Its not. Have that on my realpower 550w and my friend's realpower 450w. Something to do about the mains current, not sure exactly what. Found it out when I tried power sources from different places (home, hostel, PC shop), some place got, some place none.

Edit : looks like I just found another of shawty's interesting threads..hehe..gonna be posting here a bit. Learned a lot from the 3-4 PSUs I blew up over the last 2 years.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 8 2007, 09:08 AM

Hey they're not that bad, pretty ok for the budget strapped. But you are entitled to your own opinion.

The reason why there are so many PSUs advertising multi-rails is because Intel specified in one of the ATX specifications that each rail is allowed only 240VA (or watts) max. But in the end all the PSU makers cheated (use one FAT rail, put two wires out and call it dual rail; ditto for tri and quad rail), and intel gave up and practically ignored their own specification.

Hmm, maybe I should do like those REAL psu reviews (tomshardware, silentpcreview, johnnyguru), and load a couple of PSUs to the max and see which can take it without blowing. Already have the load resistors, might as well use them... And when
I get back to hostel the electricity bill won't be on me... kekeke...

Only thing that sux is I don't need the extra heat..now, if only we had winter...

Wow, when I last read it they hadn't added the overclocked 950/x1950 system yet-surprising how little power it took. Wonder though, how much would a crossfire/SLI setup take?

On the other hand, here's a real PSU murderer (even without SLI/crossfire!)
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dua...res/page14.html

Thats because most of Cooler Master's PSUs are manufactured by Acbel.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/SMPS_UL.htm

What I'll like to know is, what happens when a DFI mobo is used with a PSU its not compatible with?

Interesting. I suspect that the required initial surge current for DFI mobos is very high-possible since DFI mobos offer very high voltage adjustments and the power regulation circuits need more capacitors as a result.

Either PSU will be adequete. But frankly, you might be able to get a better PSU at a bit less than RM280. A Silverstone, Seasonic or a Fortron would be better.

Hiper is reliable, based on reviews by guys with real equipment to test it. Though maybe not as good as PC Power & Cooling, but definitely better than Enermax.

PCP&P is pretty overpriced, especially compared to Seasonic. Hard to get too. But PCP&P offers highly reliable power supplies for even insane wattages (like 1000W and above), while Seasonic's offerings top out at 650W. But seriously, how many people will need that much power? Like a small microwave oven already

Not sure about Amacrox, haven't come across it before.

Exactly. Cooler Master PSUs are meant for the budget strapped. They're good value for money and easily available yet are reliable enough for overclocking to some extent (don't push it though). Works the other way too, meaning that there are better options which cost more.

Check out if the following sites have reviews for a PSU that you're targeting to buy. Unlike most sites which just hook up a PC and use the onboard system monitoring to check voltages (which are FUBAR for the most part), these guys test it with electronic loaders that will really load the PSU to the max. The links are to the pages that describe how the PSUs are tested by them.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article683-page1.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/11/how...power_supplies/
http://www.jonnyguru.com/new_testing/


I will soon compile a list of PSU's which reliably meet the ATX specification (meaning the manufacturer isn't lying about the ratings) based on reviews on the sites that I've mentioned. However, how well does the PSU actually help your PC, hard to say. Overclocking is better with PSUs with better voltage regulation, but how much better is difficult to say for sure. Not enough watts is usually not the issue for most overclockers (in particular those who can't afford the most extreme hardware from the start) because, assuming the PSU ratings are accurate, the 400-600W usually bought by overclockers is a bit overkill as most systems (except overclocks of above 3GHz) actually end up with less than 300W power consumption for non-SLI/Crossfire sets and less than 500W for non-SLI/Crossfire sets. For some reason, above 3GHz processor power consumption jumps up rapidly, regardless of which processor it is.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 18 2007, 10:39 AM

Bro, in case you don't know,

Cooler Master = Acbel

Even the sticker is a giveaway if you examine it. Exactly the same grammar mistakes on both.

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Added on May 18, 2007, 2:30 pmIt should be. For the Realpower and iGreen power series, reviews have shown that it lives up to its promises (no lies by the manufacturer-500W means you really get 500W). Can't say the same about the >500W models in the extreme power series though.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 18 2007, 02:30 PM

Not necessarily true. The processor voltage is regulated by the motherboard, not the PSU. Although the PSU does effect it to some extent, from my knowledge of voltage regulation circuits it will take one hell of a PSU fluctuation to overcome the CPU's voltage regulator on the motherboard.

Cooler Master and Acbel PSUs come from the same factory, same circuit design. Only different packaging.

The 380W and 430W extreme power models have been tested by johnnyguru and found to be reliable. However, he found the 500W one to be unreliable.

Its the same circuit, if you actually bother to examine it.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 18 2007, 06:48 PM

The company that sells it can relabel the unit, thats why the CM extreme power 600W is actually a Seventeam 500W PSU, and because of that it falls flat just above 500W.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/PSU/eXtremePower600W/

Its a different story for the 430W extreme power. This one does deliver 430W.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/PSU/eXtremePower430W/

Well said. Its recommended to have a slightly higher wattage rating than your PC's power consumption, around 20-30% more depending on your usage. Its because PSUs get less and less efficient as time goes by, mostly due to capacitor aging. As the PSU gets older, the capacitors get less and less efficient at filtering the voltage (especially when running close to the PSU's limit), and the voltage regulator circuits must work harder at keeping voltages accurate and stable. Eventually it gets to the point where the fluctuations are beyond what the voltage regulators can cope with and it starts to become noticable. For well designed PSUs, this is noticable only after a few years. Poorly designed PSUs (like those often manufacturered by our local Sdn Bhd ) can start showing signs of trouble even in a few months time.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 19 2007, 01:38 PM

Not possible, as solid state capacitors don't provide the necessary capacitance and ESR values required by PSUs. You'll need lots of them to get the equivalent, and the required startup surge current will mean the PSU will take forever to warm up.

Harsh statement, but seriously yeah, you've really messed up your budgeting arc_archive. Btw, use the Power requirement calculator (link is on first post) to calculate how much power will your system needs. It works quite well, though the figure is already inflated from the start-every system that I entered there and also tested with a multimeter had a lower real-life power consumption than listed there (about 80% of what the calculator gave). The number that it gives you (even without filling in the parts on capacitor aging) is already enough for your system.

If you're wondering, the systems were doing all of this when I measured their power consumption
-1 instance of Prime95 for every thread/core the processor can handle
-Atitool artifact scan (even heavier video load than 3dmark)
-Everest Memory & Drive stress test
-burning a DVD on nero
would have wanted to add more to the list, but blimey, even the mouse doesn't really respond properly anymore. Nero managed to pull through only because it was set to real-time on the task manager.

The max power in this case refers to the maximum amount of power that the PSU can supply continuously. The peak power (which for some reason is left blank in this table) refers to the max the PSU can take for a short time without overloading.

For starters, none of the extreme power series has active PFC. While frankly, the power factor isn't important for most people, the circuit does give the PSU better capability to deal with voltage variations in the AC supply (hence the fact that APFC units don't need AC voltage selection switches). Also, efficiency is slightly lower, and the extreme power series voltage regulation is not as precise as those of better PSUs, it will vary when loaded close to its limit (but still within tolerable limits). Also, the ripple voltage is higher than those of better PSUs, which may affect how high you can overclock, though the motherboard's voltage regulators also affect this.

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Added on May 20, 2007, 8:39 pmSilverstone is very reliable. Jonnyguru's list is by no means complete; he says it himself.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 20 2007, 08:42 PM

Its reliable bro. And the number it gives is actually higher than real life. A P4 system that was calculated to take up 219W actually only took up 160W. And that wasn't the only system I measured. My current AM2 X2 system is calculated to take up 192W, but actually takes up 96W only.

Its a reliable PSU, but the price is like a chapalang one ..should be ok for a moderate rig like a 3800 X2 with 8500G even with some mild overclocking..but if running anything better than that better to get one of the really good ones..

Power logic & icute are chapalang for sure, but better than the average "made by Sdn. Bhd" chapalang PSU. At least it regulates ok at low load, and won't 'letup' immediately (but eventuall it will). I should get a 2nd hand one and test it out on an electronic load..hmm..wonder how long they'll last before going bang? The usual "made by Sdn. Bhd" and "made by some unknown China small company) can only tahan half hour at 250W even though the thing says 450W...lol....those jokers are still somewhere in my house..burnt smell still got...


What's important is each rail must have enough capacity to support all devices connected to it. If you balance out everything across all the rails then its unlikely to be a problem, but if you put everything on one rail the psu will shut off due to safety regulation. Why this happens-

26A x 12V = 312W

So if you connect more than 312W worth of devices on 1 rail, the psu will shut off. 300W is easy to achieve if you connect a high end graphics card and an overclocked processor to the same rail, so at that point it will shut off. To see which connector takes from which rail, read the PSU manual.

Its a bit overkill, but then again your rig already is.

Its reliable, there are proper reviews of it, but I think no one has actually bothered to rank it yet.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: May 24 2007, 06:35 PM

Its enough. But if you upgrade your graphic card and still overclock after that, consider a better PSU. At the moment consider ventilating your chassis, based on shawty's comments on enermax PSUs I think it would be a good idea to make sure the PSU doesn't get overheated-lifespan goes down rapidly when PSUs run hot.

No kidding, even at high overclock those processors usually take less than 100W. On the other hand, the fastest Pentiums took up 100W even at stock speeds, and power consumption skyrocketed when they were overclocked.