Following on from the Q-tech 450W PSU thread in the builders & upgraders forum, how about a nice tekky group test on power supplies as per CaptainCad's suggestion.

I'll vote for that, SJ.

PS This machine I am typing out on has been running for about a year now using a Qtec "dual fan gold" 450W PSU.

Gigabyte GA7zxe
Athlon XP2000
512 Mb ram
2xhdd
2xoptical
added fan

Oldphart

The original grumpy pedant!

Just cos my name was mentioned...

I think that it would need to either concentrate on the budget end of the market, or perhaps 400-500 Watt outputs in order to get as wide a spread as possible for the general system builders.

People buying the top makes and above 500 watts although we would all like to, would have to wait for a follow up test later on!

I know there are hardware sites on the net which look at this sort of thing, but most of them are testing gear not available in this country, and also running on a different input voltage.

Hi perhaps along with the PSU group test some advice on the types of PSU and the sort of hardware you could run from them might come in handy, ie a quick sort of readyreckoner for when the next, must have, piece of hardware is about to find it's way into the case would be helpful.
How do you calculate what load you are currently placing on your PSU?

Mad Malc

Malc - the rough and ready way to calculate a load means you need access to the info plates on your computer content, i.e., the hard drive may show "12V, 0,3A, 5V, 2.0A". To calculate wattage, multiply volts by amps, so, inthis example 12 x 0.3 = 3.6W, + 5 x 2 = 10W, add two resultants, =13.6W for that drive.
Do that for all remaining devices, including fans. For processor load, look it up in the approriate website, i.e., typical AMD about 70W. Add them all up. Bung in about another 20W as a guess for the mobo. Add 30% for loss in PSU - you now have what is known in the trade as a ball park figure, or guesstimate (US or English!)
What you now have is a peak figure, when everything is starting up. The requirement then drops, then fluctuates below your max figure, hence the reason that many machines will not start on the first press of the button, but then burst into life on re-starts.
A bit long and involved, but the last power unit design I did was about 15 years back, and did not use switch-mode, which is the common method nowadays.

Did this help anyone?

Oldphart

The original grumpy pedant!

Hi Oldphart
Thanks I will take a look and then get too work, I keep all my key data in a book...
So it looks like I now have some more records to write down.
Many thanks.


Mad Malc

Personally I think it makes for pretty dull reading
Unless youre a Kraut or something

eg "the stability of the 12v rail was 90% on a maximal load of....yawn..might go watch weakest link"