly if you're actually running this on a higher performance gaming system. Outside of noise levels the Antec is a far better PSU; you just have to decide if it's worth the additional cost.
When we look at the Antec TruePower New 550W, we can see good capacitors (Nippon Chemi-Con), many components for filtering in the entrance including an MOV, and well dimensioned +12V rails. The TruePower New has 55cm connectors for graphics cards and a 50cm 24-pin cable. The cable sleeving is again done rather cheaply, but the number of peripheral connectors gives no occasion for criticism. There is only one real problem: with a limited number of plugs you can't connect all the modular cables—even though this 550W unit should easily be able to handle such a configuration.
As for performance and quality, all the results from our tests are very impressive. The voltage is always over or near the ideal value and there is hardly any ripple and noise on any of the rails: less than 35mV on +12V, and less than 20mV on +3.3V and +5V. Up to 87% efficiency and a high power factor (above 0.850) is the primary reason for the cost; such results can only be reached with high quality devices, and those devices cost more than lesser offerings. In every case, Antec performs better than the OCZ and comes out the clear leader of this trio. And if you've ever wondered what the difference is between "budget" power supplies like the Techsolo and quality offerings like the Antec, hopefully we've managed to shed some light on the discussion.
So what's the overall conclusion? The gap between OCZ and Antec is far shorter than the gulf between OCZ and Techsolo, but you can definitely see why the Antec costs more. Long-term, the increased efficiency of the OCZ will easily pay for itself relative to a budget PSU, though we can't say the same for the Antec vs. OCZ. However, the Antec has much better characteristics elsewhere, and high ripple can put extra stress on your PC's components making the Antec a better choice for enthusiasts and anyone looking for maximum reliability. Is it worth the added cost? That's up to you, but we'd recommend spending as much on your PSU as you can afford; there's no reason to pair quality components (i.e. your motherboard, CPU, RAM, GPU, and SSD) with substandard power supplies. As our results here show, you clearly get what you pay for—though we'd recommend reading reviews to help choose between similarly priced, similarly specced PSUs.
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Spivonious - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
I really did laugh out loud when I came across "quadratic ventilation". Just say they're square holes.Spazweasel - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
It's interesting to see a conclusion that recommends reading a lot of reviews... the fact is, there have been very few power supply reviews compared to other PC components.Consider. With video cards, most manufacturers closely adhere to reference designs, differing only in cooler design (sometimes) and factory overclocks (sometimes). Yet upon the release of a new video chipset, we see reviews comparing offerings from several different manufacturers. Are we really expecting any real differences between, say, a 675Mhz 460 GTX from Palit compared to a 675Mhz 460 GTX from Asus, other than the noise and effectiveness of the fan? Yet we get that question examined and answered, in considerable detail. Video cards are sexy and fun to test.
However, with power supplies, it's inverted. It's clear that there are *substantial* differences between power supplies from different manufacturers, and that pricing does not track quality particularly well. Power supplies would benefit *more* from reviews comparing similarly-specced products from a wide variety of manufacturers. Yet we see very few power supply reviews. Anandtech has the best power supply reviews I've seen, examining real performance with repeatable, deeply technical benchmarks and tests, as opposed to "my computer turned on with it, the LEDs are pretty, Gold Editor Award" we see elsewhere. Anyone can install FRAPS and Speedfan then run timedemos and Furmark and call it a video card review. It takes skill and understanding and specialized equipment to test a power supply well. Anandtech has that skill; many other review sites do not. Your duty is clear!
I'd like to see more power supply reviews of this caliber, with the same intent to examine *all* major manufacturers that is given to video cards. As pointed out in the article, it can be just as important to spend wisely here as in other components, and I would therefore like to see proportionate coverage in power supplies.
JarredWalton - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
We had Christoph Katzer doing this sort of PSU review on a regular basis for a while, but then he had some other stuff come up that pulled him away. He ended up recommending Martin for his replacement and has helped (I think) Martin get set up for PSU testing. I expect we will have at least a few PSU reviews each month going forward, so we'll hopefully be able to cover more of the market as time goes by.dertechie - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Most sites honestly just do not have the equipment or the skills to test the things (and I prefer they don't review them rather than test them poorly). Anand and Tom's have recently gotten back into it, but I know HardwareSecrets and HardOCP do a lot of PSU reviews with the proper gear, and I hear that JohnnyGuru does as well, but I haven't looked there myself. Most PSUs pass, but I've read enough reviews that there's no way I will buy an unreviewed unit for a build. Too many PSUs from otherwise reputable companies that failed, exploded, melted, took out the reviewer's wattmeter, or all of the above simultaneously.Spazweasel - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Agreed. Some power supply vendors manufacture their own high-end power supplies but subcontract the mass-market stuff, often with no way to tell other than a trained eye which has seen that particular PCB layout before. Plus, any manufacturer can have a run of bad supplies, particularly if a component vendor lets them down (remember the capacitor issues a few years back which were traced back to a supplier that sold to many manufacturers ?).I have my own short list of power supplies that I use for my own and for friends' builds.
Antec EA380D for HTPC/entry level gaming rigs (it really is as quiet as the review says!)
OCZ 500MXSP for mainstream gaming rigs
Corsair 620HX for premium gaming rigs (my main gaming rig has this one, and has given flawless service... 8800GT SLI, E8500, everything OC by about 20%, rock-steady)
Anyone going higher-end than that doesn't need my advice.
Phaedrus2129 - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
I personally haven't seen a company manufacture its own high end, and outsource mass market things. Use different manufacturers, yes, but not manufacture some in-house and others OEMd. Antec did try that briefly, but found that running a factory was hard work and shut it down within a couple years.Maybe you're thinking of one of these brands?
PC Power & Cooling - Did not make own PSUs, despite best efforts to convince public otherwise. Used SeaSonic, Win-Tact, and FSP.
Thermaltake - High end is CWT, low-end is crappy HEC and FSP stuff
Antec - Have used CWT, Delta, SeaSonic, Enhance, FSP, and briefly their own factory, but never did what you described
Corsair - SeaSonic and CWT, and Flextronics for the AX1200
OCZ - Mainly FSP and Sirfa/Sirtec, though some older units were from Impervio and 3Y
Enermax - All PSUs made in-house, though they did outsource once or twice... Never made it a habit though.
SeaSonic - All made in-house
Those are the common ones I could see someone having misconceptions about... What brands were you thinking of that made their own high-end and outsourced the rest?
Also, FYI, the Corsair HX620 is discontinued.
Spazweasel - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
The 620HX may be discontinued but it's still readily available.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
tomoyo - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
Actually the HX620 still exists, you can buy it on newegg right now. Which is kinda dumb because it's basically been replaced by the HX650 (updated version of HX620).Spazweasel - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
See, this is the kind of thing I'd like to know. Is the HX650 based upon a new design? Does it have anything to do with the 620, did Corsair just up-rate it, or is my experience with the HX620 irrelevant to the HX650? We've seen that we can't just make the blanket assumption that good experience with one P/S model from a given manufacturer is a good indicator of other models.My own knowledge of the HX620:
1. It has all the juice I need for my system. Under load, the wattmeter on my UPS says my system pulls about 240-250 watts, so it's lightly stressed, but that still would have blown up under the tender ministrations of the Techsolo.
2. I've never had any problems with this power supply. It's given perfect service.
3. Corsair has treated me right. I managed to misplace the modular cables which I didn't use as part of the original build. When I needed those cables due to additional hard drives and adding the second 8800GT, I called them up and asked how I could order more cables. They sent me a full set of modular cables without charge (not even postage), and the cables arrived in 2 days.
I'm inclined to believe that the HX650 would be as good, but.... review! I wanna review! :)
Phaedrus2129 - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
Both are made by SeaSonic. The HX620 is a SeaSonic S12, which was SeaSonic's main high-end platform until it became mid-range.The HX650 is S12E, which is basically just an updated version with higher efficiency. Same performance otherwise. Still a decent unit. Usually a bit pricey for its performance though.