Are Kolink PSU any good?

[LePhuronn]

What did you supply with it?

Overclocked 2990WX and 2080 Ti SLI

It's an undervolted 1090T, stock GTX 950 Strix and 1 SSD. Ran fine for years on a Corsair 450W (before Corsair's budget models became crap) but that unit was starting to show its age so wanted a quickie stop-gap to run another 6-12 months before I replace the entire system with a AMD 3000 affair.

At least now I can carry the Be Quiet Pure Power 11 over to the new system.

 

[Monkeynut]

From what I have seen of the Kolinks they seem to be based on the same gutless innards as the CiT and a couple of other no-name PSU's... these are definitely not designed for more than 300-350w at best.

 

[Deleted member 209350]

something like a psu its much better to go with a trustworthy reliable brand. Cheap brands might end up destroying your entire pc and its just not worth the risk of saving a couple extra quid

 

[Kolink PSU PM - Phil]

I see, there is still a long way to go for us to fully convince the OCuk community. I 2019 I'll for sure arrange some more reviews. In the end this is the only thing we can do to convince people our PSU deliver what we promise on the label. I also would like to remind you so far Kolink PSU protections always avoided further damage to other components. If this worst case would occur We'd of course meet our legal obligations. Still, I hope we won't have to deal with such an incident any time soon.

I'm very sorry if your Kolink PSU didn't work as expected out of the box. There isn't much I can do against DOA though. If PSU fail in the first 24h of usage they usually got damaged somewehere between burn in test in factory and the PC. Factory burn in is tough because of high temperature and load. PSU with hidden flaws wouldn't survive there. The risk of DOA is elevated for all rather cheap PSU because their packaging offers less protection. In the end the box of the cheap series like Core, KL or KL-M series isn't designed to protect the product during shipping but cost efficient delivery to system integrators when packed on palletts. Especially if more than one unit from the same delivery fails but RMA rate for the respective production date is in the normal range between 0.5 and 2% (target: 1%) it's likely the PSU was damaged in shipping.

 

[tamzzy]

I see, there is still a long way to go for us to fully convince the OCuk community. I 2019 I'll for sure arrange some more reviews. In the end this is the only thing we can do to convince people our PSU deliver what we promise on the label

I'd be very happy if you would get jonnyguru testing your PSUs

If this worst case would occur We'd of course meet our legal obligations. Still, I hope we won't have to deal with such an incident any time soon

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be satisfied or concerned with this??
I suspect if the PSU died and took out other components, kolink's only 'legal obligation' is to replace the faulty psu...
so it doesn't give any comfort to me, with that statement that there's a high chance the end user will be left high and dry if other components failed as a result of a psu failure.

 

[Kolink PSU PM - Phil]

Unfortunately Jeremy (OklahomaWolf) from JonnyGuru retired in late 2018 (official announcement: http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15718). Since he left the site so far there hasn't been any review published. I'm honestly glad he got the reviews for Continuum done before he left. I guess I'm not the only one missing Wolf and his insight into PSU performance (plus his entertaining style). In the end arranging aditional reviewsat JonnyGuru.com isn't possible at the moment. Our cheapest models also are made for 230V, so it's easier to arrange reviews in Europe. I'd say KitGuru, Techpowerup, TweakPC, PC Games Hardware and ComputerBase do awesome reviews as well.

I'm not familiar with UK law to be honest. Are you sure brands aren't liable in the UK for damages caused by faulty items? If I remeber it correctly there was an EU regulation back in the day asking all EU member states to introduce similar laws. Anyway, we apply same policy for all our customers. In the end we have insurance for such rare incidents. Still, PSU killing hardware is always bad for brand image. I would definately prefer not to see it happen for Kolink PSU.

At the moment Kolink PSU are made by HEC, Highpower and Enhance. All three of those are well respected factories producing products for a variety of brands. Whenever I go there for factory checks and meetings I have the feeling my products are in good hands there.

 

[tamzzy]

Unfortunately Jeremy (OklahomaWolf) from JonnyGuru retired in late 2018 (official announcement: http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15718). Since he left the site so far there hasn't been any review published. I'm honestly glad he got the reviews for Continuum done before he left. I guess I'm not the only one missing Wolf and his insight into PSU performance (plus his entertaining style). In the end arranging aditional reviewsat JonnyGuru.com isn't possible at the moment. Our cheapest models also are made for 230V, so it's easier to arrange reviews in Europe. I'd say KitGuru, Techpowerup, TweakPC, PC Games Hardware and ComputerBase do awesome reviews as well

Oh man! That's such a shame. But yeah, would be worth to get other reputable sites to do the reviews.

I'm not familiar with UK law to be honest. Are you sure brands aren't liable in the UK for damages caused by faulty items? If I remeber it correctly there was an EU regulation back in the day asking all EU member states to introduce similar laws. Anyway, we apply same policy for all our customers. In the end we have insurance for such rare incidents. Still, PSU killing hardware is always bad for brand image. I would definately prefer not to see it happen for Kolink PSU.

I'm personally not too sure as well if there's such an EU law. To take it to the extreme, if it's a circuit breaker in the house that failed and damaged all the white goods in the house, I'm not too sure if that would be covered by the warranty of the circuit breaker manufacturer.
(Would be nice to be educated if that was the case)

 

[Kolink PSU PM - Phil]

From what I know all those laws in EU are based on 85/374/EWG. In Germany this was implemented via the ProdHaftG. I guess you have something similar in UK. I'm sorry I'm not that familiar with your market, but please understand I'm not the UK country manager but the PSU product manager. I'm German and I'm based in the Berlin office.

 

[pastymuncher]

Out of the remaining review sites you mention I would say Techpowerup is the best of those as they do a thorough component analysis as part of their review. That's going to be "interesting" on the Core and KL series units.

 

[Monkeynut]

Hardware Insights also have a testing rig and some of their reviews are good - but it seems to be a personal project as opposed to a big company.

 

[Noughtboy]

@Kolink PSU PM - Phil

We are all very interested in seeing a test of your PSUs. I just bought a different VFM brand as a stop gap owing to the almost complete lack of any reviews on Kolink.

I, along with most forum members, just want to see an independent report informing us what to expect. Then at least we can make an informed decision. Upto now, everyone will err on the side on caution and not touch the brand unless we have reviews.

There are cheap and nasty PSUs or brands and there are cheap and VFM brands. No one knows where on the spectrum Kolink falls. That means that you don't sell as many as you could and your partners have the same issue or will refuse to stock.

 

[Kurgen]

Its a bit strange, because Kolink are owned by caseking who own overclockers. they could just call them OCUK power supplys and have one of their own staff send them for reviews??? (as are noble chairs and Nitro conecepts)

KOLINK

Personal computers; accessory devices and input devices for computers, television sets, electronic devices including multimedia…
Owned by: Caseking GmbH
Serial Number: 79239131

 

[vezna]

Its a bit strange, because Kolink are owned by caseking who own overclockers. they could just call them OCUK power supplys and have one of their own staff send them for reviews??? (as are noble chairs and Nitro conecepts)

KOLINK

Personal computers; accessory devices and input devices for computers, television sets, electronic devices including multimedia…
Owned by: Caseking GmbH
Serial Number: 79239131

Super Flower (who I understand are reasonably well regarded psu’s) and BitFenix also have same parent company.

I got a Kolink 600w psu with my build a couple of weeks ago. Rather than being faulty it can’t truly cope with my gpu (it came overclocked). After a bit of back and forth with Overclockers staff they suggested they’d replace it with a higher rated psu. Only catch is I’ve to remove the Kolink and send it to them before I get the unspecified replacement. That’s fair enough although I currently need the PC daily and can’t have the down time it’ll require for the exchange.

I’d actually be happy enough to run the Kolink with the gpu at standard clock speeds if I knew it would do the job for a couple of years. Alas, as mentioned over the last few pages, there’s just very little info online as to how good they actually are.

 

[tamzzy]

I got a Kolink 600w psu with my build a couple of weeks ago.

not sure which of the kolinks that ocuk use in their stock builds...but either way... their 600w (or for that matter any of their basic - ie non-continuum or sfx series) psus are capable of running at their stated wattage continuously.
in your case specifically, its 600w peak. not 600w continuous - continuous power is how most psu manufacturers label their psus nowadays. very dishonest of kolink lol.
if you see your 12v rail (the most important rail) i bet it only provides like 40amps - ie 480w...cutting it pretty close, depending on which graphics card you have.

 

[vezna]

not sure which of the kolinks that ocuk use in their stock builds...but either way... their 600w (or for that matter any of their basic - ie non-continuum or sfx series) psus are capable of running at their stated wattage continuously.
in your case specifically, its 600w peak. not 600w continuous - continuous power is how most psu manufacturers label their psus nowadays. very dishonest of kolink lol.
if you see your 12v rail (the most important rail) i bet it only provides like 40amps - ie 480w...cutting it pretty close, depending on which graphics card you have.

Yep, as far as I know it’s about 500w on that rail, so you are indeed correct. I’ve a Vega 56 so this Kolink psu is at its absolute limit at stock clocks nevermind the overclock it comes with out of the box.

 

[bledd]

There's a guy on Tom's Hardware that does very thorough PSU reviews. Maybe hook him up with a couple of different models.. @Kolink PSU PM - Phil