Seasonic not so good any more?

Quartz-1

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From JonnyGuru:

If I could show you the numbers... of the PSUs that are RMA'd each week, half of them are Seasonic based. Yet Seasonic based product does not make up even close to half of the volume Corsair sells.

Just because something reviews well, doesn't automatically give it more longevity out in the field.

Hmm...
 
According to posts made at [H], he works for Corsair now.
Salt, pinch.

(being wary, not derogatory)
 
If he works for corsair is it safe to assume he's only talking about the corsair PSU that SeaSonic make for them? (Do they?) How else would he know the return volume for seasonic units?
 
He would know relative RMA rates between Seasonic and CWT power supplies that they sell.

I believe a lot of those RMAs have to do with coil whine, rather than anything intrinsically functionally wrong with Seasonic PSUs. Coil whine is a very prevalent complaint with Seasonic PSUs in particular.
 
These days you always have to account for good manufacturers getting burned on parts from China that weren't up to spec. Happened to me twice with JVC and Sony camera sensors. Seasonic still gets good reviews from users and consumer sites. "Seasonic based" can mean a bunch of things. Personally I gave up on companies like Corsair and Ocx a long time ago. Things I had from them never lived up to the hype and their service was sketchy.
 
Everybody makes good and bad products.
My Seasonic made HX650 has been rock solid as was the HX520 before it.

Sadly the latest version of the HX650 is made by CWT and the complaints are much higher.
 
Everybody makes good and bad products.
My Seasonic made HX650 has been rock solid as was the HX520 before it.

Sadly the latest version of the HX650 is made by CWT and the complaints are much higher.

Have a 500W Thermaltake running in a system for 7 years now. Now that GPUS are CPUS are demanding less power. This PSU has a second life
 
Have a 500W Thermaltake running in a system for 7 years now. Now that GPUS are CPUS are demanding less power. This PSU has a second life

You haven't been in the gpu forums? 300w is too much for a gpu.

But I must agree, my hx650 hasn't given me a reason to question it. I have the older SS model.
 
I would buy Seasonic over Corsair any day. I have a fanless Seasonic 460 on the way.
 
I believe a lot of those RMAs have to do with coil whine, rather than anything intrinsically functionally wrong with Seasonic PSUs.

Exactly.


My current and my previous two PSUs have all been Seasonic made and I never had any problem with them, except, of course, for some coil whine during load.


Is he trying to hurt Seasonic's reputation? Seeing as a lot of people think highly of him, and take his word as gospel, maybe he should be more careful with his statements.
 
I have a Seasonic 800w that was mining 3x 7970's for over a year straight, it still works and I actually used it in my main rig to replace a Corsair 750w because it impressed me so much.

It was making this crackling noise when it was running full blast but it never failed.

On the other hand the Corsair 1000w with the same workload (3x 7970s) had to be RMA'ed ;)
 
Seasonic is just fine. They are not top of the line, but they produce long lasting products. Like it was stated above, coil whine is very prevalent and you will throw your computer through a wall if you hear it.
 
Not sure if they are falling off as far as reliability goes, but considering there have been high-quality alternatives for years and given the whine problems, it's crazy that people on this forum still think so highly of them. If there were no good alternatives, sure, take the chance of coil whine. But there are too many PSUs on the market just as good as Seasonic. If Seasonic reliability is falling off, then definitely buy from a different brand, but again I would recommend a different brand either way.
 
If there were no good alternatives, sure, take the chance of coil whine. But there are too many PSUs on the market just as good as Seasonic. If Seasonic reliability is falling off, then definitely buy from a different brand, but again I would recommend a different brand either way.

Which brands are you recommending as an alternative?
I have 3 Seasonic and 4 Corsair Power Supplies without problems but of course that is only anecdotal not statistical evidence. Only had to RMA one Antec PS years ago.
 
Which brands are you recommending as an alternative?
I have 3 Seasonic and 4 Corsair Power Supplies without problems but of course that is only anecdotal not statistical evidence. Only had to RMA one Antec PS years ago.

Superflower comes to mind as a very good, cost-competitive alternative. Generally sold under Kingwin, EVGA, Rosewill, and some others that don't come to mind at the moment. As with all brands though, you have to research the specific model, as EVGA and Rosewill also sell PSUs from subpar OEMs.
 
Which brands are you recommending as an alternative?
I have 3 Seasonic and 4 Corsair Power Supplies without problems but of course that is only anecdotal not statistical evidence. Only had to RMA one Antec PS years ago.

Super Flower as Tsumi said - Rosewill Capstone (Gold) is one of those and Kingwin Lazer Gold and Platinum are others.

Personally I use a Flextronics PSU, the Corsair AX760i. The AXi series is made by Flextronics and the regular AX is Seasonic. The AXi has a USB interface and Windows software to control and monitor some things but the reason I bought the AXi was simply to avoid coil whine. The last Seasonic I bought for myself was from their 80plus line (not bronze/silver etc just regular 80plus) and it did whine. Had friends with a couple of newer ones also have whine. The AX760i Flextronics does not whine and has been the best PSU I have owned so far (but for the price, it better damn well be!). Otherwise Flextronics is a fraction of a percent less efficient.

Enermax also has some good PSUs that I would buy over Seasonic because of coil whine and their quality is pretty decent. I would also take an Enhance over Seasonic for the same reason. Last I checked, Silverstone PSUs were mostly made by Enhance, though they might've changed since I last looked because it has been 3-5 years since I looked into them.

Some Antecs are very good as well, but as Tsumi said about Rosewill and Kingwin and other brands, some are also not very good. Very dependent on which model you buy. Like those other brands they use different manufacturers for different models. I think most of their current models are supposed to be pretty good.

Personally I double check any PSU I'm interested in at JonnyGuru and HardwareSecrets as I trust both of those sites. There are some other sites that do good PSU testing as well. But I personally try to start from the knowledge I've gained in my years of building PCs and then whatever I come up with I double check at sites like those.
 
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Everybody makes good and bad products.
My Seasonic made HX650 has been rock solid as was the HX520 before it.

Sadly the latest version of the HX650 is made by CWT and the complaints are much higher.

HX650 has never been made by CWT. It's always been Seasonic.

Latest "Gold" version: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Corsair-HX650-Gold-Power-Supply-Review/1705/1

He would know relative RMA rates between Seasonic and CWT power supplies that they sell.

I believe a lot of those RMAs have to do with coil whine, rather than anything intrinsically functionally wrong with Seasonic PSUs. Coil whine is a very prevalent complaint with Seasonic PSUs in particular.

An even sprinkling of all of the above. Coil whine and DOA or death within the first year. But to your point, the recent increase in RMAs due to coil whine doesn't help the numbers over all. But even then... we're talking numbers like 5%. Not anything like "OMGWTFBBQ 50% UFAIL RATE!!!!"

These days you always have to account for good manufacturers getting burned on parts from China that weren't up to spec.

And since all PC PSUs are now made in China..... And with Chinese tariffs being completely unreasonable, the parts used in those PSUs are also all Chinese (albeit Japanese, German, etc. brands).
 
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dandragonrage,

thank you great post with manufacture ideas.

jonnyGURU,

Great point about a 5% DOA rate difference is nothing to obsess over.
 
np...

Also, keep in mind that the quote in the OP is completely out of context. I was responding to someone that was making the claim that Seasonic was "the best" and with no data available stated that CWT, Flex, GW, etc. RMA's were much higher.

And coil whine RMAs make things worse exponentially because typically a user with one PSU with coil whine can do an RMA and get another with the exact same problem. Since coil whine tends to happen only at particular loads, the same user with the same PC can have two units that whine. Put that PSU in another build and the whine goes away.
 
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