Wallmart kills OVERPOWERED Prebuilt PCs - [UPDATE - They're back!... Now with a $400 discount!]

[mariushm]

18 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

wich is irrelevant as it doesn't add anything to the electrical performance of the PSU.

And since we're talking about an OEM PC; the optics do not matter...

It does matter when the case is almost completely made of transparent glass and you can see the cables inside in all their rainbow color

19 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

BUT: The Heatsinks are also part of the Build Quality.

And those are tiny on the S12II-Bronze. 

The may be THICKER than the heatsinks on other power supply. AND the heatsinks are just PART of cooling a power supply. The fan and the amount of air flow also matters, and the original S12ii used an ADDA ball bearing fan which produced enough air flow to keep things cool.

the s12ii is also up to 87-88% efficient while from memory (see JonnyGuru's review ) , while Steve from GN found that it's only around 77% efficient at 10% and barely reaches around 83% at 20% loads, 84.9% at 50% and then it goes down from there ... see the GamersNexus video at around 5:50 

So higher efficiency and better cooler maybe means you don't need as big heatsinks, don't you agree?

 

Quote

He should have gone for a different PSU - like Corsair VS...

Yeah, suggest a psu rated at 30c ambient temperature with cheap capacitors and diodes and mosfets inside, only because it has some protections (which they probably HAD to add to reduce the number of power supplies blowing up or flaming in hotter/humid countries like Brazil or India or countries where people are poorer and the main customers of such cheaper models. 

[Stefan Payne]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

Now, if you give points to each "category" that makes a power supply, you'll probably find that the Seasonic psu that he chose will win at pretty much all points. A single missing protection (which in real world doesn't really matter that much) doesn't nullify the other pluses that Seasonic power supply brings.

Why the heck are you defending this Seasonic unit so much?!
You call other people the F-Word but downplay the Problems a PSU has...

 

Now back to the S12II-Bronze:
Look at this:

https://www.computerbase.de/2015-10/350-watt-netzteil-test-lc-power-xilence-sea-sonic-super-flower/4/ <- PSU died.

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-07/cooler-master-cougar-xfx-zalman-netzteil-test/3/#abschnitt_schutzschaltungen

 

XFX XT500 (zweite Revision) is the S12II-Bronze variant. 

That doesn't really look like a good PSU...

[Stefan Payne]

22 minutes ago, mariushm said:

It does matter when the case is almost completely made of transparent glass and you can see the cables inside in all their rainbow color

Doesn't add anything to the electronics, if they got it cheaper with Cables colored to ATX spec, why not?

Should they have gone with a better PSU? Yes

Do the cables matter? Not really..

 

22 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The may be THICKER than the heatsinks on other power supply. AND the heatsinks are just PART of cooling a power supply. The fan and the amount of air flow also matters, and the original S12ii used an ADDA ball bearing fan which produced enough air flow to keep things cool.

Don't you want a better unit from Seasonic in this Market Segment?! Because defending it leads to exactly that. That Manufacturers get away with selling shit at worse prices. Just look at what you can get all over the world for similar Prices! You can get a Corsair CX in many areas for about the same price or less.                          

If people wouldn't believe so much in Seasonic and call them out for still selling this unit for the same price you can get DC-DC units from Corsair, be quiet and some others.

And where is the Seasonic Core? Shouldn't it come in Fall - like 4 Years ago...

 

There is proof that it is not really good, that Protections don't work, that the voltages go out of spec under certain loads...

But hey, defending this unit is a good idea because that means that Seasonic does not need to replace it with the Core Series wich should come in Fall - like 4 Years ago...

 

As for the Fan: no, not necessarily ADDA, maybe Jamicon or others. Seasonic usually sourced the fan from different sources, as they did with the S12G for example. I have an Original one with ADDA Fan and a different version with a Jamicon Fan...

22 minutes ago, mariushm said:

the s12ii is also up to 87-88% efficient while from memory (see JonnyGuru's review ) , while Steve from GN found that it's only around 77% efficient at 10% and barely reaches around 83% at 20% loads, 84.9% at 50% and then it goes down from there ... see the GamersNexus video at around 5:50 

So higher efficiency and better cooler maybe means you don't need as big heatsinks, don't you agree?

Yes and rotates at 2000rpm at medium loads (like 300-350W). Not really something good...

Even when you claim the Efficiency to be high, with the tiny heatsinks, it is really loud and not even at higher loads...

So the efficiency doesn't really matter either as we are talking about one of the loudest ~500W units on the Market right now...

Then again, why defend this old unit so much?? Why not call them out and force them to bring the Core they announced years ago??

 

So Efficiency is not that relevant, everything else is more important...

You are on one hand hyping the Efficiency and on the other hand downplaying the importance of Protection...

And then ignore the high fan RPM the Seasonic S12II Variants (up to 620W) have under load...

 

Ähm, no.

Efficiency is just the Amount of Power that the PSU looses while converting the Power, if we are talking about 85 or 88% peak doesn't really matter, it doesn't affect anything. Well, except your wallet of course.

BUT: If something goes wrong and you cause a slight short the Great Wall unit has a chance to detect it and switch off. The Seasonic does not. And thus either kills itself or causes a fire...

 

For units with 8pin protection IC that are also group regulated, you have to bring the Voltage on +3,3V or 5V down to a really low amount.

And on +12V you have to hope that OPP works...

DC-DC units have a chance to switch off as OPP and OCP might be implemented in the DC-DC Controller - wich Seasonic also doesn't do that and the unit dies. One of those is the 350W S12II in the Test above...

 

If they messed up the OPP, you have something like this:

https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/netzteile/29916-enermax-triathlor-eco-650w-und-lepa-maxbron-700w-im-test.html?start=3

 

100A on 12V, caused them to drop to 6V...

Because those crappy 8pin Chips don't have UVP...

22 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Yeah, suggest a psu rated at 30c ambient temperature with cheap capacitors and diodes and mosfets inside, only because it has some protections

30°C is fine for this case wich sucks in the air from the outside...

The Caps in the S12II-Bronze don't help it. And "cheap" Teapo in the be quiet Pure Power L8 seem to last as well as there are rarely any complaints about that unit. If something happens, its the TNY Standby Controller...

But the Cap that's next to the Heatsink 

 

The MOSFETs of the S12II-Bronze don't seem to be that good either, you hear many complaints about ticking or something failed in the PFC Section...

That combined with the high fan RPM, by todays standards rather bad voltage regulation, lack of protection and no bu

 

 

Quote

only because it has some protections (which they probably HAD to add to reduce the number of power supplies blowing up or flaming in hotter/humid countries like Brazil or India or countries where people are poorer and the main customers of such cheaper models. 

Now that's just Ridiculous...

So you're saying the Protection the Seasonic Prime has are only added so that it doesn't blow up for certain Countrys?? Or what are you implying?!

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

OCP at least on minor rails

OTP and OPP, all set correctly.

 

And with PSU in the higher wattage range, you also want and need multiple +12V OCP Channels.

100A is no joke...

Personally I also look for over voltage and under voltage protection as well.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Look at all these cheap nasty PSU's that aren't coated or even 80 rated:

 

https://www.mwave.com.au/power-supplies/server-power-supplies

Most of them are Platinum rated 

 

No sleeved cables though so minus 1000 points.

[mariushm]

7 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Doesn't add anything to the electronics, if they got it cheaper with Cables colored to ATX spec, why not?

Should they have gone with a better PSU? Yes

Do the cables matter? Not really..

 

Technically, no, the color of the cables doesn't matter. It matters a bit if they're AWG 20 cables or standard AWG18 but I can't tell from the pictures, and it's probably AWG18.

The manufacturer of the PC made an effort to make it RGB by installing four fans with RGB sync'ed together and using a case with transparent panels, only to leave things half-assed by destroying the visuals with rainbow cables.

It's not the power supply's fault, it's the system builder, who went for the cheapest stuff. For example, maybe they could have bought this case for 2$ more per unit, but with two usb 3.0 ports in front, but instead they went with the usb 2 only version only to realize they actually need a usb 3 type c because of motherboard selection, so they spent 1$ out of those 2$ on that usb type c adapter board and cable, and wasted time gluing it to motherboard. Silly decisions, poor planning, who knows.

 

7 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

 

Don't you want a better unit from Seasonic in this Market Segment?! Because defending it leads to exactly that. That Manufacturers get away with selling shit at worse prices. Just look at what you can get all over the world for similar Prices! You can get a Corsair CX in many areas for about the same price or less.                           If people wouldn't believe so much in Seasonic and call them out for still selling this unit for the same price you can get DC-DC units from Corsair, be quiet and some others.

And where is the Seasonic Core? Shouldn't it come in Fall - like 4 Years ago...

Yes, I agree with your that at the moment Seasonic doesn't have an updated model in the lower end, and they should launch something.

 

7 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

As for the Fan: no, not necessarily ADDA, maybe Jamicon or others. Seasonic usually sourced the fan from different sources, as they did with the S12G for example. I have an Original one with ADDA Fan and a different version with a Jamicon Fan...

Yes and rotates at 2000rpm at medium loads (like 300-350W). Not really something good...

Even when you claim the Efficiency to be high, with the tiny heatsinks, it is really loud and not even at higher loads...

I see you have a strange way of thinking, linking together efficiency with fan noise and other things which are totally unrelated.

 

I actually don't care that much about fan noise. You as a German are maybe biased a bit here, and I'm only saying it not as a personal attack, but because statistically and from various polls, Germans in general care a lot more about noise.

 

These are 80+ bronze power supplies, power supplies that will be bought in general by people on a budget (or people that don't know anything about computers). These people in general will not have 3-4 RGB fans inside their cases to move air around, and they won't buy the higher end full tower cases with lots of air flow.

The majority will go in cases and systems which probably won't change from the default of 1 or 2 fans, usually one fan by the cpu and one fan in the hard drive area. 

These same people will not always have the higher end or more recent video cards, but could have bought a used video card, a previous generation video card that may consume more power than current generation cards.

 

In such budget systems, if the system pulls 250-300 watts or thereabouts, the power supply noise is not that much of a concern because the video card fans and the cpu fan will be much more noticeable.

So the fan noise of the power supply doesn't really affect my choice and I don't really see it as a negative. Rather than having a silent sleeve fan on a 30c ambient rated power supply, I'd rather have a more noisy ball bearing fan on a power supply rated for 40-50 degrees Celsius.

 

At 250-300w power consumption when the pc owner's system is playing games, the pc owner won't care: either the game sound will drown out the video card's fans or the pc owner will have headphones on.

 

So you have this idea that fan running at 2000rpm is not good. I say it's wrong ... it's not ideal, but it's not "bad" as you say ... it's the fan running at the rpm it was designed for, and again, I don't care about the noise.

Linking efficiency with noise is just bad. The Great Wall psu will still be 85% efficient with a fan running at 10k rpm blowing air on it, the efficiency won't change with the fan rpm and quality.

 

The efficiency does matter a bit.  85% vs 87% can make some difference. For example, at 300w power consumption, 85% means the GW power supply has to dissipate ~ 52

 watts in the form of heat, while the 87% efficient psu will only have to throw away 45 watts ... that's practically 15-20% less heat produced by the power supply.

 

Yes, you have a point about ambient temperature not affecting power supplies that much because they draw air from outside as the fan is on the bottom of the case. But, some power supplies also use the actual case of the psu as a heatsink and in such scenarios the ambient temperature inside the case can make (a very small) difference. 

 

7 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

So the efficiency doesn't really matter either as we are talking about one of the loudest ~500W units on the Market right now...

 

Again, why do you put efficiency and "loudest" in the same sentence? They're not related, loudness doesn't matter when it comes to efficiency.

 

At this lower end, budget power supplies, it's also about tradeoffs and about priorities. For me personally,  fan noise is a much lower "priority", a much less important decision factor, compared to component quality. Having quality components like capacitors from good brands is more important to me than fan noise and I give that more weight. I can understand if you don't care about that. 

Up until some time ago,I would never have considered beQuiet power supplies because they used OEM models from FSP with Capxon capacitors. Nowadays, they may make models with Teapo which I consider perfectly acceptable, so I may consider them. The point I'm making is I don't care that beQuiet has those fancy fans with noise reduction design and maybe they have nice fan profiles... that meant less to me as long as they used Capxon capacitors which was a sign of cutting costs, a less reliable brand.  That's my personal priority, my decision factor, whatever you want to call it. Yours may be different.

 

 

7 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

BUT: If something goes wrong and you cause a slight short the Great Wall unit has a chance to detect it and switch off. The Seasonic does not. And thus either kills itself or causes a fire...

 

In GamersNexus review, the GW unit turned itself off when it reached 56A (670 watts) on 12v, even though it's rated for 40A (480w) ... if the user has something consuming 670 watts, then he has way bigger problems than a power supply protection... most likely his pc is on fire. If a mosfet on a video card dies shorted and eats power like crazy, the circuit board will burn up, the pci-e cable insulation may melt and cause additional shorts between 12v and ground wires and so on...

It's a protection that's nearly pointless imho, when you can take a molex connector from the power supply and take 300w+ from those two wires.

 

7 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

So you're saying the Protection the Seasonic Prime has are only added so that it doesn't blow up for certain Countrys?? Or what are you implying?!

 

It's a higher end model that will end up being reviewed. At some point, manufacturers may simply add features because the product would otherwise be blasted in reviews and get bad scores and that could lose sales. Or, it's added simply because it's expected from a product in that class, in that price range.

 

As for that 700w LEPA power supply you keep mentioning .. that only matters outside real world, in tests and benchmarks. Let's be realistic, who's gonna buy a 700w power supply and build a computer that consumes 1000 watts? Yeah, not good that the under voltage protection doesn't work or doesn't exist and power supply should shut down safely, but whoever finds his computer drawing 1000 watts has bigger problems than seeing 6v on 12v ...

[Stefan Payne]

Just now, leadeater said:

Personally I also look for over voltage and under voltage protection as well.

Overvoltage is always there. I don't know any Supervisor Chip that doesn't do that.

But Undervoltage is on those "nice" 8pin Chips only for the 3,3V and 5V implemented (and sometimes its so bad that we're talking about 1,8V on 3,3V and somewhere around 3V on the 5V Rail).

 

The bad thing with those 8pin Chips is that they don't have a seperate 12V Input so they misuse the VCC for +12V.

 

The Problem is:
You need 5VSB here so that the PSU works and can actually switch on. Because the Supervisior starts the PC.

BUT: you can get away with NOT putting 12V (via 2 Diodes) here, so when the PSU is on, 12V is not connected. And when its not Connected, no UVP here...

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Overvoltage is always there. I don't know any Supervisor Chip that doesn't do that.

It wasn't in the past, and even when it started to be added OVP might only be on input or output but not always both. Things are better now days but there are things I specifically look for and if not mentioned anywhere in the documentation it's not on my consideration list.

[Stefan Payne]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It wasn't in the past,

Yeah, you're right...

but I said that at the End of the Posting

I've looked at the Diagramms of those 8pin Chips again. And realized that they will work when you don't put 12V on the VCC Pin...

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

and even when it started to be added OVP might only be on input or output but not always both. Things are better now days but there are things I specifically look for and if not mentioned anywhere in the documentation it's not on my consideration list.

OH, you're talking about the Input??

I was only talking about the Output side...

 

Problem is: The Documentation can be wrong. Usually happens with smaller, not too experienced company.

But sometimes even bigger ones do "mistakes" on the Label.

 

For Example Seasonic with the S12II-Bronze:

https://ru.gecid.com/power/seasonic_m12ii-520_bronze_evo_edition_ss-520gm2_2015/?s=all

 

Claiming 2 Rails although they don't have a chip to support that...

Or even Shunts/seperated Solderjoints...

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

OH, you're talking about the Input??

I was only talking about the Output side..

Both actually, no good putting in a blast proof door to your house and then leave the windows open 

 

Though I'm well covered on the input, AC, side anyway. My Eaton 9130 has all the bases covered in that arena anyway, but having the protections in the PSU as well is nice particularly when you are running it not on the UPS, typically because you've taken it to an event with likely questionable power conditions.

 

I haven't actually purchased a standard ATX PSU in ages though, everything I've looked at recently and worked with are all server PSUs that are a different ball game all together. Active PSU distributors for redundant PSUs controlled by the server system agent and out-board (out of PSU) monitoring systems. Worst part about servers is if the power distributor goes faulty, single point of failure etc, which I've had happen but they are designed in a way that it's very rare of such a failure to break anything in the server.

 

If redundant PSU units didn't have horrifically loud fans in them I'd use those in my desktop.

[mr moose]

49 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Most of them are Platinum rated 

 

No sleeved cables though so minus 1000 points.

but not 80 Plus and definitely no paint or powder coat.  So that platinum rating is probably just marketing.  

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

but not 80 Plus and definitely no paint or powder coat.  So that platinum rating is probably just marketing.  

The HPE ones are, dunno about the rest.

 

Quote

HPE Flexible Slot Power Supplies provide up to 96% power efficiency with 80PLUS Titanium-certified power supplies that lower server power requirements and reduce power waste in your data center.

 

[asus killer]

pointless discussion as all the current psu's will be crap in a year or two when the new psu's all come with rgb

[leadeater]

Just now, asus killer said:

pointless discussion as all the current psu's will be crap in a year or two when the new psu's all come with rgb

RGB LEDs are old news, RGB lasers and smoke will be the next big thing 

[mr moose]

Just now, leadeater said:

The HPE ones are, dunno about the rest.

 

 

 

No you don't understand PSU's,   they were bare grey units with no sleeving or modular connectors, therefore they can't have that rating or be any good. In fact it is a know fact if you buy one you'll likely get a flat tire on the way to work then discovered mold in your sandwich during lunch.

[mr moose]

Just now, leadeater said:

RGB LEDs are old news, RGB lasers and smoke will be the next big thing 

lasers, smoke, and dancing monkey on a string tied to a windy old time piano.

[Spotty]

2 minutes ago, asus killer said:

pointless discussion as all the current psu's will be crap in a year or two when the new psu's all come with rgb

Be careful what you wish for...

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148035

(I can't believe they're still selling this piece of crap!)

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Be careful what you wish for...

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148035

(I can't believe they're still selling this piece of crap!)

 

Quote

SLI Ready CrossFire Ready

Wow, must buy immediately then.

[asus killer]

6 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Be careful what you wish for...

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148035

(I can't believe they're still selling this piece of crap!)

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 12/11/2018 at 2:23 AM, Spotty said:

Be careful what you wish for...

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148035

(I can't believe they're still selling this piece of crap!)

It has a window.

 

Best PSU ever.

 

EDIT: Oh shit, and the fan is RGB. This is the best PSU period.