350-450W Roundup: 11 Cheap PSUs
by Martin Kaffei on July 3, 2012 1:30 PM ESTCorsair CX430 V2 430W
Corsair was using Seasonic units for the majority of their products, but most of their cheaper offerings are now manufactured by CWT. The CX430 V2 is the lowest-end unit from Corsair, which still has enough quality to satisfy the customers. It comes in matt black and has a large Corsair logo on the fan grille. The back is perforated with hexagonal-shaped openings and a small power switch can be found above the power input.
The contents of the package are what you'd expect. You get the required four screws and power cord, naturally, along with some cable ties, a user manual with product data and safety references. Corsair prefers a large single-rail 12V design, rated at 28A (336W). The reason for the high rating of the 12V rail is the high power consumption of CPUs and GPUs.The small rails are rated at 20A each with a combined output of 120W; that's comparatively weak compared to some older PSUs, but since modern PCs usually don't need much from the low voltage rails, this will hardly be a problem.
A 120mm Yate Loon fan cools these units. It has a ball bearing and seven sharp-edged fan blades. A plastic guard blocks part of the intake area to help direct airflow.
| Cables and Connectors | ||
|
Connector type (length) |
Main | 1x 24-pin (45cm) fixed |
| ATX12V/EPS12V | 1x 4+4-pin (50cm) fixed | |
| PCIe | 1x 6/8-pin (50cm) fixed | |
| Peripheral |
3x SATA (ca. 50, 65, 80cm) fixed 3x SATA (ca. 50, 65, 80cm) fixed |
|
| 3x HDD, 1x FDD (ca. 50, 65, 80, 95cm) fixed | ||
The inside reveals a typical CWT design with three heatsinks, two for the primary side and the third for the secondary side. Three of the filtering caps are attached to the other side of the AC jack. The internal layout is pretty typical using a two-transistor forward converter, with a minimal number of components in the transient filtering. The primary cap is made by Samxon--just like the secondary ones. They are a slightly lower end vendor CWT uses for these units.
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CeriseCogburn - Sunday, July 8, 2012 - link
These are all elitist power supplies, not you get what you pay for power supplies.Try to find 6 pin + 6+2 pin on a 450W anywhere... they are RARE.
This is NOT the cheap power supply review - this is the name brand poular low wattage PS review.
marvdmartian - Monday, July 9, 2012 - link
Sorry, but were you looking for a review of, say, a PowMax power supply?? Not sure why you refer (twice, in two posts) to these power supplies as "elitist.Trust me, you don't need to make $100K/year salary to own these. Especially the Corsairs, which are regularly on sale for <$20, after mail in rebate.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
I just said why, but you're "not sure" why, probably the "not sure" from the movie Idiocracy.Black1969ta - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
more like a member of the Cabinet.rickcain2320 - Thursday, July 12, 2012 - link
Don't ever mention PowMax in my presence ever again, speak not that word.zero2dash - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Very surprised to see the VP-450 not make the list of candidates.Between what you have here, I've used both the Corsair CX line and the Rosewill Green line. After a disappointment with the CX and coil whine, it was replaced with a Rosewill RG and I couldn't be happier.
Bottom of the barrel, me personally I'd go with either the RG or now the Antec VP-450.
I'm not spending $50 on a <500w PSU, sorry. You can get a decent 500-600w, sometimes having to wait on a rebate or a coupon code but nonetheless - Antec NeoEco, Antec HCG, even a Corsair TX2, for not much more than that.
Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Speaking of prices. The Raider is not available yet and the going price will be much lower than the MSRP.Antec didn't reply to my email and I wasn't able to get the US version in Germany. Anyway, I will try to get cheap Antec PSUs next time. Thank you for your comment.
JonnyDough - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
That's because you're a moron. Just because it supplies lower wattage does not mean that it is any less important or valuable than an 800w power supply. Voltage regulation is pretty simple, getting no ripple and getting good efficiency is a bit harder. You pay for quality, not for wattage. If you want junk, then buy junk. This was for people who are serious about their PCs and want them to work well and last for awhile.Lonyo - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
While this is a nice article on low(er) power PSUs, would it be possible to see some sort of real world enthusiast article which focuses on NAS/HTPC boxes and power?For instance, there's a Zotac Atom DTX board with 6 SATA connectors and two PCIe slots (x1 and x16 I think). Theoretically you could have 14+ HDDs hooked up (killer NAS for the motherboard form factor).
Something looking at the power of a NAS or HTPC with regards to PSUs would be nice. A 70% efficient 400w PSU would consume a lot more (relative) power on a low wattage box than something like a DC power supply with adapter (from experience), since they can get closer to 95% I believe in lower power situations.
It would also be nice to see peak (boot) power for such a HDD loaded system in terms of what sort of PSU is required to boot the thing without staggered spinup.
I personally made a G620T system with a 250w mATX PSU, which I swapped out for a PicoPSU, and dropped power use from about 35w IIRC, to 25w, which is a lot in % terms, although in absolutes it's not all that significant.
Just a thought for an article if there is the desire. I definitely am interested in low power HTPC and NAS boxes (considering building a NAS box with the above mentioned Zotac DTX board in the coming months).
Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
I'm able to review all PSUs with AC input and DC output.SFX, TFX PSUs, Picos in combination with laptop adapters.
How about some 300W SFX units and 90W adapters? Most PicoPSU are very good but the adapter is usually a bit of a problem. Nobody takes a look inside. Quite often the quality is abysmal .