• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Dedicated PhysX Card

I've always used "cheap" power supplies, I've never once had one fail on me (20 PC's over the years). I've seen a couple of expensive ones go pop in my time when overloaded and even then they didn't damage any of the other components in the machine.

Has anyone in the "don't use a 'cheap' power supply" brigade above actually ever personally had one fail and take other components with it?
"My friend" stories I'm not interested in, or "I read it on the internet so it must be true" I mean actually directly you.

the only thing you have to watch out for is that some cheap PSU's will say they are 1000w but then they have loads of unneeded amps on the 5v line instead of the 12v, or they have lots of small 12v rails so you have to know which rail you are putting what connector on, but one of these failing is down to user error imo
 
Last edited:
andybird123 said:
I've always used "cheap" power supplies, I've never once had one fail on me (20 PC's over the years). I've seen a couple of expensive ones go pop in my time when overloaded and even then they didn't damage any of the other components in the machine.

Has anyone in the "don't use a 'cheap' power supply" brigade above actually ever personally had one fail and take other components with it?
"My friend" stories I'm not interested in, or "I read it on the internet so it must be true" I mean actually directly you.

the only thing you have to watch out for is that some cheap PSU's will say they are 1000w but then they have loads of unneeded amps on the 5v line instead of the 12v, or they have lots of small 12v rails so you have to know which rail you are putting what connector on, but one of these failing is down to user error imo
Click to expand...

I have, was a Qtec one which took out the hard drive.

Saying that, I have also had a Cosair one go, but that didn't destroy anything and was covered under warranty.
 
andybird123 said:
I've always used "cheap" power supplies, I've never once had one fail on me (20 PC's over the years). I've seen a couple of expensive ones go pop in my time when overloaded and even then they didn't damage any of the other components in the machine.

Has anyone in the "don't use a 'cheap' power supply" brigade above actually ever personally had one fail and take other components with it?
"My friend" stories I'm not interested in, or "I read it on the internet so it must be true" I mean actually directly you.

the only thing you have to watch out for is that some cheap PSU's will say they are 1000w but then they have loads of unneeded amps on the 5v line instead of the 12v, or they have lots of small 12v rails so you have to know which rail you are putting what connector on, but one of these failing is down to user error imo
Click to expand...



yes. dell psu popped and fried motherboard/gpu (maybe more? i binned the system except the hdds which survived) while I was playing cod4. **** myself.

disagree that the only thing you need to look out for is dodgily allocated amps, I'll bet the ripple is measurable on a multimeter lol
 
OptimaLnrg said:
yes. dell psu popped and fried motherboard/gpu (maybe more? i binned the system except the hdds which survived) while I was playing cod4. **** myself.

disagree that the only thing you need to look out for is dodgily allocated amps, I'll bet the ripple is measurable on a multimeter lol
Click to expand...

This only goes to support my view

Dell mostly use hipro power supplies, they are actually pretty well regarded as being good

Dells often go pop because dell will spec a machine right up to the psu's limit, which means the slightest bit of dust and they over heat
 
Are you implying that 'buy a good psu!' is some kind of popular hipster idea? :D

I don't follow the logic of saving money on the psu at all (to this extent) iirc maplins sold this for £100 or something. Op would only need a decent 850w for xfire for which the top specced psus are around £150-160? if £50 is a meaningful saving then why not go for 7950 xfire and save even more money!?
 
andybird123 said:
I've always used "cheap" power supplies, I've never once had one fail on me (20 PC's over the years). I've seen a couple of expensive ones go pop in my time when overloaded and even then they didn't damage any of the other components in the machine.

Has anyone in the "don't use a 'cheap' power supply" brigade above actually ever personally had one fail and take other components with it?
"My friend" stories I'm not interested in, or "I read it on the internet so it must be true" I mean actually directly you.

the only thing you have to watch out for is that some cheap PSU's will say they are 1000w but then they have loads of unneeded amps on the 5v line instead of the 12v, or they have lots of small 12v rails so you have to know which rail you are putting what connector on, but one of these failing is down to user error imo
Click to expand...

ok the list
Hiper 550w - killed my whole pc.
unknown brand = 700w - killed my cpu.

now i only use decent makes :)
 
I had a Hiper Type R 580w blow and take a GPU with it, also had an OCZ 600w PSU blow but thankfully due to having decent protection mechanisms inside the psu it didn't take anything else with it.

Cheap PSU's generally dont provide the output the label suggests and also usually have very poor over current protection.
 
OptimaLnrg said:
Are you implying that 'buy a good psu!' is some kind of popular hipster idea? :D

I don't follow the logic of saving money on the psu at all (to this extent) iirc maplins sold this for £100 or something. Op would only need a decent 850w for xfire for which the top specced psus are around £150-160? if £50 is a meaningful saving then why not go for 7950 xfire and save even more money!?
Click to expand...

I'm just saying that in my experience both cheap and expensive ones go pop and it has more to do with how you use it than the brand or price... pick any brand and you can Google people who have had one blow up... in this case people aren't saying spend an extra £50, they are saying spend an extra £150 just for a bit of comfort with absolutely no guarantee

It's more important to understand the actual thing you're buying, rather than just going off the price of it or the name that begets that price

Edit; apparently icute are actually made by sharkoon, and they get really good reviews
 
Last edited:
It's not whether they fail or not that separates the cheapo's from the premium brands, it's what happens when they fail, cheapo's 9 times out of 10 will take other components with them whereas premium brand PSU's not only offer better protection against frying other components but many also provide warranty cover for parts that get taken out by a PSU failure.
 
NightSt@lk3r said:
It's not whether they fail or not that separates the cheapo's from the premium brands, it's what happens when they fail, cheapo's 9 times out of 10 will take other components with them whereas premium brand PSU's not only offer better protection against frying other components but many also provide warranty cover for parts that get taken out by a PSU failure.
Click to expand...

icute are not a "cheapo" with no protection, they are rebadged Sharkoon psu's which are pretty highly regarded and do have the same types of protection... the OP does not need to change his PSU
 
NightSt@lk3r said:
It's not whether they fail or not that separates the cheapo's from the premium brands, it's what happens when they fail, cheapo's 9 times out of 10 will take other components with them whereas premium brand PSU's not only offer better protection against frying other components but many also provide warranty cover for parts that get taken out by a PSU failure.
Click to expand...

Thats quite a statistic you've decided to post up there, thinking about the millions of office computers out in the world that are running just fine on cheapo power supplies. Heaven forbid that your stat is accurate or the world is in danger of immediate collapse as 90% of the computer in the say the financial segment could just go up in smoke at any time.

Being more realistic. Do cheap PSU's fail, yes of course they do, normally when pushed too hard, and that is the point most cheap PSU's are not pushed that hard. They sit in the OEM computers that sit in offices around the world working away quite happily.

Anyway for the record in the 20 odd years of building computers for friends and family Ive only ever had 4 PSU's go pop, two cheapo sparkle PSU's, one corsair and one coolermaster funnily enough it was only the coolermaster that took out the motherboard with it.

So I would say that "cheapo's 9 times out of 10 will take other components with them" is nonsense, its another one of those 84% of statistics are made up, six out of seven dwarfs are not happy type things. (hold on six out of seven dwarfs are not happy is actually accurate..lol )
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom