[EOL] PSU Tier List rev. 14.8

[zoidzoid]

Hey @illoCharles and @Scania556

You can laugh at my post all you want

I have the Be Quiet E9 400w for 9 years. Not used all this time but its had many years of solid use, through many different systems and decent enough gpus. All parts it powered still working perfectly. Now powering a 3060 ti without a hitch. The proof is in the pudding. Not a Grade D psu suitable for IGP only . Sorry that you find it funny but I find this statement even funnier. Yet to find any reasoning why All group regulated psu should have this classification and to be honest I think it ruins credibility of the list and maybe just there to try scare people into upgrading their 'grade d' psu. Just because in lab testing the numbers in some unrealistic scenario are not great. What are numbers? For all we know its just inaccurate testing equipment. There should be real world proof of negative consequence if these psu are as bad as made seem. Like this 1 of many examples of a Tier A psu exploding. Now even though Be Quiet+FSP had huge market presence many years ago with group regulated units, no matter how much I search, I struggle to find much of anything of any explosions, killing equipment, abnormal failure rates etc.

 

RMA rates of power supplies from large French retailer many years ago. FSP/Be Quiet 1/3rd of rma/doa/quick failures over 'the best'. This was 2013/2014 where alot sold were group regulated.

- Fortron / FSP Group 0,49% (contre 0,99%)
- BeQuiet 0,61% (contre 1,15%)
- Antec 1,33% (contre 1,23%)
- Cooler Master 1,52% (contre 0,98%)
- Seasonic 1,6% (contre 2,36%)
- Thermaltake 1,87% (contre 1,98%)
- Akasa 1,92% (N/A)
- Corsair 1,96% (contre 2,18%)
- Cougar 2,41% (N/A)

 

Now 2017
"Be quiet! / FSP remain among the best with an exemplary stability rate of return which improves even over this session to drop below the 0.5% listed for bq !. We salute the figures of Antec, which has generally always been a quality player in power supplies and which is positioned at a similar rate despite sales that we do not imagine to be really prosperous. Cooler Master, having carefully chosen his collaboration choices on the integration of blocks, has seen a great improvement in his returns, significantly reducing them over the period. Corsair for its part remains stable, as the previously mentioned with models from various suppliers varying from bifbof to very good. Finally, Seasonic continues its comeback, but still behind the best! "

 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

3 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

Yet to find any reasoning why All group regulated psu should have this classification...

...scare people into upgrading their 'grade d' psu...

@Juularhas already given you a detailed explanation for why the list is organized the way that it is. So why continue to bring up baseless conspiracy theories? If you were really interested in the answers to your questions, you'd be looking through the great quantity of detail provided in the spreadsheet, instead of trying to impugn the motives of the dedicated folks who volunteer their time and energy into keeping this list accurate and up to date. You don't agree with the methodology. You are alone in your thinking. Time for you to move on.

 

 

[zoidzoid]

12 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

@Juularhas already given you a detailed explanation for why the list is organized the way that it is. So why continue to bring up baseless conspiracy theories? If you were really interested in the answers to your questions, you'd be looking through the great quantity of detail provided in the spreadsheet, instead of trying to impugn the motives of the dedicated folks who volunteer their time and energy into keeping this list accurate and up to date. You don't agree with the methodology. You are alone in your thinking. Time for you to move on.

 

 

No I am not alone, I had a quick look through a few random pages in this thread and my thoughts were mentioned before. There is literally no real reason why many PSU in Grade D should be there, it makes no sense whatsoever. You can give an explanation but it can never be justified to say such PSU are only recommended  to be used in cheap IGP systems with nothing to back it up. Yes I will move on

[GoldenLag]

2 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

There is literally no real reason why many PSU in Grade D should be there, it makes no sense whatsoever.

i mean, lack of UVP coverage and lack of dedicated regulation is kinda reason enough as far as this list is concerned. 

 

its kinda why lack of OTP is reason to instantly move it down to Tier C. if the fan fails, you are kinda out of luck. 

[Juular]

2 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

There is literally no real reason why many PSU in Grade D should be there, it makes no sense whatsoever.

In this case and with most if not all group regulated PSUs there, out of spec voltage regulation, among other things.

Regardless of the brand, OEM or topology, if a PSU goes out of specifications under some circumstances then it's going to be detiered. Even if it's under overload if not straight up detier we would likely at least move it to low priority subtier, because if the PSU is still online under overload then it should be also still in specifications, if it's not then protections weren't set right. As you see, a lot of PSUs made it to tiers A/B/C with this requirement in mind.

You can also argue that some group regulated PSUs would be better than some DC-DC ones in reliability and that's certainly true. But there's no metric to determine reliability, some retailers publish RMA rates but most of this data doesn't make much sense sadly. So reliability is not a apart of our methodology, there's simply no way to do that. We do however to detier PSUs that are known to have reliability problems and other issues post factum after the accumulation of user feedback or after it would become known from reviews.

There's also a good amount of FSP-made PSUs in higher tiers if you think that their manufacturing and QC process is more robust, so i'm not sure what exactly you're trying to accomplish here.

Speaking of OEMs overall, without making this list highly subjective we can't just tier PSUs by their OEMs either. You say Seasonic bias but what about FSP bias ? CWT bias ? Any-other-OEM bias ?

2 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

Yes I will move on

Please do. If you're advocating for us to put old-ass group regulated PSUs in the line with modern high-end PSUs with way better performance and more protections, that ain't gonna happen. Tiering PSUs by their performance and protections is literally all what this tier list is about. We could care less about the brand or OEM. If you disagree then just don't use this list.

[zoidzoid]

1 hour ago, GoldenLag said:

i mean, lack of UVP coverage and lack of dedicated regulation is kinda reason enough as far as this list is concerned. 

 

its kinda why lack of OTP is reason to instantly move it down to Tier C. if the fan fails, you are kinda out of luck. 

Lack of UVP. Heres one not in Grade D with lack of UVP and lots of other problems.
This PSU fails ATX Specifications yet still graded higher than one which passes.

 

Corsair CX550M 2017 Grey Label.
Test Failed.
The Corsair CX550M delivered power both under combined loading and crossloading, but it did not pass the combined and crossload testing in accordance with the ATX specification, so according to my evaluation methodology, it is not deserving of an evaluation.
With this hold-up time being so short, not even a UPS (neither a cheap/off-line model, nor an older one with worn out relays) may help you under full load, as its own transfer time may be longer than this. I have no other choice then but to declare that the Corsair CX550M fails to meet the ATX specification here, not to mention my own, more lenient 10 ms requirement.

− mediocre ripple suppression
− over power protection not working
− under voltage protection not working
− hold-up time way out of spec
− bad capacitors

https://www.hardwareinsights.com/corsair-cx550m-farewell-group-design/7/

 

This model is still readily available to buy and very popular.
Seems on the chart here,  it is Grade C? Although it is not clear. Grade B you have (CX Grey) I assume this is Non modular only.

Is there another detailed review of the CX550M to show this was a one off? I can't find anything. There is CX650M on Tomshardware but the Capacitors are totally different. According to some comments on Reddit, people buying it retail got 330uF cap in their CX650M vs tomshardwae review unit got 470uF , not weird at all, they had an explanation that they were low on 330uF and small amount of units got 470uF which tomshardware was lucky enough to receive.
This 550w model has just 220uF. The PSU is total junk for 550w, once pushed to 80% load, Ripple goes very bad.

Ripple @ 80%
Corsair CX500M Grade C?
        5v sb              3v              5v           +12v            -12v
80%    33.20 mV     18.80 mV     19.60 mV     53.60 mV     86.00 mV

 

Silverstone 600ESG Grade D
80%    21.6 mV     16.4 mV     20.8 mV     22.8 mV     35.6 mV

[GoldenLag]

28 minutes ago, zoidzoid said:

it is Grade C?

if you read the legend, you can quite clearly see it in tier C

 

21 minutes ago, zoidzoid said:

The PSU is total junk for 550w, once pushed to 80% load, Ripple goes very bad.

Ripple isnt good, but its not "very bad"

 

21 minutes ago, zoidzoid said:

− under voltage protection not working

in the review you provided, it is specifically shown that UVP works. 

23 minutes ago, zoidzoid said:

− over power protection not working

review didnt really test beyond 120%. Now since the CX650M has a OPP set at 130%, and the CXM shuts down due to UVP before reaching 130%. I can only guess OPP sits higher than the 120% they tested. Especially since afaik these two units share the same plattform. Holdup time isnt good tho, but its a Tier C powersupply, its not really perticularly good. 

 

@Juularprobably has better info on this. 

 

 

[zoidzoid]

16 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

 

in the review you provided, it is specifically shown that UVP works. 

 

 

 

 

 

UVP kicked in at 9.6v, so basically it may as well not exist.
"the unit never reacted to overload and shut down when the voltage @+12 V fell under 9.5 V. This is more like a joke than protection to me."

 

In the Silverstone Grade D review, same thing, only this time they mention 10.5v.
"So no OPP and no UVP as usual (waking up around 10.5 V is not working protection for me). "

But since the Psu is dc-dc, it gets better rating here.
I don't know about you but I'd much rather use the Arum group regulated with proper capacitors than one which is trying to cheap out as much as possible, The only real review you can find online, they got a better capacitor because of 'shortage' to make it not fail some tests. Very sketchy.

[GoldenLag]

Just now, zoidzoid said:

UVP kicked in at 9.6v, so basically it may as well not exist.
"the unit never reacted to overload and shut down when the voltage @+12 V fell under 9.5 V. This is more like a joke than protection to me."

then dont lie/missread. 

 

just say you have a gripe with how low the UVP is set at 9.6V. And suggest perhaps a lower bar for UVP to be semi-arbitrarily set to bring units into Tier D. 

 

2 minutes ago, zoidzoid said:

In the Silverstone Grade D review, same thing, only this time they mention 10.5v.
"So no OPP and no UVP as usual (waking up around 10.5 V is not working protection for me). "

again, lack of UVP and independant regulation is reason enough for tier D. As far as the purpose of this list is concerned. 

[Juular]

3 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

once pushed to 80% load, Ripple goes very bad.

50mV is not very bad, not even in comparison with other units of the same level.

2 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

The only real review you can find online, they got a better capacitor because of 'shortage' to make it not fail some tests. Very sketchy.

I agree that judging by that review, primary side capacitor was underrated but Aris receiving a sample with bigger capacitor is nothing more than a coincidence i'm sure. In any case, we don't care about hold-up time, especially for a low-end PSU.

2 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

UVP kicked in at 9.6v, so basically it may as well not exist.

But this is enough to detier it.

I'd ask @jonnyGURUfirst tho. Is this (and capacitors stuff) a known problem ? Was it fixed ? Not sure tho if you was around when this unit was in design / at launch.

2 hours ago, zoidzoid said:

I don't know about you but I'd much rather use the Arum group regulated with proper capacitors than one which is trying to cheap out as much as possible

I'd get neither.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Juular said:

I'd ask @jonnyGURUfirst tho. Is this (and capacitors stuff) a known problem ? Was it fixed ? Not sure tho if you was around when this unit was in design / at launch.

I'd get neither.

Probably HardwareInsight's testing methodology.  But Santana was 2015... I have no idea what was going on back then

[Zainly]

Sorry but can someone help me.

I want to upgrade my psu, the best i find in the local market is the Couger GEX 750w Gold.

What do you think about it?

Edited June 23, 2021 by Zainly

[IIIIIIIIII]

12 minutes ago, Zainly said:

Sorry but can someone help me.

I want to upgrade my psu, the best i find in the local market is the Couger GEX 750w Gold.

What do you think about it?

It's almost the same as MWE Gold V2. I think it's a not bad intermediate PSU but there could be a better option.

 

You can get more help if you create a new thread with the link to the store where you want to purchase the PSU.

[Oorz]

Something you oversaw: The Cooler Master V SFX Gold series in tier A is not marked green.

[Juular]

1 hour ago, Oorz said:

Something you oversaw: The Cooler Master V SFX Gold series in tier A is not marked green.

Yeah, it's in the changelog.

[Juular]

@jonnyGURUWhat's the difference between Corsair CV650 CP-9020211-EU and CP-9020236-EU ?

[doubleflower]

@Juular@jonnyGURU@IIIIIIIIII A full review of the FSP Hyper K Pro:

 

https://quasarzone.com/bbs/qc_qsz/views/997602?_method=post&_token=h3eX2Y8RbQZ0WSgHPiDa6bcFXB12vVjaPMnH4EJp&category=파워서플라이&keyword=&kind=subject&page=1&sort=num%2C reply&type=

[Juular]

20 minutes ago, doubleflower said:

full review

Not really, but thanks still.

[doubleflower]

Any idea which tier this PSU should belong to?

 

https://cougargaming.com/us/products/psus/vte-x2/

 

It has DC-DC, but judging from the pricing it looks like it might be a double forward + DC-DC PSU so Tier C? @Juular

[IIIIIIIIII]

36 minutes ago, doubleflower said:

@Juular@jonnyGURU@IIIIIIIIII A full review of the FSP Hyper K Pro:

 

https://quasarzone.com/bbs/qc_qsz/views/997602?_method=post&_token=h3eX2Y8RbQZ0WSgHPiDa6bcFXB12vVjaPMnH4EJp&category=파워서플라이&keyword=&kind=subject&page=1&sort=num%2C reply&type=

I've known this review for a long time. Downgrade of Hydro PRO.

 

Some secondary side caps have been changed to Foai, another Supervisor IC (PS223→GB8313) and another fan (ADDA Sleeve→YL Rifle).

 

The problem is... that's all I can tell and even the Hydro PRO can't find a perfect disassembly.

[Juular]

5 hours ago, doubleflower said:

Any idea which tier this PSU should belong to?

 

https://cougargaming.com/us/products/psus/vte-x2/

 

It has DC-DC, but judging from the pricing it looks like it might be a double forward + DC-DC PSU so Tier C? @Juular

If it has DC-DC then tier C low priority. Now it looks like VTE (v1) has DC-DC too after all, according to Aris at least, so i'll move it to tier C LP as well. Regulation is still kinda off according to F14Lab review but it's still in specs.

[WhitetailAni]

I recently got a Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W but can't figure out where it falls on the tier list.

I saw the Silent Pro M2 listed under both Tier D and Tier C, and can't figure out where my unit falls.

 

My unit also doesn't have M2 anywhere listed on it, so is there a way I can upload a picture of the insides or Google a serial number to figure it out? I'd like to swap it for the Seasonic GM-750 that's currently in my Ryzen PC since this PSU has more PCIe cables, but I don't want to kill anything. I don't know when it was bought.

[--SID--]

29 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I recently got a Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W

It's a decade old, don't use it.

 

What's your cpu and gpu?

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, --SID-- said:

It's a decade old, don't use it.

 

What's your cpu and gpu?

That's what I'm debating right now.

System #1
Ryzen 5 3600

GTX 690, GTX 650 Ti BOOST

 

System #2

Pentium 4 3.4 GHz Prescott

BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra

 

In the case of the P4 system I'll need to get more Molex cables since it currently only has two plugs and I need at least 3. The PSU also doesn't have the -5V rail which I think might be needed since the motherboard has serial ports onboard? Not sure on that front.

[Guest]

On 6/24/2021 at 2:20 PM, Juular said:

@jonnyGURUWhat's the difference between Corsair CV650 CP-9020211-EU and CP-9020236-EU ?

CP-9020211 has one EPS12V.  CP-9020236 has two EPS12V 4+4-pin.