NeoPower 480 outlived?

[PMildren]

for you Eve-O or GF players
tl:dr

Over the past year, my computer has grown and grown. I started out with an AMD XP 3500 Barton, then replaced it with an Opty180. I kept the Asus A8N-SLI board which it resided on and at the same time replaced the not so old evga 7800gt that was in the case with an 8800GTS 640.

At the time I had the NeoPower 480 also power 1 eide 200GB WD hard drive and 2 CD/RW-DVD drives. Now my machine has grown to 1 WD 160 RE SATA HDD, 1 Maxtor 160 SATA Diamondmax 20 HDD, 1 WD 500 , and the 1 WD 200 eide drive along with 2 CD/RW-DVD drives, 5 120mm fans (including the HSF), 8800GTS, still running the Opty 180 and 2 gigs of OCZ DDR400 memory.

Now the issue. I have been to several different websites that are supposed to estimate the wattage used by such a system and I get anything from 525 W to 600W. I also started noticing stability issues with my system, so I pulled on CD drive off and the eide drive hoping to reduce the wattage used by my system.

Now with the question. With everything plugged in and operating, what size of a PSU would the smart guys in here recommend I buy. Also, I have been doinga bit of research on makers of PSUs and have once more been getting alot of differing opinions. I am currently holding all parts inside of an Antec P180B case and would like to keep wires nice, tidy and wrapped. Thanks in advance.

 

[tenub]

PC Power & Cooling best brand imo. Get the 1kW TurboCool if you want to be foolproof for the next 2 years or so. Or if you don't have that kind of money to shell out, get the 610 or 750 if you don't want to SLI, but still want rock solid stability and a hefty margin for some future upgrades.

 

[farfromhome]

PC Power & Cooling best brand imo. Get the 1kW TurboCool if you want to be foolproof for the next 2 years or so. Or if you don't have that kind of money to shell out, get the 610 or 750 if you don't want to SLI, but still want rock solid stability and a hefty margin for some future upgrades.

Inflated power estimates FTL. 610 and 750 are plenty for SLI (assuming a quality brand) and for the next two years. I still wouldn't go for PC Power & Cooling though unless you don't care about noise; even their Seasonic-built "silencers" are noisier than other Seasonic builds, such as sub-750W Corsair or Seasonic-branded units. I'd go for one of said Corsairs or a Thermaltake Toughpower instead IMHO, and in the more sensible 600W-750W category. If you never plan to go SLI or Crossfire, a power supply in the 450-600 watt range would be plenty actually.

The only reasons to get a really large power supply are (a) to get a higher-quality power supply than is available in lower-wattage units, like the Toughpower 1000W+ and the new BFG ES-800 (note the ES), or (b) you have a system more powerful than 98% of them out there, such as Tri-SLI, Skulltrail, or a server with 50 hard drives. If you have the latter situation, you'll know it.

As for the NeoPower, I'm not familiar with the OEM behind it or how good of a power supply it is but with how old it is, it might be an old-style ATX 1.x power supply. It might not be a bad idea to get a new ATX 2.x power supply instead, even of the same wattage.

 

[mavalpha]

The Neo480 was a decent power supply, but it was a little bit underpowered compared to its claims. For something comparable (in price) but much sturdier, its evolutionary replacement was the NeoHE line, which now has 550W and 650W versions. Either of these will do, and are at least as good as the much-touted Corsair HX520 and HX620 models. I believe that both lines are Seasonic-built.

And the NeoPower was already a 12Vv2 model, with two +12V rails. The NeoHE has three.

 

[Gabriel]

I am running a 2.5 year-old neopower 480 on my system with the same motherboard as you and a 9600GT with no problems, BUT I only have 2 DVD drives and 1 hard drive, so I couldn't say if it is enough for your system.

 

[PMildren]

Thanks guys. I was looking at the HX620 for awhile, but the price is a bit higher then other PSU of the same wattage. I have been looking at Seasonics, PC&C PSUs because of reviews I have read. But customers seem to say otherwise. One of the things I hate about reviews, is its so "right now" and not six months down the road, god love Newegg for its reviews from real consumers.

So with this new info I think I am going to look at another Antec, and TTs some more. Thanks again guys, will throw up some options after scouring Newegg some more.

 

[Capt. Canada]

Hey I'll weigh in on this one. I will certainly not recommend a Thermaltake. I have used Tt products elsewhere (heatsinks and fans) and was simply not impressed with the performance or noise.

I would expect a PSU built by Tt to be pretty loud. Every Tt fan I've used has needed to be volt modded, they are so loud at 12v. With so many brighter paths I think Tt is an easy path to close off. I really like OCZ and Corsair for PSUs. Both companies I have dealt with for Rebates and RMAs and they have treated me very well. I've heard awesome things about the HX620 unit and the GameXtream (700W) line by OCZ offers very good bang for the buck.

Although I have heard Tt is turning things around, I would go with either an HX620 or an OCZ GameXtream 700W unit.

 

[Bbq]

Antec Neopower 480 is CWT with fuhjyyu. Which means, that given the period of time you've had it (sockA days), said capacitors are probably going to be or are already leaking and burst. New PSU time.

Your system specs are not drawing that much power. Really. I recommend, for your setup, the Corsair HX 520, VX550, HX 620. No problems there.

As for OCZ, I just don't recommend them for their Game/Stealth/Mod Xstream. Out of spec ripple at high loads just doesn't inspire confidence.

Thermaltake, their toughpower units are great. Not their other stuff though. Not worth looking at anything but their toughpowers.

PCP&C, I would still say they're too expensive for what you get. You don't need 1kw, or anywhere close to that. Their turbo cool's are exceedingly loud, and their silencer's are basicly just beefed up seasonics.

 

[Dangman]

Thermaltake, their toughpower units are great. Not their other stuff though. Not worth looking at anything but their toughpowers.

Thought their Purepower RX line was also pretty good? Note the RX.

 

[PMildren]

Danny Bui,

I see that you have a P180 case with the Corsair 520X PSU. How do the lines measure out? Have you tried running them behind the mobo tray or just run them up the provided hole in the mid baffle? How about the extra cables? SATA cables, fan cable dvd power cables? Are they long enough? Have you had any issues with cable length in general?

CWT with fuhjyyu...WTF?

To anyone else running in a P180 case, what PSUs have you used that cable length was too short to reach a certain mobo design. Also, I have read that some PC&C PSUs were to large to fit in P180s. Has any P180 owners run into the same issue with other manufacturers design?

 

[PMildren]

So after some searching over the past couple of days, here is what I have come up with. The requirements are for 620W to 650W PSU with modular wiring. I figure that will power the mobo forthe next few years until the mobo or cpu give out. At which time, this setup will be mostly too out of date to do much of anything otherwise. And the contenders as I see it are as follows:

Mushkin 550150 650W - I like the Muskin because of the Rail Fusion concept, one of the things I didnt like about having multiple rails was wasted amps and its at a decent price point.
Antec NeoPower 650 Blue - Good price, seems to be liked by the customers, plenty of amps on the +12V rails.
Corsair 620HX - Has a great track record, lots of power and amps, stable voltage. But man this thing is expensive, and I am sure mostly because Corsair knows they can demand the price.

Discuss amongst yourselves

 

[Dangman]

You can find the Corsair PSU for cheaper here:
Corsair 620HX 620W PSU - $139

Newegg overcharges Corsair PSUs for some reason.

The Mushkin PSU only has 44A on the +12V rail. Considering that the Corsair 620HX and Antec NeoPower 650 Blue have 50A and 52A respectively, the Mushkin is a poor poor choice. Also note that the Antec and Corsair are actually single rail PSUs. The multi-rail info on the PSU labels on both PSUs are wrong.

Now it's down to the similarity priced Antec and Corsair. I'd get the Corsair. The Corsair has a dual layer PCB, compared to the Blue's single layer PCB, better capacitors, and is of better construction IMO. Granted the NeoPower 650 Blue does have a bit more power, it seems like it was a bit over-rated wattage wise as shown in HardOCP's review of it:
http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ0NSwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

Note: taken from the forum thread in that review:
- So while these overall values range from fair to good the majority of the results that cause them to fall into the fair range are because of Test #4.
- These values correspond with the troubles we began to see in the load testing as well possibly indicating that the unit was being asked for more than it was capable of.
- However, again like the NeoPower 650 the majority of the extreme results in temperature, efficiency, and voltage change can all be attributed to Test #4 when the unit seems to have been really struggling.
- While these values are all within specification this large sudden jump seems to indicate that the unit was hitting its wall here and certainly is not the cleanest output we have seen in this output range to date.

Paul_Johnson: I think that a bit more conservative a rating would have netted these units better performance characteristics in our review process

So since the Corsair is the exact same price as the Antec yet is of better quality and offers about the same amount of power, I'd get the Corsair.

Oh and Fuhjyyu is a brand and make of capacitors that's well known for it's low quality. Low quality caps means that the PSU has a higher chance of failure. Hence why Bbq recommended replacing the PSU. Oh and CWT stands for Channel Well Tech, a PSU maker. Does make excellent PSUs.

As for my P180, it is the original version, meaning that it doesn't have the raised mobo tray or the extra holes above the mobo or indentation on the mobo tray. You can see my cabling job here:

Yes it looks messy but airflow is barely restricted. Which is all that matters to me.

There isn't enough room behind the mobo tray that would allow me to route the 24pin power connecter underneath. As for cable length issues, the biggest issue IMO is the 4Pin P4 connector. It's gonna take some careful re-wiring if I wanted to add a PCI card anytime. Though I could solve that problem with a dremel or whatever tool can punch or cut a small hole right above the mobo tray. But for now, the above works for me. Too lazy at the moment to go out, buy, learn how to and use a dremel.

But that's pretty much it. All of my SATA cables, fan cables, and molex power cables are long enough IMO.

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Mushkin 550150 650W - I like the Muskin because of the Rail Fusion concept

You'll be paying for a gimmicked LED and switch that in reality does nothing but sense whether the 12V load is above a certain point. Most of Topower's (the OEM) stuff with this feature are single 12V anyway, and their build quality has almost always made me want to recommend something else.

That said, you won't be wasting power on a proper multiple 12V design unless the designers didn't know what they were doing in the first place. I still wouldn't buy a dual 12V model myself, but quad is usually just fine for just about anyone.

The Corsair is worth the extra money among your three choices. The Antec is also a Seasonic based unit, but a lower quality platform.

 

[PMildren]

You guys are awesome. You have probably forgotten more about PSUs then I know. Thats why I keep coming back here even after three banned accounts.

 

[Bbq]

I really don't like the mushkin power supplies. Rail fusion? What about just a single railed psu to begin with?

CWT does make some with fuhjyyu; most of antec's earlier works.

Don't know about the purepower rx.

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Don't know about the purepower rx.

Same CWT platform as the Corsair 550VX.

 

[kaname]

Hey OP. Let me tell you the with the PCP&C 610 i used to have in my P180B was a little long and I had to take the fan off the bottom chamber and flip it around to the other side without the mounting bracket. and had to squeeze the sata drives in and make sure the connections weren't getting in the way of the fan blades. Big PITA. Good thing is that the PCP&C was super silent in the case.

I've since moved on to the Corsair TX750 and it's great, it's about 2.5/3 inches shorter the the PCP&C and has tons of connections and length to the cables to get to everything without any problems. All the wires route behind the motherboard and reach their respective components with ease and in the case, it's just as quiet as the PCP&C. I highly recommend the Corsair's myself.

 

[PMildren]

Thanks guys, keep it coming. The more I hear from you guys the better.