Should i be wary of Thermaltake??

[Flanker]

Yea, I agree with Nubius.

What I've been trying to say for a long time is; Not every product made by a company is crap, or will fail. If that was the case, then the company wouldn't be a company. Even companies with crap reputations like XFX for video cards will 90% of the time put out a card that works perfectly. I'm not saying the quality will be the same; Obviously PCP&C makes better PSUs than, say...Sparkle for example. But even Sparkle will put out PSUs that work. Our job is to simply inform the customer or whoever is asking for our help, we need to inform them of the risk, and then let them decide.

 

[PZEROFGH]

i heard sparkle was good or something from somewhere.

 

[Trifid]

You missed out Hiper! They are probally the most popular premium PSU company in the UK, well priced for what you get, has blue LED's. Modular, and all ready has the cables sleeved.

(They are very rare in the US, and expensive, as it is a UK company, so you might as well import one for the amount it will cost to buy it in the US.)

http://www.frozencpu.com/psu-164.html

 

[beardo526]

HardOCP is one of the most respected review and hardware sites on the Internet. And the guy that posted there is also a moderator on the official AMD forums and has 6K+ posts and he helped me choose the power supply I have right now (Forton).

I am aware of HardOCP's reputation, however, that "guide" is still just that one guy's opinion. He admits to not testing every power supply objectionably. It's only through his experiences... maybe he got the bad egg in a batch of 9,532,479,823 power supplies... who knows? (Exaggerated... but you see my point). If he had a team of people that actually tested and benchmarked every single power supply that is on that list, then I would say he's more of a credible source. Even "smart" people can be wrong sometimes.

 

[HAVOC]

I also agree with Nubius & Flanker.

PSU's are probably the most important component in a PC next to the CPU. Depending on your other hardware / components a PSU show be purchased accordingly.

There are 3 things that you should look for in a PSU when buying:

1.) Efficiency - How well a PSU converts AC (voltage from a source - your outlet plug) to DC (Voltage your PC can use to operate) This is measured in percentage. The higher the percentage the better.
EXAMPLE 85% is excellent - 70% and lower isn't so good. The other part of the percentage is waste, lost in heat.

2.) Stability of rails. This is a huge one. Your PSU can be a 600watt PSU, but if the RAILS aren't solid and stable, it's worthless. Your PC will crash and many other problems will surface. Nubius made the point that, "His TT PSU has served him well and his RAILS after a year or so are still solid." This is a good PSU.

3.) Wattage: You should always buy a PSU that is at least 200 watts more then your system technically needs. This is mostly due to the effeciency rating of each PSU. A percentage of AC to DC conversion will be lost to heat. This is more or less my opinion.