[OLD] PSU Tier List 3.0 (Legacy)

[Vejnemojnen]

3 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

you know what it is? it's enermax's version of the whisper

I'LL recommend it in certain cases then. Unfortunately, the short warranty period compromises it a bit. (And warranty time has a very crucial role in choosing PSU for most). I have LEPA case fans btw, AFAIK, they also have something to do with Enermax.. : )

[LukeSavenije]

4 minutes ago, Vejnemojnen said:

And warranty time has a very crucial role in choosing PSU for most

meh, it's subjective tbh

[Vejnemojnen]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

meh, it's subjective tbh

personally I would not pick warranty over quality. But, many people do care about whether it is five-seven or ten years. Then 90% of the, girlfriend, wife or grandma throws the original box and the receipt of purchase, warranty card into the bin while cleaning up the house/flat.. : ) Mostly in the first 2 years after purchase.

[TheAngryIntern]

Anyone know if PC Power & Cooling is still any good?  I know they got bought out a few years back, not sure if that changed their build quality at all.  I'm still rocking one of their Silencer 900's.  Been going strong for over 10 years.

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, TheAngryIntern said:

Anyone know if PC Power & Cooling is still any good?  I know they got bought out a few years back, not sure if that changed their build quality at all.

pcp&c has mostly faded away from the scene, they might still have some good units around, but it's in no way comparable to what it used to be

[TheAngryIntern]

Just now, LukeSavenije said:

pcp&c has mostly faded away from the scene, they might still have some good units around, but it's in no way comparable to what it used to be

That's a shame, they used to be one of the best manufacturers.  I think MaximumPC used their PSUs for their annual Dream Machine almost every year.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, TheAngryIntern said:

That's a shame, they used to be one of the best manufacturers.  I think MaximumPC used their PSUs for their annual Dream Machine almost every year.

That was a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.

 

Since then, the company was sold to OCZ.  When OCZ went bust, Toshiba put the PSU division up for sale.  It got bought out by some guy named "Firestone" and he changed the name to "Firepower".

 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

4 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

That was a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.

 

Since then, the company was sold to OCZ.  When OCZ went bust, Toshiba put the PSU division up for sale.  It got bought out by some guy named "Firestone" and he changed the name to "Firepower".

 

So are they still making PSUs? Are they any good?

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

So are they still making PSUs? Are they any good?

They're rebadged High Powers (Sirfa).

 

They seem to be a company adrift with no direction.  Sad, really.  I think they may rely more on customized units for corporate sales rather than the retail market.  I've seen no reviews.  Know nobody that owns one of their units.  And even at Newegg and Amazon the newer units have zero end user reviews.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

5 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

They're rebadged High Powers (Sirfa).

 

They seem to be a company adrift with no direction.  Sad, really.  I think they may rely more on customized units for corporate sales rather than the retail market.  I've seen no reviews.  Know nobody that owns one of their units.  And even at Newegg and Amazon the newer units have zero end user reviews.

That is pretty sad from what i know of PCPC in it's former days

[Guest]

1 hour ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

That is pretty sad from what i know of PCPC in it's former days

Yeah. When Doug Dodson sold the company to OCZ ten years ago, he TOOK THE MONEY AND RUN!!  I think he might have stayed on for one or two years before disappearing off the face of the earth.

 

 

[LukeSavenije]

6 hours ago, SilverstonePsuDied said:

-snip-

ehm... warranty and quality have almost nothing to do with each other...

[seon123]

6 hours ago, SilverstonePsuDied said:

-snip-

Depends on which PSU you get. Just like with any other brand. It should be a fairly simple concept to grasp for anyone with more than a quarter of a braincell.

https://www.silverstonetek.com/warranty.php?area=en

[SilverstonePsuDied]

2 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Depends on which PSU you get. Just like with any other brand. It should be a fairly simple concept to grasp for anyone with more than a quarter of a braincell.

https://www.silverstonetek.com/warranty.php?area=en

The list should include warranty imo, 3 years is nothing for a PSU.

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, SilverstonePsuDied said:

The list should include warranty imo, 3 years is nothing for a PSU.

should it? i don't see any reason to

[SilverstonePsuDied]

Silverstone has short 3 year warranty for most units listed in the tier A supposedly high end, their units are prone to failure and their warranty support is beyond poor.

 

DON'T BUY SILVERSTONE!

[seon123]

6 minutes ago, SilverstonePsuDied said:

The list should include warranty imo, 3 years is nothing for a PSU.

The tier list is more about the PSU's performance and safety, not about the customer support and features. E.g. the AX1600i would still be top tier, even if it had a 1 year warranty.

2 minutes ago, SilverstonePsuDied said:

their units are prone to failure

Yes, very prone to failure, based on your sample size of 1. As we all know, personal stories and anecdotes trump data and facts.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

On 9/20/2019 at 9:07 PM, jonnyGURU said:

That was a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.

 

Since then, the company (PC Power & Cooling) was sold to OCZ.  When OCZ went bust, Toshiba put the PSU division up for sale.  It got bought out by some guy named "Firestone" and he changed the name to "Firepower".

 

 

Do you know just when it was PCP&C was sold to OCZ?  I wonder if the now-older OCZ PSU I have that was used in a system from February 2008 to March 2012 or so might have had any influence from PCP&C.

 

And how much of an upgrade, in terms of quality, reliability, etc, do you think the AX760 (my currently-being-used PSU) was?

 

I remember at the time I got the OCZ, PSU tier lists around that time (or thereabouts) were saying that OCZ StealthXStream (what I had then have (but not in use now)) made after December 2007 would have been Tier 2b, and ones made before then were Tier 4.  I bought mine in February 2008, and at the time I thought it was one of the Tier 2b ones, but now I'm not as sure, and I can't find an OCZ or whatever site with which I can plug in the serial number to find out when it was made.

 

I wonder where PC Power & Cooling PSUs in the spoiler would have ranked on a tier list when they were new?

Spoiler

 

I think that ad was from like February 1988 or something like that. 

 

Also I remember another ad from around the same era touting PCP&C PSUs independent voltage regulation.  That gets me thinking .... is there any chance one of that era PCP&C PSUs would have been high enough quality in its day so that if it was all you had many years later, you maybe could have gotten a Haswell system up and running (even if you would have needed an AT to ATX adapter and just use the iGPU and a -S or -T CPU)?  (Assuming it hadn't died of course.)

 

Also was SeaSonic around then, or Delta, or others, or when did they show up?  (I think I remember a while back you said something about PCP&C being the only enthusiast PSU around until Antec and Enermax showed up, but I got to thinking about Seasonic, etc.)

 

My dad's first PC was bought about 11 months after the ad in the spoiler above ... might it have had a PCP&C PSU, or maybe Seasonic or something else?

(Invoice in spoiler below.  From what I remember, I think it was a 200-watt PSU.)

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Oh also ... it looks like PC Power & Cooling may have been originally based in the San Diego county, CA area.  (Bonsall mentioned in the ad in the spoiler is about an hour or so north of San Diego, off highway 76 between Oceanside and Pala.  (Highways 76, 78 and Interstate 15 make kind-of a triangle on a map.)  Bonsall is about a 55 minute drive north / northwest of where I live.)  I wonder what other major PC parts manufacturers might also be based around here ... I think there's Qualcomm but idk what they do as far as DIY PC build hardware.

[Guest]

Your OCZ PSU is old as dirt.  It's from pre-2009ish. StealthXstream had nothing to do with PC Power & Cooling.

 

StealthXstream had a pretty bad reputation for blowing up.

 

Your AX760 is from 2014.

 

It's essentially a rebadged Seasonic X-Series.

 

And yes... PC Power and Cooling is still in Carlsbad.  Their address is right on their website.

 

[LukeSavenije]

15 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

It's essentially a rebadged Seasonic X-Series.

wasn't that for the 650, 750 and 850? as far as I've noted it's xp2 with a higher temperature rating

 

and btw @PianoPlayer88Key, you got a reply

[PianoPlayer88Key]

59 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Your OCZ PSU is old as dirt.  It's from pre-2009ish. StealthXstream had nothing to do with PC Power & Cooling.

 

StealthXstream had a pretty bad reputation for blowing up.

Ah interesting.  I bought it (and other parts for a build - partial parts list & pics in spoiler) in Feb 2008, and used it for a few years ...

Spoiler

Hey, I wonder if Gretchen may have been related in any way to Snowflake...  SF wouldn't be G's great-granddaughter though, cause Gretchen never had kittens.

... then one day around March or April 2012 or thereabouts, I had been gone all day, and came home to find my system powered off.  Upon hitting the power button, I think it lit up and powered up, but I got no display on the monitor.  (I also don't recall any post beeps, but don't remember anymore if there was hard drive activity (didn't have an SSD then) indicating booting an operating system.)

 

I wish I still had access to the chat logs from online chats, or knew where forum posts where I might have asked troubleshooting tips were .... cause I *THINK* I remember people basically telling me that the motherboard's northbridge (or wherever the integrated GPU on a Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H would have been) had died, AND since there were other things that the NB handled, getting a discrete GPU wouldn't have gotten me back up and running.

 

I eventually took the case, motherboard, CPU and CPU cooler to a recycler, but maybe I should have sent the PSU there too?  (I thought the mobo had died but now I'm wondering if it was the PSU instead.)  I kept the hard drives, RAM and expansion cards, as well as the PSU.

 

Quote

Your AX760 is from 2014.

Sounds about right, I bought it in January 2015.  My next PC build is planned for about when the AX760's warranty expires, or when DDR5, socket AM5, PCI Express 5.0, etc, are out (and not at their newly-launched sticker shock price - hoping to maybe buy the parts, whatever they might be, around Black Friday 2021 or something like that).

Quote

It's essentially a rebadged Seasonic X-Series.

I thought so.  I remember when deciding what PSU to buy late 2014, the Corsair AX and the Seasonic X were a couple I was deciding between (plus a couple other units).  I think the AX having more SATA plugs was one of the factors that won it for that PSU, although I've run out.  (Somehow I don't even think the HX750 Platinum with its 16 SATA connectors would cut it either.)

Spoiler

I might also run out of PATA connectors as well...  Also the system was powered off (and unplugged) when I took that picture, and the extra HDDs were removed before I powered it back on.  I DO wish I had a way to run it with ALL the drives connected, powered up, mounted in drive bays, etc.

 

Quote

And yes... PC Power and Cooling is still in Carlsbad.  Their address is right on their website.

 

 

[xboxonthego3]

Any thoughts or plans to add the EVGA Supernova G5 power supplies to the tier list? 

[LogicWeasel]

22 minutes ago, xboxonthego3 said:

Any thoughts or plans to add the EVGA Supernova G5 power supplies to the tier list? 

The usual answer when someone asks about a new PSU:  Do you have any solid, independent reviews of that unit yet?  If no, then that's why it's not in the tier list yet.

 

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the tier list editors even posted about being aware of the new EVGA lines, so they're rather aware of new stuff, it just takes a while for a review site to post up their findings so a new PSU's quality can be judged against its competitors properly.

[trevb0t]

Is the EVGA Supernova GM (SFX12V) in the same class as the rest of the G series stuff?

 

@LukeSavenije

[xboxonthego3]

35 minutes ago, LogicWeasel said:

The usual answer when someone asks about a new PSU:  Do you have any solid, independent reviews of that unit yet?  If no, then that's why it's not in the tier list yet.

 

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the tier list editors even posted about being aware of the new EVGA lines, so they're rather aware of new stuff, it just takes a while for a review site to post up their findings so a new PSU's quality can be judged against its competitors properly.

Cool. That makes sense. 

Thanks for the response!