I thought OcUK only really stocked good quality products.........

james.miller · 18 Jul 2010 at 22:33

Ace Modder said:
Look at the PSU from a commerical point of view!

Yes, commercially they are a sure bet - lots of people will be suckered in to buying cheap 750w psu's.

How many PC's are currently being used in the UK? What is the percentage would you estimate are "medium" or even "high end"? 10% at most? Maybe even less.

That really doesnt make any difference, the issue is the market the psu is aimed at - its a crap '750w', it wouldnt be such a problem if it was a decent '300w'.

Now from a reliability point of view - how many people with Tiny PC's? or other budget build vendors use Corsair or Seasonic or Tagan? None! And lots of these PC's have worked flawlessly for a good few years.

quite right. but they dont use pennies worth of psu rated at 750w either.

The problem with the haters here is you are looking at it from a personal point of view.

Are you sure about that?

Commerically these are good - low fault rate and good value for the intended market. I could have sourced even cheaper PSU's but the failure rate higher.

All in all, for the target audience these are the best of the bunch. These will appeal people who just web browse, print photo's from their point & click camers, and write the odd letter. This market is far bigger than the gaming sector.

the target audience are the people you can make a quick buck from, that's all it really comes down to.

Higadeb said:
I'm not saying it is close to the Corsair quality wise. I'm just saying that the 650W or 750W Swift MAY deliver the same as the 400W Corsair and so would provide a cheaper alternative.
I'm not saying anything definitive as I haven't had experience with either PSU.
And no, you don't need extensive testing. But it is not possible that a higher rater generic PSU can be on a par with a lower rated branded one?

do you really think a psu with no active PFC (and hence a rubbish efficiency), only 1 year warranty and only rated to work at (ie, not tested or garanteed above) 25c is going to be as good as a psu that does have aPFC, has a 3 year warranty AND is rated to run at 50c all day long, no matter what the wattage written on the side?

really??

86JR · 18 Jul 2010 at 22:42

Never skimp on power.

I learnt that when, slightly unrelated, i bought a pair of 12" subs for my car, and a 4000wrms amplifier (rockford fosgate 40001bd). I then ran them with 0 awg off the stock power system in my back then 1.4 golf, it lasted about an hour before the amp broke because i hadnt spent money on alts and batteries (your psu in this case). I skimped, and as a result i had to throw away a £1600 amplifier after icpi told me they wouldnt touch it with a bargepole.

Higadeb · 18 Jul 2010 at 23:32

james.miller said:
do you really think a psu with no active PFC (and hence a rubbish efficiency), only 1 year warranty and only rated to work at (ie, not tested or garanteed above) 25c is going to be as good as a psu that does have aPFC, has a 3 year warranty AND is rated to run at 50c all day long, no matter what the wattage written on the side?

really??

No, and I didn't say it was as good as. In fact I remember saying that I personally thing the Corsair is better and would buy the Corsair hands down.
Re-read the thread as you seem to have missed my argument.

I was saying IF you didn't need aPFC, IF it ran in an office/school environment where the temps are kept at a constant level for "health and safety" and IF the machine built was deemed particularly low spec. Then these PSU's would be adequate for the job and would save the consumer money.

ATIorNvidia · 19 Jul 2010 at 01:38

Higadeb said:
No, and I didn't say it was as good as. In fact I remember saying that I personally thing the Corsair is better and would buy the Corsair hands down.
Re-read the thread as you seem to have missed my argument. I was saying IF you didn't need aPFC, IF it ran in an office/school environment where the temps are kept at a constant level for "health and safety" and IF the machine built was deemed particularly low spec. Then these PSU's would be adequate for the job and would save the consumer money.

What if that 'school' goes for a lower end one, like the 450w unit? That unit would only be able to put out about 150w most likely, and the school would hardly be very knowlegdeable so if they have a 'low spec' PC, they're most likely gonna go for a low wattage unit thinking it will do the job. Afterall, its cheaper, 450w is enough for a low spec rig, they'll assume its adequate cause it says 450w on the tin.

Cupra · 19 Jul 2010 at 02:38

i have to say my gf's brothers pc shocked me when i first met him in feb, he has a [email protected], 8gb ddr3, asus rampage motherboard, 4890 4hdd's 6 12mm fans, dvd-rw, blue ray, asus xonar d2 and an antec 1200 and had a 500w casecom psu in it

my gf had same psu in her machine to so i got her a new psu for a present

i didnt even know casecom sold psu's without cases tbh

but the thing is they both worked fine, im a stong believer in psu's needing to be good quality but nothing is deemed crap till its blown up or failing surely?

if there anything like the casecom then they may well be fine as they both had them for a few years without going pop

Mattus · 19 Jul 2010 at 03:36

billysielu said:
I'm just concerned about noobs buying this thinking it's as good as a Corsair HX, or Antec TruePower. We know that's not the case, but the description would have you believe otherwise..

pastymuncher said:
For every person that post's on this forum for advice their will be many more that are not forum members and know very little about a pc's power requirements who will end up buying these cheap psu's for a mid to high spec rig and will end up with problems.

Surely you don't have to know anything about PC power requirements or good PSU brands to realise that a £30 PSU will be inferior to a £100 PSU, even if the specs are the same? Caveat emptor. If the buyer doesn't employ common sense and basic research skills, that's his own problem.

JonJ678 · 19 Jul 2010 at 03:40

It'll be atx compliant. So it'll work after a fashion.

I personally believe selling this will cost overclockers money. It is difficult to maintain an appearance of dealing solely with quality goods if selling the same rubbish other sites do. Without things like this, you look like a safe gamble to a new customer. With it, you look the same as everyone else.

Best of luck to you.

Tombo · 19 Jul 2010 at 04:18

Bit dramatic, it's a few PSUs.

RynceWynd · 19 Jul 2010 at 07:56

Tombo said:
Bit dramatic, it's a few PSUs.

^^ this..

my experience with cheap psu's is that I have had one gem, which was bought from OCUK for about 20quid, a Qtec 500W.

back in the day I had it running my 3800x2,7800gtx,2 optical drives, 3 hard drives (one raptor) all overclocked.

it never blew up.

but it's the same old story as ever, 10 people go to a shop and have a good shopping experience and you never hear anything about it, 1 person has a bad experience, everybody knows about it.

pastymuncher · 19 Jul 2010 at 08:50

Mattus said:
Surely you don't have to know anything about PC power requirements or good PSU brands to realise that a £30 PSU will be inferior to a £100 PSU, even if the specs are the same? Caveat emptor. If the buyer doesn't employ common sense and basic research skills, that's his own problem.

But we see it every day on these very forums. Some people see a 750w psu for £30 and another for £100 and a lot of people will go to the false economy and pick the £30 one. After all, it's rated for 750w so in their eyes it should be fine and the £70 saved could go towards something like a better graphics card. This is where the problem lies.

macca672 · 19 Jul 2010 at 09:00

Ace Modder said:
All in all, for the target audience these are the best of the bunch. These will appeal people who just web browse, print photo's from their point & click camers, and write the odd letter. This market is far bigger than the gaming sector.

just a thought but how many people like this will actually be building themselves a pc rather than grabbing one of the special deals they see in the supermarket or back of the paper?

james.miller · 19 Jul 2010 at 18:21

Higadeb said:
No, and I didn't say it was as good as. In fact I remember saying that I personally thing the Corsair is better and would buy the Corsair hands down.
Re-read the thread as you seem to have missed my argument. I was saying IF you didn't need aPFC, IF it ran in an office/school environment where the temps are kept at a constant level for "health and safety" and IF the machine built was deemed particularly low spec. Then these PSU's would be adequate for the job and would save the consumer money.

I'm just saying that the 650W or 750W Swift MAY deliver the same as the 400W Corsair and so would provide a cheaper alternative.

^^^ that was you

is it going to delivery the same? can you say that given the points we've already discussed? i dont need to re-read anything, i know what you are trying to say.

anyway, who in their right mind would buy a '750w' psu for an office or school pc, lol

Higadeb · 19 Jul 2010 at 20:42

james.miller said:
is it going to delivery the same? can you say that given the points we've already discussed? i dont need to re-read anything, i know what you are trying to say.

anyway, who in their right mind would buy a '750w' psu for an office or school pc, lol

It might, it might not. I do not know without testing. Given the points we've discussed I still believe these PSUs still have a valid position in the market. If you don't agree that's fine, but the fact that these PSUs even exist (and have existed for years) shows there is a market for them.

franco_22 · 19 Jul 2010 at 22:17

james.miller said:
^^^ that was you is it going to delivery the same? can you say that given the points we've already discussed? i dont need to re-read anything, i know what you are trying to say.

anyway, who in their right mind would buy a '750w' psu for an office or school pc, lol

Maybe their Office or School PC has 4+ HDD and 2+ Optical drives? I don't know, maybe their last 200w PSU blew up so they want to get some peace of mind haha.

pastymuncher · 20 Jul 2010 at 08:59

There is a way that we could see just how good or bad these things are. OCUK should send the 650w Swift and 650w Crusade to JonnyGuru to be tested/reviewed properly. Then we will see what they are made of.

NathWraith · 20 Jul 2010 at 09:46

pastymuncher said:
There is a way that we could see just how good or bad these things are. OCUK should send the 650w Swift and 650w Crusade to JonnyGuru to be tested/reviewed properly. Then we will see what they are made of.

Put it this way, I ran a 4890 Black Edition all afternoon on Furmark using the 450W Swift, no problems at all.

pastymuncher · 20 Jul 2010 at 13:56

But that means very little compared to a proper test such as JonnyGuru and HardOCP carries out.

MeatLoaf · 20 Jul 2010 at 14:11

Are the crusades the powercool units?

If i could get a proper review for the 850w modular id be all in for getting one. But wiyhout seeing one in the flesh or without proper reviews id probably go for a corsair

ubersonic · 20 Jul 2010 at 14:23

What in the blue hell are people getting worked up about? these are excellent value for money and they are advertised as "for anyone who is building a home or office computer"

Firstly cheap doesn't mean unreliable it just means that their not charging as much, It could be because the name is different (e.g Pallit owns Gainward and will sell you the same card with a Gainward sticker at a premium because they know the name is worth more) my Honda in its day cost less than the equivalent BMW or Ford because they were a more popular name but despite that the Honda had better reliability than the equivalent BWM/Ford.

Secondly: "for anyone who is building a home or office computer". The only type of home computer that will even approach 750w is a gaming rig and anybody building one them-self either knows what their doing or knows to ask. The only type of office computer that will even approach 750w is a full blown workstation as nobody spending that much money on a system will skimp on the PSU, period.

Your not going to see anyone complaining that this PSU wont run their Duel GTX480 setup because somebody building that would know it couldnt.

On the other hand although it isnt advertised for gaming use my system has a Q9650 CPU, 2 sticks of DDR2 1066, a GTX260 192sp, a 10k U320 drive, a 15k U320 drive, a bunch of fans and powered USB devices and it draws 410w at full load and I would bet it would run fine with that PSU

Ace Modder · 20 Jul 2010 at 15:35

We have bought in some low cost CPU's to compliment the PSU range, enabling cheap system builds.

http://overclockers.co.uk/search_results.php?sortby=&groupid=701&search=valuerange