power supply question

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annieb727

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Hi. I did a search through the forums, but didn't find much on this.

I was wondering what brands of PSUs are good, and which to stay away from? I read somewhere that Antec is good...are there others you'd recommend, but others I should steer clear of?

Thanks in advance!

~Annie
 
Antec makes excellent PC cases and power supply units. There is another one i heard of few years ago w/ a good reputation but I'm not at my PC right now. Stick to the reputable names when it comes to power supply units - it is a major component in the longevity and health of your PC.
 
you say stick with the reputable names...well that's what i'm trying to figure out -- which ones are reputable??

thanks
~annie
 
thanks hilow -- i searched the forums, but didn't see anything -- so if you find it, i'd greatly appreciate it...

i've already spend hours reading past posts to find out information on various things -- but i'm sure learning a lot!
 
Annie, what i should have said earlier is that once you have a list of good quality brand names to choose from, don't be tempted with a unit selling for a low price that doesn't have a good reputation.

Hilowe, you're right - both Thermaltake & Enermax do make good quality units. However, my impression is that thermaltake is more geared for the power user or mod cases running high temps. So for the average home user it might be a bit of an over-kill. Now that I think of it, I believe Enermax is the other brand name I couldn't think of earlier.

Make sure whatever unit you buy, it has sufficient wattage rating for your PC.
 
thank wolf...we're in the process of collecting parts for our computer -- for now it'll be used for home stuff and bits of video editing -- like moving VHS to DVD, and creating DVDs to send to friends and family of our little ones. in the near future though we want to do more heavy duty video editing -- hubby used to video tape weddings and would like to get back into that, so that's our end goal for this machine. we're looking for deals and rebates and have already saved about 40% off of the normal prices online using rebates! here's what our computer will look like and we're planning to get a 500W PSU.

Chieftec Matrix Series Earth Green ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB and FireWire

2 -_Seagate 200GB / 7200 / 8MB / ATA-100 EIDE Hard Drive
_Hard drive
_
BenQ DVD Burner / 4x4x12x DVD+RW / 16x10x32x CD-RW / White Box DVD burner (we'll probably get a better one later on, but it was only $39)

_Mercury PCTel 56K PCI FaxModem

_GIGABYTE "GA-8IK1100" i875P Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU -RETAIL

Intel P4 3.2E GHz 800 MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyperthreading (retail w/ heatsink, fan and 3yr MF Warranty)

Crucial, 512MB DDR PC3200

ATI Radeon 9600XT (or maybe 9800Pro) 128 MB DDR, TV-Out, DVI

YE Data USB 2.0 All-In-One Internal Floppy Drive (or similar)

Windows XP Professional

19" or 21" CRT Flat Screen Monitor (or similar)

500 Watt, Dual Fan PSU

Toshiba 16x DVD Rom

WinTV PVR-350

MS Office Professional 2003

Wireless Keyboard & Mouse

I'm still researching stuff, and things may change!

anyway ~ thanks for your help! i appreciate it
 
You're welcome Annie. The only concern i have w/ that is the DVD on the list. Considering that the primary use for the new pc will be in the way of video editing/recording, I think you would do yourself better by getting a better quality burner. Besides at 4x, burning those large DVD file will take longer than you might expect. And who is BenQ? I've never heard of that brand name before. If anything, I would go with Maxtor - they make some really nice DVD burners, or if your budget doesn't allow for it, go with a Sony, TDK, or LiteOn. I know you feel like $40 isn't much for it, but believe me if that unit craps out on you after a few months, you'll feel like you wasted $40 buckeroos.

Coincidentally, i was at Borders Books the other day, they had a review of several DVD burners. There was an external model TDK DVD burner w/ a good review as well as some others.
 
annieb727 that's because it doesn't matter the brand. a company can make good and bad stuff. think how strange it is to ask when buying a car: I want to buy a car. what is a good car manufacturer?

you have to research each model and see if other people have good experiences with it or not. what i do is goto newegg.com and sort their power supplies by number of votes. i sift through the customer reviews and decide which is best. this approach is like buying something based on word-of-mouth. Enermax and antec are both recognise as good power supply makers. I have read review about how some antec power supplies caught on fire and I also own a true power (450?, it came with the antec 1080 SOHO case) that works great.

make your own choices. learn from mistakes and remember, you can always return or exchange it, just make sure you buy from a good company
 
Enermax has never failed me in 4 computers . Good and constant voltage Supplied to all rails :)
 
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