Help on choosing a budget PSU that won't explode

[PMizuki]

I have a budget of ~100$, and I'm looking for a PSU for my R5 3600/RX580 system. Locally I can see the Corsair CX and CX-M series, and the Rosewill Photon as ones that I recognize the brands.

Would one of the two be good enough, else what would you all recommend?

[dean_5234]

I would recommend a be quiet! pure power or msi agf

[HeroRareheart]

5 minutes ago, PMizuki said:

I have a budget of ~100$, and I'm looking for a PSU for my R5 3600/RX580 system. Locally I can see the Corsair CX and CX-M series, and the Rosewill Photon as ones that I recognize the brands.

Would one of the two be good enough, else what would you all recommend?

MY strategy is go to PCPartPicker, select all my parts, go to the PSU section, add filters for the features I'm looking for, and check off only reputable brands in the filters. Works well enough for me but it's a tad bit of a lazy way to do it. Works out fine though.

[VioDuskar]

4 minutes ago, herorareheart said:

MY strategy is go to PCPartPicker, select all my parts, go to the PSU section, add filters for the features I'm looking for, and check off only reputable brands in the filters. Works well enough for me but it's a tad bit of a lazy way to do it. Works out fine though.

i do the same, but on newegg. filter to hell. 
even if you don't end up buying on newegg.

the benefit of pcpartpicker is that it shoes you prices at multiple shops 

[IIIIIIIIII]

28 minutes ago, PMizuki said:

I have a budget of ~100$, and I'm looking for a PSU for my R5 3600/RX580 system. Locally I can see the Corsair CX and CX-M series, and the Rosewill Photon as ones that I recognize the brands.

Would one of the two be good enough, else what would you all recommend?

Can you provide a link to the store? Of the things mentioned, the CX is the best.

[PMizuki]

2 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

Rosewill Photon - NO. JUST NO.

May I ask how it is such a trash one? It seems to be 80+ gold (if that says anything about it)
 

 

2 hours ago, IIIIIIIIII said:

Can you provide a link to the store? Of the things mentioned, the CX is the best.

sorry, it's more of a local store. Is the CX-M good also? the semi-modular is pretty tempting to me.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, PMizuki said:

It seems to be 80+ gold (if that says anything about it)

It doesn't.  80 PLUS is just an efficiency level.  Like Energy Star, etc.

 

The Photon uses a double forward platform.  Sort of old school.  But then again, so does the CX-M.  That's why the CX is actually better than the CX-M despite the CX-M having the advantage of being semi-modular.

 

 

[boghubodaghi]

3 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

Well, FSP is hugely known as manufacturer of cheap and reliable PSUs. I always recommend the FSP PNR (PRO) lineup as the best PSUs for a cheap PC Build, but I've heard that PNR and PNR PRO lineup is very rare in the US, because FSP does not sell them in the US directly.

I find it very startling that you recommend a very old design that is outdated.

 

3 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

be quiet! Pure power 11CM lineup is also pretty great for its price - the worst thing about them is that they do not use a varistor (that is a PSU part) and use a spark gap instead - for a regular user that means nothing, but I wouldn't recommend using some *ultra* demanding software on a computer 24/7

Spark gap? You mean Gas Discharge Tube (GDT)? They aren't as good as MOVs but they can do the job of protecting surge.

 

3 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

Corsair is not good as a PSU manufacturer because it is *not*. Corsair sells PSUs from a company named CWT and just sticks the Corsair logo on these.

Not as good as a PSU manufacturer because it's not? That makes no sense. Corsair is capable of designing custom platforms (the HAR/Harrison platform for example), so that's not true either.

 

3 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

This is an overprice for a brand. Thermaltake TR2 Bronze, CoolerMaster B Series are also made by CWT on the same platform and are cheaper - the only difference is that Corsair uses better fans - they buy them from thee same company that FSP does.

Not true. The CX is a custom platform from CWT and can't be seen anywhere else except the CX. The Great wall version can only be seen in ASUS TUF Gaming line-up. CX-M on the other hand is a custom platform codenamed Santana. So it's not the same as any other PSU on the market. And no, TR2 Bronze and CM B series isn't the same as either the CX or the CX-M.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

Corsair is not good as a PSU manufacturer because it is *not*. Corsair sells PSUs from a company named CWT and just sticks the Corsair logo on these. This is an overprice for a brand.

You're high.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Eviljuche said:

they buy them from thee same company that FSP does. In fact, these fans were originally created for an FSP PNR lineup, but then vent viral among all the Taiwanese PSU manufacturers These fans are the most pricey element of CX and sometimes are considered an overkill for that price range.

This is also false information.  But you're Russian, so I guess you're used to fake news.

 

[boghubodaghi]

2 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

This is also false information.  But you're Russian, so I guess you're used to fake news.

 

LOL. 

[Elisis]

46 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

4) Yeah, the well-known "custom platform of CX" that is a regular CWT DSAII platform with one or two components being replaced on roughly the same one, different PCB design that is overall pretty similar to others from CWT, and a different colour of PCB. CX's platform is just a plain PR twist.

CX hasn't been DSAII for years lol...

55 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

they even use capacitors from Nippon Chemi-Con and Fujitsu, which is a real hardcore stuff in the world of capacitors

And this matters... why, exactly? Capacitors aren't exactly that important in terms of muh japcaps.

 

[Renaldsq]

I would recommend Be quiet! Pure Power or System power if you can't buy them, then buy PSU with Bronze rate, when you buy a PSU it should have Bronze rate or higher for quality.

[PMizuki]

Is the xigmatek hydra M a good one? it seems pretty nice but much cheaper than all the alternatives, so I'm kinda concerned

[Elisis]

1 minute ago, Renaldsq said:

for quality.

The various 80+ certification levels aren't a hallmark for quality, so what you're saying is not exactly true. What I'm saying is that you always judge PSU quality by the performance of the the actual product itself.

[Elisis]

3 minutes ago, PMizuki said:

Is the xigmatek hydra M a good one? it seems pretty nice but much cheaper than all the alternatives, so I'm kinda concerned

It looks okay on the surface just going by this review: https://www.f14lab.org/2020/07/review-xigmatek-hydra-m-550650750w.html
But it also looks like a pretty cheap platform given its passive rectification.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Eviljuche said:

1) It's not as much different, that what I was saying. Yes, it changed, but not dramatically.

2) That matters A LOT, as long if you don't want to buy the PSU that dies in the next 2 or 3 years, you should be interested in its capacitors. Especially when it's about budget builds.

Also, you're looking at this from the perspective of the Russian supply chain.  Russia is a very difficult country to import into.  Only a little better than Brazil, North Korea and Iran.  And unless you have a dedicate agent to bribe the officials, your product's price gets impacted pretty hard.  That's why the assortment of products you see in Russia are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and at completely different price points than almost anywhere else in the world.

[Guest]

Just now, Elisis said:

It looks okay on the surface just going by this review: https://www.f14lab.org/2020/07/review-xigmatek-hydra-m-550650750w.html
But it also looks like a pretty cheap platform given its passive rectification.

Nope.  Pass.  It uses Schottky diodes for the SR instead of MOSFETs.

[Elisis]

4 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

It's not as much different, that what I was saying. Yes, it changed, but not dramatically.

It's dramatic given that old CX was double forward and group regulated, and new CX is LLC and DC-DC

5 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

That matters A LOT, as long if you don't want to buy the PSU that dies in the next 2 or 3 years, you should be interested in its capacitors. Especially when it's about budget builds.

This has not been true for... two decades afaia.

[Elisis]

3 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Nope.  Pass.  It uses Schottky diodes for the SR instead of MOSFETs.

Do you happen to have anything on the OEM itself, KT Comstars? I've never seen it in the desktop space recently at least.

[PMizuki]

I kinda wish the cxm was just cx but modular, as the cx seems pretty damn good but I don't wanna deal with all the leftover cable hassle v.v

[Elisis]

1 minute ago, Eviljuche said:

This is still true in lots of low-end PSU's, especially noname aliexpress ones. But there are still the examples of bad capacitors in PSUs sold by a huge brands - mostly, by Aerocool

The noname Aliexpress PSUs don't have people regularly buying them here so are irrelevant to the discussion. Aerocool has its own, more important, issues.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Elisis said:

It's dramatic given that old CX was double forward and group regulated, and new CX is LLC and DC-DC

This has not been true for... two decades afaia.

I'll cut him some slack.  Maybe one decade. 

 

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Elisis said:

Do you happen to have anything on the OEM itself, KT Comstars? I've never seen it in the desktop space recently at least.

KT Comstars is very, very, very small.  Surprised to see them OEM for anyone.

http://www.comstars.com.tw/

 

6 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

This is still true in lots of low-end PSU's, especially noname aliexpress ones. But there are still the examples of bad capacitors in PSUs sold by a huge brands - mostly, by Aerocool

Which Aerocools?  I'm not a big fan of Aerocool, but they have a lot bigger problems than capacitors.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

Corsair went instead with a half-bridge topology and an LLC resonant converter, delivering way better performance than the double forward design. The CX units use similar design platforms, provided by CWT and Great Wall, though.

 

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-cx650f-rgb-power-supply-review

 

I hope that (indeed) honorable Mr. Gerow can explain what that sentence exactly meant. If this is just a bad tech journalism, then I am sorry again.

Not sure what you're asking.

 

Similar ≠ Same.

 

If you're going to assume that similarities like half bridge LLC with DC to DC makes a product the same as every other half bridge LLC with DC to DC, then  you might as well imply that 80% of the PSUs on the market are the same.