CIT PSU 700w- any experience?

Yet another case of someone trying to save money on the single most important part of a pc. There's been too much of this lately and people end up paying twice when they should have got a decent one in the first place. Does'nt anybody do any research before they buy anymore?
 
pastymuncher said:
Yet another case of someone trying to save money on the single most important part of a pc. There's been too much of this lately and people end up paying twice when they should have got a decent one in the first place. Does'nt anybody do any research before they buy anymore?
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I can't say I did, I was just like "oooh shiny box!"
 
To be fair - it's easy to get confused with PSUs. GPU manufacturers don't help people by saying a particular card needs a "600w PSU" or whatever. What they should be saying, very clearly, is that the GPU (or CPU for that matter) needs a PSU with a xx amp 12v rail.

Your 700 watt CIT has 2 x 20 (or 21) amp rails. This is about the same that can be found in a decent brand 400 to 450w PSU. The extra watts you are getting are on the 3v and 5v rails; these are of limited use in modern PCs.
 
pcAnywhere said:
To be fair - it's easy to get confused with PSUs. GPU manufacturers don't help people by saying a particular card needs a "600w PSU" or whatever. What they should be saying, very clearly, is that the GPU (or CPU for that matter) needs a PSU with a xx amp 12v rail.

Your 700 watt CIT has 2 x 20 (or 21) amp rails. This is about the same that can be found in a decent brand 400 to 450w PSU. The extra watts you are getting are on the 3v and 5v rails; these are of limited use in modern PCs.
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Yup, the psu seems to be of fair quality though
 
while it will fail sooner compared to something like a corsair one, since its so much more wattage than you need for your system, its real continuous use wattage should be around the 4-500w mark, so it should power your system. Then as soon as you can afford it (next pay check?) stick in a branded one. Other than more stable power etc, the branded ones have much more protection so that if/when a PSU does blow, hopefully it wont take everything else with it.

If youd gone one step up in the GPU line, I would retract the above and say not to even power it up. As long as youve got contents insurance itll be fine :).
 
Ch3m1c4L said:
while it will fail sooner compared to something like a corsair one, since its so much more wattage than you need for your system, its real continuous use wattage should be around the 4-500w mark, so it should power your system. Then as soon as you can afford it (next pay check?) stick in a branded one. Other than more stable power etc, the branded ones have much more protection so that if/when a PSU does blow, hopefully it wont take everything else with it.

If youd gone one step up in the GPU line, I would retract the above and say not to even power it up. As long as youve got contents insurance itll be fine :).
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Haha, only got these parts because it was all i could afford :P
 
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In my first system I had a 550watt qtec, it was powering an OC'd P4, 2gb ram, p4p800 mobo and a 6600gt and 1-2 HDDs and 2 DVDs. It was absolutly fine for that, but then when I stuck in a 7950gt which was within its spec, it would be fine 90% of the time, but when I ran crysis after 2-30 minutes it would cause the PSU to spike and whichever output on the GPU I was using would stop having one color (it would lack red so everything would look teal etc). I went through a couple of RMA'd cards before I realised it was my PSU as I had forgotten I had stuck it back in after a branded one had died.

The point of that story is that while the original system was drawing around 300w, it was fine as it never had to supply its rated wattage for a continuous period, once upgraded, it did. It failed.

Branded PSU wattage = continuous output
Cheapo PSU = peak out
 
I must have used 50 CIT Power supply's in a lot of diffrent PC's. But what you have to do with cheaper PSU's is buy them about 100 Watts above what you would normaly use. Then they are fine. Not had a problem yet.
 
I have tried the 750w CIT model. Its ok but it buzzed away with my GTX260 attached and the 12v rail wasnt that strong dipping down to 11.4v. It was fine with an old x1900xt. They are ok with very basic systems, for yours i would go for a branded psu.
I got an ocz on special. Far superior to the CIT.
 
I got told of the other day for even mentioning cheap PSU's so don't do it mate.

Just remember, you can always shop around if you are concerned about money. But if something genuinely is a cracking deal on OcUK then go for it.
 
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