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Best PSU under 50$

T

Toad21

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
445
I want 420 watt atleast, true power (whatever that means), and I want those sleave things to be on the power cables.

Any ideas? I just blew my 350w, and will have to order one within hours.

Help!
 
Yeah. Thats werid cause i just had my raid max 350watt PSu blow up in my case.
I wouldnt know what to buy i just had to see if yours was a raid max or not.
 
Well, for that price, you can get a nice Fortron unit that is a known good performer and has been shown to outperform its ratings. Or, you can buy that and hope it works good, without anything to do go off of except the specifications (which are stretches and half-truths most of the time anyway). Good luck, and see my sig for opinion on unknown power supplies
 
Well i just ordered it. It had 5 good reviews at newegg, one guy running a pentium 2.8 @ 3.6 ghz. That is good enough for me.

It was 54$ shipped.
 
Go ahead and possibly sacrifice the stability of your computer for your aesthetic whims. I certainly wouldn't entrust my system with that power supply.
 
Get a good quality one. I've built a dozen system with the ThermalTake 420W from newegg. One sale for $37 currently $42.
 
Its not like it can do my computer any harm. I will just return it, I have it under warranty for a year.

I bet it will be a great power supply. Its not like manufactorers differ much with there electronics anyway. I pay for the part not the name attached to it.
 
Toad21 said:
Its not like it can do my computer any harm.
Click to expand...
Hah, you just go on and think that. A low quality power supply can deliver dangerous voltage spikes that can easily damage electronics throughout the computer. Otherwise, it could go up in flames and cause any degree of damage to the rest of your computer. You think it doesn't happen? It happens too often...
Its not like manufactorers differ much with there electronics anyway.
Click to expand...
Yes they do, but of course you wouldn't know that. You sound like you've never opened up a power supply before.
I pay for the part not the name attached to it.
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That's fair, but some manufacturers just make a more consistent product than others. There are companies like Fortron and Zippy that provide power supplies to servers, workstations, and medical equipment, while there are others who serve the "white box" market. Which company do you think would offer a more reliable product? It's not just "the part," you know...
 
I just replaced a powmax PS that blew up in a few months in a buddys computer. I bet that thing weighed less than a pound. A good magnet in a quality supply will weigh alot more. My Antec 430 is going on 4yrs.
 
Isn't MGE a good UPS and PSU manufactorer? They are fairly new to the home pc user, they mainly deal with high end UPS's.
 
No idea. I've never dealt with any of their stuff, and i've never seen any real hardware reviews of their stuff either. So they're generic until proven otherwise
 
After reading that pitiful excuse for a review, I give the review a 0/10 for objective analysis of the stuff that actually matters with power supplies--you know, the whole "delivering power" thing.
 
Are RaidMax supplies really bad? I have one but I'm starting to think I should replace it after hearing some bad things about them in recent days. I personally feel it looks good inside but I don't know what all to look for. Could you guys tell me what to look for inside a quality power supply?
 
well, first off would be some sort of filter right after the AC plug. Most if not all good supplies have some sort of little AC filter. Next, would be how big the pair of capacitors are that are undoubtably somewhere on the board. They should standout and be beefy. Next, you look at the heatsinks. Again, the beefier the better. I guess you just sort of develop an eye for crappy stuff vs good stuff inside. It's hard to describe what the right size for stuff should be. A real easy test is the weight test (which btw should be performed case-less really, because the metal on the outside is unimportant but will affect weight). It should be heavy like a brick.
 
Toad21 said:
Its not like it can do my computer any harm. I will just return it, I have it under warranty for a year.

I bet it will be a great power supply. Its not like manufactorers differ much with there electronics anyway. I pay for the part not the name attached to it.
Click to expand...

Crappy powersupply recently took out a friend of mine's motherboard...
 
A good MGFs power supply going bad can kill a system.


My story is that I have an antec smartpower 300 (or 330 don't remeber) and its severly under volting my system IMO and I'm couning 1 HD and 2 MB dead related to this supply.

Although this could be something else doing I doubt it and I'm not going to use this PSU anymore.


(ooooh I get to open something new!)

Just like you shouldn't buy generic oil for your car and should even consider synthics for older cars, you should spend the extra time and dough for a good PSU.
 
What's so wrong with that power supply?


What would be a good power supply that looks good for around 50 bucks?
 
I think what is wrong with that PSU is that no one has heard of it. This would imply that it is generic. I (and I believe most people here) have not seen a quality generic PSU. While no one here has seen it, and can't guarantee it is bad quality, the odds are against it. I have seen both Raidmax and Powmax powrer supplies. My cheap 350w Antec PSU has much better quality. (quality = good BIG capasaters, good BIG heat sinks = weight) My Antec weighed more than both of the other PSUs combined. Another thing, my Antec puts out half the heat either of the others did.

Like it or not, brand name matters in PSU. Go for a 350+ watt brand name PSU over any watt generic. You won't be paying for the brand, but for the quality.
 
just out of curiosity, what happened when the PS died? was it a capacitor?
i had an Antec PS that just *popped* about 8 months ago and i spent 0.39 at radioshack and bought a new capacitor, soldered it in in place of the other and its been working ever since.
"No user servicable parts inside" my ass...
just be sure its the same rating as the one that blew or...well... you'll need to do some more replacing ;)
 
Hehe, I wish it was always that easy. I replaced a fuse and a varistor in an older supply and was greeted with flying, exploding electronics! :eek:
 
geez...that sucks...were you able to salvage anything?

that mightv'e been cool if it wasnt installed or attached to anything. imagine a group a friends sitting around it like a campfire, poking at it with a stick...hehehe...
 
Twas on my workbench through the whole ordeal, so my hardware came out unscathed; I'm currently building a forward converter for it so I can power it off of 12v DC for a carputer project.
 
Toad21 said:
Its not like it can do my computer any harm. I will just return it, I have it under warranty for a year.

I bet it will be a great power supply. Its not like manufactorers differ much with there electronics anyway. I pay for the part not the name attached to it.
Click to expand...

:eek: Dear God, Please tell me that I did just not read that... this whole post is going in my sig I think if I can find a way to fit it......Funniest post I've seen in years.

Buddy, PSU's are the absolute #1 culprit of damaged parts. Period. I've seen them explode, catch on fire, take out hard drives, motherboards, cases, burn down, etc, etc, etc. You name it, a generic psu can do it when it goes. And it will go. Trust me. Blown out psu's keep my side job of fixing pc's in business.

And it won't be a great psu. For $40 bucks, it won't be. And yes they do differ with their electronics anyway. Why do you think my pc power and cooling cost $270? Yes, some of it was name brand, but a lot of it was the beeefy heatsinks, high quality ZIPPY componets inside (a far cry from raidmax or powmax etc.), beefy capacitors from the best manufacturers, and a jam packed inside. The thing weighs like 7 pounds.

I also pay for the part insead of the name attached to it. Which is why I bought a pc power and cooling 510 deluxe.

Pretty much the only good psu under $50 will come from fortron. Try the fortron 350w psu for $47 shipped. It will outperform even the antec 480w and 550w in some cases.
 
Hey computerpro, i noticed that you mentioned to not buy lower end thermaltakes and enlights, where they are supposedly the ones that chug on for years, its the newer higher wattage ones that seem to have many issues. I've read more than a few posts where full-time system builders have used hundreds of the lower watt model enlights with 0% defect rate. [H] mod BlindedByScience is one of them off the top of my head.

What experiences have you had with their lower wattage models that deters you from recommending them? Not chop-busting but i am curious ;)
 
Where did you hear that? And what FSP line is supposedly used by SIlenX/Ahanix?
 
what about achieve, they any good?

i have had one for about 3 yrs, and i bought it on sale for 20 bucks. i figured "meh, $20 for a 500Watt PS, i guess ill go ahead even if i never heard of them." but it has worked fine for this long and i havent got money out of my arse to get a Power PC and Cooling 510, so... ill live for a little longer... (knock on wood)
 
SJetski71 said:
What experiences have you had with their lower wattage models that deters you from recommending them? Not chop-busting but i am curious ;)
Click to expand...


Sure. I've had a 300w Enlight loaded on a p2 600mhz system with an asus mobo, 30GB maxtor hd, cdrom, 512mb ram, the usual stuff and it blew after around a year of moderate use. I had a thermaltake 480w (high wattage but the low end model, not butterfly) and it was total crap; molex connectors fell out and voltage lines were totaly fluctuating. It would also have cold boot issues and toook a while for the voltages to "spin up" so to speak.
 
I've always been confused about that whole silenx thing...as Ice Czar puts it

so you have a company rebranding Power Supplies as their own complaining about another company counterfeiting said rebranded power supplies
Click to expand...

I'm still kinda confused....so should Ahanix be on the generic list?
 
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