Support our work and get a great PC building work surface in return! store.gamersnexus.net/products/modmat-volt-large We previously posted a budget power supply round-up! Learn about some of the best $50 to $80 power supplies over here (we bought all of these for the testing, they were not sent): ua-cam.com/video/weFJd8dzxAE/v-deo.html Watch our power supply review & testing playlist here: ua-cam.com/video/ftF8V6Di84s/v-deo.html
Hey Gamers Nexus, you might not want to state it as "% Over Current" in the OCP Data table (22:33) as that seems to indicate an 'additive percentage'. 64.5% above 32.25 amps is 53.05 amps; 164.5% above that is 85.30 amps. It might be better to state it as like "% of Current" or perhaps something else.
I've bought a few of these over the years for absolute budget computers that have extremely cheap components, and they've always functioned properly. What my personal rule of thumb is when buying a budget power supply is to buy something with a lot of reviews, go to the one star reviews, and see what the most common failures are. The number one complaint for these thermaltake smart power power supplies (when I last checked!) was them being DOA. At the time when I bought these, there were no reviews for "it killed xyz" or "Went up in smoke when I plugged it in". I've actually avoided more expensive power supplies from name brands as there were trends where it would take out components, like the Corsair VS units, and so far my tactic has been working well.
Great review guys, I love that you emphasized the target market for the unit and didn't just call it "the worst PSU in it's class" or some other drama centric nonsense. These "budget" parts exist for a reason and knowing that it does the job it's intended to and does it passably well is all most people in the position to need such a cheap PSU want to know. At these price points even $5 makes a huge difference in component specs/performance. I can't imagine the margins on these are very high so kudos to Thermaltake for even producing these at such a low price point while keeping the quality at least safe for the intended use (unlike cheaper units). This is the kind of review I like to see. Some channels seem to have forgotten that not everyone can afford high end parts and bash on budget options (unfairly) just to get views.
I've used one for a HTPC which ran perfectly for 4 years. I only changed it when I swapped to a micro Inwin Gold Power Supply. I run a AMD 3400G chip, RX6400 Card. All that off 180 watts !
I just bought the 500 watt variant of this so I'm glad to hear that it's actually somewhat good. It's only going to be used in a home Plex server so not really too worried about it. It has a 5-year warranty so I don't know that really means anything.
It's not "good", or even "somewhat good". It's really just barely scraping by ATX Spec (and even missing that on the top end of the 5V and 3.3V rails). As Steve said, it's not unsafe, but its definitely not a great unit. Unless the 20$ are needed for you to get by, i probably wouldn't recommend this.
5V is still used by hard drives, USB and associated peripherals. I do value criticism that the 12V rail can't hit the rated output but I wouldn't call it misleading either. I guess I'm saying that I'm having an expectation that there will be some additional load on the other rails that would go towards the total rated output and misleading is a bit too harsh of a term to describe it. I love the new block diagrams in the review. Bonus coincidence that Patrick's eye line up with two of the capacitors on the board for a moment. Spooky. It would have been nice to have an AC square wave graphic given when Patrick was describing the rectification. Ditto for the part numbers being stated in the video.
This probably would be fine for an "old school" Pentium or Duo-Core or similarly modest computer that you are using for a singular purpose. I recently built such a (mini-ITX) computer just to run an image scanner. It has integrated video, 4GB RAM and two SATA hard drives (SSD + HDD). It requires a 250-watt PSU, but I went with a 450-watt PSU (not ThermalTake).
Not cheaping out on the power supply means not buying the most generic, off brand garbage you could get. I witnessed bad power supplies kill good computers because my dad didn't want to spend extra for something of reasonable quality. Needless to say it didn't take until later in his life to realize going the cheapest can end up being the most expensive. The upper midrange has always served me well in the price/performance delta as well as having less features to break on the top end. I get a very good quality item without paying 50% more for 20%(or LESS) performance.
Been using a Thermaltake Toughpower XT 875W semi modular Bronze supply for over 9 years now. It's been through an I5 4670K, I7 4790K, Ryzen 7 1700X, Ryzen 7 3700X, and currently a Ryzen 7 5800X. Also been powering a GTX 590, GTX 670, GTX 980, GTX 980TI, RX 580, and currently an RTX 3070TI. People say this is not a.good power supply, but it's never given me any issues and runs my custom builds perfectly. I don't know what the lifespan of a PSU is, but it's still running perfectly(knock on wood) to this day. Does anyone really know if this is a good psu compared to the newer ones?
Can you guys take a look at the Seasonic S12III 500 SSR-500GB3 500W 80+ Bronze PSU? A few months ago I was going to buy this one, but ultimately changed my mind due to the poor reviews from Newegg and Amazon. Something to do with Seasonic outsourcing this line of PSU's to a lower tier company. I am just really curious to see if these claims are true, considering how Seasonic it's considered one of the high tier PSU brands. Thank you for all your hard work and extensive research.
I feel like "nothing seriously wrong" is a victory for this little thermaltake unit! It gave a strong showing for costing less than some high end case fans!
I have a similar unit in my 7 year old build, with a Haswell i5, and GTX 960 (at the time, I had no other corners I could cut if I wanted to fit the 960 and quad core in the budget). I’m rather surprised it hasn’t keeled over long ago.
I run a small PC company and we have a deal with Thermaltake on these. They work great, we run their 430W model and 600W models respectively. We mainly focus on lower-end systems but we've done higher-end RTX builds and still used these to save money for the customer, 0 issues in years of usage. Prior to that we used a 450W Thermaltake model and it was fantastic also. We used to use HighPower gold series (same that you see in Origin PC and other companies), and Apevia's gold series, I've found those to be less or equally reliable. They get the job done.
Seeing your self-rating on your expertise in this field rate you as a novice because you’re just getting started is some next level integrity and i’m here for it
We're trying to make sure everyone is on the same page! Adding a new category is difficult, and we want to make sure it's clear when you may want to still check a second source while we learn and improve!
No, you're not truly novice since you have a badass like Stone aboard, plus the expertise of your team developing test plans, gathering data, and producing reports and copy. But, I appreciate the conservative ranking system. It's not often people will willfully sell themselves short for the benefit of their customer/audience.
A fun test for GN would be testing a well aged used PSU that was once high end. Say one from 10+ years ago. Because people love buying old formerly high end used PSU's for cheap, believing they're getting the same performance from them as when new. And I know myself, PSU's are a consumable item that doesn't age too gracefully in some cases.
Would have loved to send over my old well used Corsair TX 650W that had seen solid use since I bought it back in 2009. 24/7 runtime for the last 5 years. But it self destructed after what I suspect was a major short from being absolutely caked up with dust, looked like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag.
The hardest part of buying old good quality PSUs are noisy or damaged fans, proper replacement fans are so hard to find since starting voltage is way too low in many PSUs (many PSU fans have a starting voltage of 3.0v) and the only brand I've seen that specifies Fan starting voltage is Arctic and Noctua. Besides, many are not PWM fans so this shrinks possible replacements even more. The only ones I was tempted to buy were Arctic's P12 or F12 since those have a starting voltage of 2.8v, good price and quality, no point in buying Noctua.
G'day Cyber😺, I was thinking a similar thought as a comparison while watching, would it be better to buy a new Low Cost PSU like this one or a Quality Used PSU a few years to 10yrs old or for similar price?
Speaking of low wattage, Seasonic used to have a 360w gold rated model (SSR-360GP). It scored a VERY good review from jonnyguru. I have like 3 at this point (plus an OEM model). I wish they still made them.
I have a couple of what I assume are the OEM versions: SSP-350GT also 80+Gold, no PCIe Power but I used them for office PCs so they're just fine. Ironically in a similar vein, I replaced most other office PCs with some random Thermaltake grayboxes that I got for cheap. Sounds dangerous, but they're solid unlike the old PSUs whivh were made of the cheapest Chinesium you can find, and had: * 3 just died. * 3 had extremely rattly fans. * 2 had _no fans_ idk how they still worked. * 1 had a capacitor cover just dangling around. Still worked somehow. * 2 had no fuses to speak of, just bypassed.
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@@GamersNexus There are BeQuiet budget PSU's Im interested in, should be good for any modern 300-350W system like an Office PC or HTPC or just a reapir of and old system people want to keep alive. There are so many 775 systems and stuff people still use for home businesses and stuff that dont even have a 300W rated PSU from Dell ;) They are called "BeQuiet System Power B9 Bulk PC" on Conrad, the 300W 80+ starts at 46€ here in Sweden, the 350W is 49€. There OEM/Bulk so not even painted, just silver like the old days. I think Bequiets model number for them are BN206 and BN207 I think the 300W dont have PCI-E power but the 350W I think has so yea very basic BUT sometimes thats all you need. Me and friends often have to fix systems on a budget that are low power but still used. Nothing I would use for a modern Enthusiast build but for an old system or building from used parts it might be an option when the budget is almost null.
@ BQ's 300-350W models are decent little supplies, they're just decade-old tech. Still using FSP's EPN platform by the looks of it. Unless you are actually in the business of building PCs on a certain scale, I see fairly little reason to buy one when you can get a good used Straight Power 10 (CM) 400W/500W, Pure Power 9 (CM) 500W or System Power 7 500W for the same kind of money or less, all of which are substantially more efficient and modern.
Been watching GN for years . Seen GN grow from games to hardware to full on testing with genuine lab equipment. Here's the thing, as you and your team have grown so has the community that you have created. Not just in size but in knowledge. Repairs that I tackle today I would not have even dared back in the early days of GN. But armed with my trusty mod mat and years of shared knowledge by GN and the community, replacing dead caps on an old motherboard doesn't seem like that much of a big deal. You have helped me share my love of PC's with my children and we often have discussions at dinner on the latest upload. Thank you
@@GamersNexus I graduated my last year of High School, class of 1978, attending a Tech School, 3-quarters of Radio & T.V. Repair. So, I've been a power supply junkie for decades....To my knowledge, the explanation of the components & their functions has never been covered in detail like this in any 'computer enthusiast' video. Congratulations and Job Well Done, Steve & Company! For me, this was very satisfying to watch... 🇺🇸 😎👍☕
09:47 that's interesting, I had a NTC thermistor blow up on an Enermax PSU about 12 years ago. The PSU would still work but I would hear a loud crack every time I switch on the mains, and when I looked I could see the green casing had blown out the side. The Seasonic replacement has been good since and I still use the PC for old games.
@@GamersNexus Yeah, that's how I learned it's worth spending on a quality PSU. Tempted to replace the whole PC when the new GPUs come out but I'm going to be in for a shock when I realise how much the typical prices have increased since then 😅.
I was running the included no name PSU from my amd opteron build back in 04 and it just died when I overloaded it with a new (used) graphics card and forgot to plug the fan in that I had re wired to an external header to keep the noise down. Made it to almost 20 years, with about 5 years of down time before I upgraded the single core opteron to a used 3rd gen i5.
I have a Corsair GS700 that has seen i7-2600 when the CPU was brand new. Now powering i7-8700K @5.0GHz and RX5700XT and no prob whatsoever. Quality PSU will last a decade easily. If I ever need more power I will buy either Corsair or Seasonic 1000+w.
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I had the same thing happen with a 10 year old HX or TX 650W Corsair made by Seasonic. It worked every time but there where sparks flying out of it every powerup. I can solder and stuff BUT it was in such I tight space requiring a big tear down of the unit to get to it so I sad F-it and sent it for recycled it instead. So its not a problem for just budget stuff, they seem to crack due to age I guess, heat cycling and also the shrink wrap around it is there to stop it exploding everywhere BUT dont help when its open at the top XD
This psu is in 3 of my office PC's for almost a decade now. They run 12hrs a day every day. & Get cleaned out every year. They have survived 1 lightning strike with no apparent failure of their capacitors or mov's.
You sure its the exact same model? I dont remember TT Smart being around that long. And even if it is the same midel, I highly doubt that they're using the same parts as they did a decade ago.
@@TKIvanov they are smart power 450 with 80plus white and pfc.. cables are not sleeved. but runs great they powering a q6600 & a7870k and r3 2200g (the systems have been upgraded at due to different needs of each user but they were all build around 2012 with all of them at first having p4 631. the psu is very similar , i need to find the box to let u know the exact model.
@らてちゃん looks and protection in some cases where there is sharp metal exposed. i have had one pc came with intermittent shutdown and won't turn on again till power cycled turned out the sata power cable has rubbed through and shorting into the metal case which is ground causing the psu to shut down in overcurrent protection.
Problem with this review is simple: these thermaltake smart units seem to change components and manufacture constantly, its why the labels/specs were different in 3 places.
This seems to be a fair offering. I expected this one to perform worse tbh. One thing I would really love to hear more about during these psu reviews is noise level.
Yea, I thought this was an oversight on their part myself...It would be fairly easy for them to do...I have had several power supplies that were louder than my case fans!
Not sure how relevant this would be to the subject, but I have the 500w version of this series of psu and the the fan is basically silent. No coil whine to speak of.
Something I think you guys may want to mention when discussing capacitor lifespan and temperature (so as not to make people think that their caps are going to go bad really fast) is that a capacitor's lifespan doubles for every 10°C below the rated temperature. So that cap will actually last 4,000 hours @ 95°C 8,000 hours @ 85°C, etc. It's not something the average person would know, and they might only hear "2,000 hours" and not fully understand what "2,000 hours at 105°C" actually means.
What kind of temperatures would be normal operating temps? Would they usually be in that 85° area extending the lifespan? Obviously there's a lot of variables like ambient temp, case, other hardware but I'm just wondering ballpark figures.
@@stevenjohnson1692 I mean it's really hard to say. Only the manufacturer would know that for sure. But under normal usage I would expect it to be much lower, considering the MTBF is 100,000 hours. To hit that, temps would probably be around 55° on average. 85° as normal operating temps would cause the cap to fail in less than 3 years at 8 hours per day of usage. But given the relatively low power of this unit, I don't think the air around the capacitor (which is what the temperature rating refers to) would ever really reach that temperature unless you are pushing it to the absolute limit and the fan has failed.
@@scuder179 ahh, yeah I didn't really think about the difficulty of getting a temperature on it. Of course especially for cheap products like this you gotta take everything the manufacturer says with a truckload of salt lol.
In the "for what it's worth" department, I've built hundreds of machines with these over the last fifteen years, and they've been nearly perfect. I can't remember the last failure. I've also built with at least dozens, if not hundreds, of the other wattage of TT Smart PSUs, and I think the only failure has been a DOA. @gamersnexus maybe add some testing that looks for performance impacts of the voltage variability?
In this price range, "meets the spec" is good enough. It actually makes the Gigabyte failures all the more ridiculous. The -12V SCP fail is the real discrepancy for the target use case. Two comments on the data: 1. The first pass on the block diagram would have been better if a bit larger and not presented as an overlay on Patrick Stone. 2. It would have helped to have the Intel spec identified on the chart if that value was in the chart range. I would not expand the chart to include it, but I think it would help to better understand what is, and is not, meeting the spec.
"The -12V SCP fail is the real discrepancy for the target use case." pretty sure they didn't include any protection in the specs, while only the -12V failed.
I have a Thermaltake Smart 630, it's been 5 years and the psu still works very well, with a few months exceptions, the pc has been on every day for roughly 10 hours, probably 50 power outages and several power spikes, B450+Ryzen 3 3100+RX 470
I’ve used a few of these in systems and builds and so far no issues. Yeah they aren’t excellent but for entry level systems, they work well. And I’d rather have Teapo capacitors than the no-name ones found in other cheap PSUs that are guaranteed to bulge or leak in a year or two. Look forward to more testing of PSUs across basic to premium!
I started laughing when you reviewed this cuz I actually bought some of these for the all-in-one CPU with on board graphics motherboard combo. So good to hear that it's going to work. Feels good feel safer that you've tested this. Thank you.
I'm curious how this compares to the PSUs included in prebuilts (dell, hp and the like) since they often have good 80+ ratings but low wattage What I also wonder is how this compares to the two other 30$ PSUs I could find on amazon which are the EVGA W1 500W and the EVGA W3 450W. While testing those is probably not worth the effort I still wonder how they stack up...
I'd like to see the W3 since the only legit review is gone and the enclosure has gone under some revisions, so possibly a changed internal layout. Last I recall, it actually performed pretty well for a group regulated unit like this smart. The W1 has been reviewed by Aris(psu reviewer for tomshardware/kit guru/etc.) a year or two ago, and the result was the bridge rectifier exploding when under max load, so that'd be a fun test I suppose.
Honestly, I'm amazed they can design, build, and ship a halfway decent PSU for $30. So, to some extent, TT should be applauded for making something that *probably* won't catch your house on fire at this price. That being said, I would never buy it, and would likely never recommend it.
Thermaltake probably didn't design it, hardly anyone selling power supplies do these days even if their logo makes it to the PCB. If your shocked at this thing costing $30 you'll probably be even more shocked at how much it would cost if you take the TT branding away and get it directly from the OEM. There is a very good reason seemingly every "makes" power supplies, it's very profitable even at the low-end.
@@zacharytaylor8523 yep good points. Although at this price point I'm sure TT isn't marking it up much. It would be curious to know what the BOM cost is. But then it needs to be branded, packaged, shipped, and the retailer needs to make something on it too.
@@zacharytaylor8523 Yeah, low-end stuff in particular is outsourced. According to old threads TT uses OEMs like HEC, Channel Well Technology, and FSP. This power supply has probably been in production for well over a decade though so it'll still be one of them.
TT doesn't make PSUs. It's basically the same hardware Great Wall and CoolerMaster and a dozen other budget brands use. Generally the brand companies order them to meet a certain price point and specifications, so you can get crap and great stuff coming out of the same factory, and for the same reason the work Steve and boys do is important because it is near impossible for consumers to tell what is what. Being a brand name does not automatically mean the unit you buy is any good (looking at you, CoolerMaster), just like a low end brand like Great Wall (which you'll find in stuff like Walmart PCs) actually isn't all that terrible - I mean, they don't blow up and won't fry your stuff
Goes to show the actual bare margin on "premium" fan :-) The molded parts are pennies and the PCB is populated in smd jelly bean. Yes its round so an extra penny.. If you take out development costs and copper winding /rare earth magnets then there should be quite a lot of money to gain
@@kitecattestecke2303 You're probably mostly right, but for premium fans I expect them to use more-costly forming processes for the frame and impeller since they need tight tolerances. Also Noctua claims to use their own proprietary polymer for the impeller rather than a commodity plastic, which would raise costs.
I'd really love to see some of the low end Corsair and EVGA power supplies compared to this. Especially the bronze models. Most of the budget builds I've seen run $30-40 PSU's from those 2 brands.
I had a Corsair cx650m years ago kill the motherboard ram GPU and even the CPU it was i5 4690k,Msi Gaming 5 motherboard,2x8gb gskill ripjaws and msi R9 290X I got it all from the same company and they swapped it all went with a different power supply tho they said they would get reimbursed from Corsair as the PSU was at fault with there testing
@@TKIvanov Yeah destroyed the whole PC just bought all the parts and the first time I turned it on for about £1200 I paid. The company I bought the parts from was really good done testing on all the parts and agreed with me IT was the powers supplies fault they just sent out all new parts apart from the power supply got a seasonic instead
This is where Linus has lost the plot, he no longer provides reviews that the average Joe wants to see, tech like this. He'd rather show us his giant $10000 monitor in his house than tech people actually can buy and need. Well done GN!
I remember the days of getting "Free" power supplies with the case. In the early 2000's this was the thing todo when selling a case. Some of the most cool cases i found had a power supply included and no option to buy without for cheaper lol. The last one i had was a mini atx "Xcube" case around 2004, the PSU lasted about 6 months before taking out my motherboard. It smoked randomly, crackled, melted wires going to motherboard and the 24pin connector on motherboard.
@AdamsWorld I can remember buying a case with power supply for only $25 back in the 90's at computer shows, this was normal and everyone used these for builds!
I've had the 500w version of this in a spare PC of mine for around 2 years now, and I haven't had any problems with it so far. Granted, it only has to run an i3 9100f and GTX 1060 3gb, but at one point it powered a GTX 470 with no issues. I'd say for the price, it's not bad at all.
You need to tell that power supply buddy of yours to slow down and enunciate his words. He is speaking so fast that it is difficult to understand and digest what he is saying. He is also jumping from one stage to the next very quickly without a clear boundary/break/pause etc from the other section and just keeps pushing through. Someone who doesn't have a clear understanding of components will just go all glassy eyed. I have noticed that people on youtube are in a hurry to rifle as many words at the audience as possible so they won't get bored or move onto something else. I do think this video is excellent and very valuable to people looking to purchase that power supply or understand the components inside. Buying the cheapest one isn't always the best idea for component longevity. Some of the testers that used to do this aren't around anymore so it's nice to see someone taking up the mantle and running with it.
While the cheaper power supplies are interesting, it would be nice to see GN review some of the really high end PSUs as well. It would especially give a good comparison of really high end components to components like this one. Additionally with the rumoured power consumption of the upcoming RTX 4 series, higher watt/higher quality PSUs will potentially becoming more important. Something like the Antec Signature Series 1000W Titanium, or the Corsair AX1000, or the Seasonic Prime Titanium they are based on. These are the ultra top end (I have the Antec one myself). Would be interesting to see Patrick compare the components of the crème of the crop PSU components to the ultra budget like this, as well as the mid-range stuff.
I know this is a gamers channel but I'm interested in the low-load efficiency of cheap, low-capacity power supplies for home servers; or other always-on, low-power devices. It would be cool to see which, if any, supplies have decent efficiency at 10W or 2% of max rated capacity. Or does the spec as written not set a meaningful standard?
I'm also interested in this. My guess is that you'd be better off using a shared high-efficiency industrial PSU (e.g. 12V) together with one Pico-PSU (or its cheaper clones) per server. In one of the slides, you can see that the efficiency on all the consumer PSUs they tested is atrocious (50%-60% range) at 2% load, even the high-end ones, because they have fixed overhead and are not optimized for very low loads.
I appreciated the block diagram/walk through and discussion of component choices/topology compared to higher quality power supplies. I understood the fundamentals already, but the visual representation of it combined with the part-by-part explanation was quite helpful. Being able to identify group regulated PSUs visually will be helpful in my own PSU testing. I'm prototyping a PSU adapter specifically for building AT PCs in ATX cases, and some of the issues I've run into with minimum loads tie into the topology and regulation.
Isn't the 5volt problem not the bigger issue? Most modern-day PSU's only have a output of 100W on the 5 volt lines while a decent P1 system could suck up 150/200W. Also the -5 volt line has disappeared from the ATX standard for a very long time now (which was the white cable on the 24 pin connector) and is used by some ISA cards. I know the Soundblaster 16 and AWE 32 needs -5 volt to function properly, which was the reason I had to unfortunately hunt down a old PSU with the white -5 volt cable for my P2 system.
@@thundereagle4130 The limited 5v output of newer PSU designs is certainly an issue, but just checking spec sheets is usually enough to figure out if a PSU will do the job in that respect. There are a number of ways to implement a -5v rail when a PSU doesn't supply it: Phil's Computer Lab has the Voltage Blaster which is a tiny ISA card with VRM circuitry to supply -5V in a plug and play fashion. Alternatively, you can roll your own that fits inline between the ATX PSU and AT power connectors.
When I tell people "Don't cheap out on the PSU" there are a few good reasons for this; Namely most people get to the point where their current hardware isn't keeping up and generally it's a new GPU that will get swapped in. Having a good PSU allows you, even 5+ years down the line to easily swap out and power a current-gen card. The other reason is mainly all the horror stories about the Ali Express specials that tend to go pop and take other components with them
Yep. When I started building PCs I was a young kid going into high school and I didn't have much money so I always skimped on the power supplies... and always had problems with them. Luckily none ever exploded but I did get BSODs.
Definitely don't cheap out with lesser known brands. They've got much less to lose. With more known brands you're just very likely to get old, cheap to produce, designs with lower efficiency (and lower operating times, I.E. don't expect it to get far past years of insurance it has).
@@MLWJ1993 I had this power supply from OCZ ? You remember them ? Ever heard of them ? Too bad they no longer exist, they made good products. I loves that power supply and used it in 3 different builds. It was still working just fine in 2016.
Yeah -12V is not used anymore by any PCs/MBs, I believe it was used for RS232/RS485 or some other legacy stuff. I hope intel removed that rail from the newest ATX standard. Btw. 24:30 did you actually physically verify that the cables are 18AWG?
@@MeatPoPsiclez Yeah it probably would've been only few cards and obviously none are used these days really. Someone does PRO audio stuff you just get external ones. ATX 2.0 is really obsolete.
These new PSU reviews are great. I've a friend who needs a cheap PSU just to repair a office PC, I'd suggest this since it's serviceable. One suggestion for these reviews I think is that if it's possible to add wave graphs of peak to peak ripples just out of interest plus in my opinion, it'll better visualise the ripples.
What you want is called an oscillogram. That's a capture from the screen of an oscilloscope. I think Steve's Rigol is capable of saving screen captures. You have to look at scopes a lot to develop some context for their waveforms to have much meaning.
Anyway, I’ve used these PSUs in the past with “office computers” (think Dell Optiplexes and HP Pro/Elite towers) that were blessed with 24-pin power connectors. They’re perfectly fine with 2600/3770 CPUs and sub-225 watt GPUs.
It's amazing to see a $30 PSU built without Chinese crap capacitors and transistors! The topology of this is TTF + diode rectification, and I personally recommend this kind of PSU for people with low budget because it's really cheap and robust. By the way, the choke nearby the standby transformer is the mag-amp for 3.3v, not for 5vsb regulation.
Teapo is cheap chinese crap. I've replaced thousands of failed Teapo capacitors in all matters of electronic equipment. The green vomit ones usually leak, the black ones with the gold stripe usually have a seal failure, dry out and short out.
I was super surprised. Some of their higher wattage models use the likes of chengx or asiax, so to see Teapo across the board and even 105°C rated, very nice.
@@maicrowsoft8867 They're both China. One is a republic (Taiwan), the other is a communist totalitarian dictatorship (mainland China), for the time being. The CCP is making war noises, so we'll see what happens. Both make cheap trash products. Both also make some good products, but the bad far outweighs the good.
@らてちゃん All capacitor failure is bad, but leaking is worse because the electrolyte is both corrosive and conductive. If the leak is left long enough, it will eat into the circuitry and can seep inside the PCB and cause irreversible damage. A short can be good if the circuitry is properly designed, a fuse can be blown or have OCP and shut the device down. In that case, you just have to change the caps. Capacitors that go high ESR is another bad scenario. The capacitor effectively becomes a big resistor that draws heavy current and can blow components both up and downstream of it. I've seen a single bad capacitor cause cause multiple cascading failures that blew quite literally every component on the device to pieces.
When we buy PSU's like these, we know what we're getting into. I bought one to revive a 10 year old system and has been running as a file server with no issues for awhile now. Great video.
Yeah I saw a comment about some guy saying he has these in his office PCs and of course the comments are ripping on him for using them but it seems like they missed the part where he said "office PCs." I wouldn't trust this in any gaming PC but in a standard office PC with onboard graphics It's most likely fine...
This ought to be fun. I regularly use this PSU in entry level client builds. So far haven't had a single one fail over the years. But then again they are usually Athlon 3000g, 2400g, or 5600 level builds used for basic computing and integrated graphics are all that is needed. Can't wait to see how these do when put through the ringer. Thanks Steve!!
@Steve The 430W total output rating is not misleading just because the +12V rail is only rated for 387W as suggested in the video. As it suggests the "Total Power [Output]" is the total output that the PSU is rated to sustain from the power supply; "Total" includes the +12V, +5V, and +3.3V. Other higher end power supplies often are able to do the entire rated output on the 12V rail because they are using DC-DC to generate the minor rails (5V, 3.3V). They take the +12V output and convert it to 5V and 3.3V. This means DC-DC power supplies need to be able to output the full power on the 12V rail as the power for the 5V and 3.3V rail is being taken from the +12V. The Thermaltake Smart 430W is a group regulated power supply which doesn't generate the minor rails from the 12V output, so it doesn't need to output the total power from the 12V. The 12V and 5V rails are generated together and the 3.3V is usually generated from the 5V output (generating from 12V is also possible but since 5V and 3.3V maximum output is grouped together at 110W it's likely generating 3.3V from the 5V rail). One of the big problems with group regulation is the power supply regulates the voltage of 5V and 12V together, so if there is a heavy load on the 12V rail which causes the 12V voltage to drop the power supply will compensate by raising the voltage to both 12V and 5V since they are regulated together, which can cause the 5V rail to fall outside of the +/- 5% tolerance allowed in spec - and vice versa if there's a heavy load on 5V and light load on 12V. These crossload scenarios are part of the reason why group regulated power supplies aren't recommended [at all really, but especially for] systems with high end CPUs/GPUs as the high 12V load can potentially drag 5V rail out of spec. While the CPU and graphics card are the biggest power consumers in most systems, there are still a lot of things that require 5V such as USB devices, HDDs, SSDs, and more... Even though the power supply is only rated for 387W on the 12V out of the 430W total (90% available on +12V) you can (potentially, depending on the specific setup) still get the full 430W output from when you factor things like USB devices and drives. Just because the maximum rated output isn't available on the +12V rail doesn't mean it's misleading. Realistically having 90% of the power available on the +12V rail for a low wattage power supply like this is going to be perfectly fine for most systems except for very odd edge cases. In a DC-DC system loading up the minor rails will reduce the output of the 12V rail, it's just that it's arguably more flexible as you *could* get the entire output on 12V rail if the 5V/3.3V rail isn't loaded, but it's unlikely you'd ever be using a system that *only* has a +12V load and 0W load on +5V. Whatever load you have on the 5V/3.3V rails is going to be taking that power from the 12V rail counting towards its maximum rated output. I see a lot of comments on forums/reddit saying that power supplies are "fake" or "lying" if they can't output the maximum power on the 12V rail and it can be difficult trying to explain it to people, and I'm worried someone trusted like GN perpetuating the myth is just going to make it more difficult. You should instead educate people on how to read the output power table on the power supply label. The table shows the maximum output for the +12V rail. Instead of saying it's misleading just inform people that with cheaper power supplies (group regulated) if the total output for 12V is important to you then you may need to pay more attention to details of the maximum output of each rail instead of just blindly going off the total output. I know GN is still new to PSU reviews, and I think this is the first group regulated unit you have looked at, so hopefully you get to read this and at least now understand why on this power supply (and other group regulated power supplies) the total output rating isn't the same as the total output on +12V rail.
Thank you for making this review. This is exactly in the range of my budget and I cannot really pay much more. I even saw this exact PSU as a potential option. Having your opinion on it is invaluable for people like me who can't afford what we would actually want to buy. We buy "GN it's OK" stamped hardware because we just can't do any better. I hope to see more of this budget PSU reviews on the channel, it really makes a difference for people like me. BTW, I know that there are some cheap "It's OK" cases out there waiting for your reviews that would really help the community.
“We removed the capacitor for safety” and immediately proceed to touch both electrodes. May as well have left it on and simply discharged it since it appears you discharged it anyway.
Thanks for the review, as always, it's great to have more coverage of this otherwise under-represented part of the market. One suggestion that I would like to see implemented is to show the output voltage and ripple at the point when OCP triggers. If OCP is at 150% at 12V but output and ripple stay under control, it's not much of a problem. On the other hand, if OCP triggers at 130% but 12V output drops to 10.8V with .1V of ripple, that would be a problem. Either way, I look forward to your next review!
Personally, I really like the Thermaltake SMART series PSUs. I’ve been using them for the last few years with absolutely no issues to speak of (from the perspective of an ‘everyday man’ casual consumer) , and is currently my go-to for my lower end and mid-range systems (from a Core 2 Duo 38600 + GTX 750 system, to a i7-7700K + GTX 1060). Can’t say I’ve used the 430W, though; I usually go with the 600W or 700W model. Still.
Thermaltake do not make their own power supplies they contract it out to various OEM, so if you buy their cheap PSU you get the ones made to be cheap. Their higher end PSUs will be made by one of the better manufacturers who don't cut corners and use high quality cap. i.e. their Toughpower range is generally good.
6:25 - The datasheet numbers are not sacred values. The datasheet says 8A continuous at a case temperature of 100C. It doesn't say you can't pass 10A with external cooling, like from the fan. However, it will never draw 10A unless it fails. Highest nominal current will be about 5A (~500W at 100VAC), so the 8A rectifier has 60% nominal margin. It's fine.
It's not a "YCAP" It is an MOV. It isn't a "XCAP" it is a Polyester Film Cap. Do you guys even know what they do? You guys have been hoodwinked by big box companies and don't understand what you are talking about. The reality is that any PSU is MORE then capable of doing the job asked of it. What you guys don't understand is that power conversion is EASY, and BASIC, unless you add a buck converter. Then you are adding a tonne of noise. Even a two dollar capacitor will half your voltage ripple. These companies are giving you what you pay for, and there is nothing wrong with a 90mV ripple. Your GPU's etc... have capacitors which filter that anyway. I could make a $10 PSU which will do just fine, $100 would be overkill, so for $30 you are going to get ripple. Use a $2 cap and throw it across your 12V rail, 5V rail, and 3.3V rail. But then that cuts into that $30. Those $400 PSU's are an absolute rip off... and intel wants to move the buck converters to it's board so motherboard manufacturers can charge more, and you have to buy a new one every platform. That's it. Your trip points are thermally limited, because parts at that cost point, use thermal protection. Otherwise you have to add a different circuit.
Thats the exact same I bought 5 years ago for my ryzen "upgrade" knowing it would barely scrape what I needed. It hasnt failed once yet so it was definetly a win for me for the price I paid. Currently running a R5 1600, RX580, 32GB ram and way too many hard drives with no issues. I'm planning on getting a 3060 but I dont trust the PSU to be able to handle it comfortably so an upgrade is certainly on my to do list.
your system uses 185W + 65W =250 plus some 30 for the hard drives, coolers etc, you would be probably fine on a 350W PSU since they might be able to survive some 450W ocasional loads
you'll be fine. i used to run an i7 2600 and an undervolted rx470 on a 240watt dell psu. when i bought my ryzen system, i went for a 430watt evga psu and ran a r5 2600 and gtx 1070 with zero problems (undervolting wasn't needed, but i did it). i recently upgraded to a 1080ti (250watt tdp) and the 430watt psu is still doing fine with the undervolted gpu. granted, i do not feel comfortable running it without the undervolt, but i undervolt all my cards anyway. also, i just looked up the tdp for each card, and it turns out that your 580 is actually rated for higher tdp than the 3060, 185watts vs 170watts.
@@wisico640 yeah but in the end, its is a cheap psu that has been used for 5 years nonstop... Plus the previous one I had I gave away to a friend that had a similar power draw than my pc and he ended up blowing it up a week later
@@QruisS fair enough, a good psu should last quite a while longer tho. I have an old PC Power & Cooling 750w that has been running for like 14 years & still gives off solid voltages 😂
"Just save for a better model" is my most hated phrase including every other area of existence, the only people who don't use it are maybe clothes retailers and supermarkets (food retailers) ... I get it, I understand blah blah blah, but with power supplies you literally see no darn difference, at least with a gpu I can see frames, or processor I can feel less lag, I've bought expensive PSUs before, I get it they're safe and the zero RPM fan modes are nice, but honestly I would've been 10000x better off with money in my pocket! Good Bye Sirs
Pffft lol I bought a 600W for 25 euro PSU a while ago and it works fine. I just put the case on my aluminium desk with nothing flammable around it. Nothing can happen. I'll take the risk.
I like that GN recently includes more of the other staff in their videos. Really makes you appreciate all their knowledge and different fields of expertise.
Diablo Tek still in business!? 😆 my cousin bought a Diablo 550w back in 2006, I think it was $20-$30, that blew and took out most of his components with it. I was running an 800w BFG PSU ( I miss BFG 😔) because I needed the 6 pin PCI-E connectors for my 8800 Ultra
Just wish they made more BETTER PSU's since like the smallest you can get(of GOOD quality) these days are like 550-650W which is a bit overkill for a 100W pc
Although you get to 200W+ really fast (far from 450 though). A smaller CPU, MB, maybe a PCI-e card and a disk or two probably already comfortably get you there.
I bought an 80+ White from them, 650W. It freaking burnt my RX 570 PCIE connector. It was all black instead of white. I called them and they said it can't happen, it was due to misuse for sure and that the best they could do would be to send a replacement BUT I would have to send the problematic one and pay for both way shipping, which was 80+ $CAD. Won't ever buy any PSU from this company... EVER. Good thing is I could change the PCIE connector (female) on the graphics card and it worked fine afterwards. Still a headache.
Could someone please help me . I have two gpus both of which have the same issue when I boot up any game the cpu usage goes all the way too %100 and the gpu usage will be at like let’s say %30 MAX. Ik it’s the dedicated gpu from using occt tool and hwinfo . I’ve tried every driver for the gpu past and present update bios, running through all the power plan settings etc nothing fixes the issue. For some reason after playing overwatch for awhile it fixes itself but after I reset the pc it happens again. Build : I7 2600 Sapphire rx 470 4gb DDR3 12gb 450w psu Pleaseeee help
Hello, I want you to help me buy a regular computer. I saw your videos from expensive collections. If you can help me to buy a mid-range gaming computer with the following specifications, please i7 4g 128 GB SSD 1000 GB hard disk 8 GB RAM If you can 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Hello, I want you to help me buy a regular computer. I saw your videos from expensive collections. If you can help me to buy a mid-range gaming computer with the following specifications, please i7 4g 128 GB SSD 1000 GB hard disk 8 GB RAM If you can 🙏🙏🙏
Hello, I want you to help me buy a regular computer. I saw your videos from expensive collections. If you can help me to buy a mid-range gaming computer with the following specifications, please i7 4g 128 GB SSD 1000 GB hard disk 8 GB RAM If you can
About 2.5 years ago, I received TWO of these and they were BOTH DOA. I mean, what are the odds? For the record I'm not stupid and I know how to troubleshoot. I sent them both back to be replaced -- and one of them became lost within their bureaucracy. I was so disgusted at the whole ordeal that I just couldn't put forth the energy to fight and get the 2nd one credited and a single replacement shipped out. Fortunately, the one RMA'd PSU that they did manage to get back to me DID WORK. I was almost surprised, except then the odds of three bad PSUs in a row from Thermaltake must be astronomically long. Let's just say at this point that I'm unlikely to be a repeat customer for this company, though I'm sure experiences vary but this is the single worst experience I've had in my decades of building computers (most of that time -- as part of my job).
The worst power supply i ever bought was a thermaltake TR2 RX 750w this was over 14 years ago I remember having a GTX 460 and a i5 760. And every time i played any game the power supply would had a horrible coil whine sound. Thermaltake was shit back in the day and it looks like it’s still shit today
One thing is that it works when it's new. If I buy a PSU, I want to trust it 3-4 years down the road also (minimum). With "lower lifetime parts", I'm not sure. 2000h, that's 83 days and 8 hours - so not even 3 months. I'd rather spend a bit more money and not worrying about this kind of stuff.
I got the Thermaltake Grand RGB 650W for $100 and it has been working well for the past 3 years. Though the voltage ripple is as bad as this one and the thing I hate about it is how loud the coil whine is, especially during idle. My next power supply won't be a thermaltake for sure.
Can GN test SFX PSUs as well such as the Corsair 750w (platinum) and Cooler Master 850w (gold) as these are a regular amongst ITX higher end builds. Thanks ☺
I don't understand why people keep buying this 430w, when you can usually find the 600w version from the same Tt Smart 80+ White label series on sale at the exact same price...
I've had this exact psu for over 5 years with an i3 9100f and a gtx 1650 and have had 0 problems with it. Fairly regularly my area loses power abruptly due to high wind speeds and never has a component on my pc broken.
The fact that something like this can even be build for $25-$30, and the supplier can still make like a $5 profit is mind blowing. Cheap Chinese labour exploitation FTW!
At what point is a power suply good enough? I'm looking at the be quiet! Straight Power 11 Platinum 1200W because I want a rtx 4080. I there any problem with that?
Hi, can you replace the dead diode on the -12v line, and replace all the electrolic capacitors for good quality brand like rubycon or nichicon? I am curious to see how much will the ripple and effenciency improve. Thanks alot
Silverstone Essentials 700W lately had a sale for only $23. 80 plus certified and overall better than this one. Maybe budget builders could look out for silverstone deals
16:04 that's the wrong table. Voltage ripple is in table 3-5 under section 3.2.5. That table implies 500 mV p-p for the 5V rail but that's the maximum deviation from nominal voltage (typically depending on the load) not the ripple.
Great review, thanks! It's fantastic to see a thorough review for a lower end part like this without it being a just for laughs slam dunk on a garbage, dangerous part. I do think that in the load testing for the review, you should stick to the sticker loads. On a higher end supply, meeting the overall sticker wattage on just the 12V rail might make sense. But for a budget supply, it kind of doesn't. Besides that, it seems somewhat misleading to apply gamer or overclocker standards to this kind of unit. If the sticker loads are correct, and it meets the ATX spec, then that should be emphasized a little more. That said, SCP not working on a rail is bad! And no rational person would disagree with the conclusion of the video. tl;dr: amazing content i love a good low end review
Ultimately I can't help but feel that if a power supply is supplying power within the spec (is it still +/- 10%?) then whatever is plugged into it should handle that as well, so maybe there's a little misplaced stigma towards lower end power supplies.
Oh shit. I'm actually watching this video on a PC that is using this exact PSU. But it's a 14 year old Core 2 Quad PC with a 550ti, runs just fine a old lower powered PC.
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can you do antec power supply next as i wish to see if it will support cards for the future.
going to be honest. I use this psu in most of my budget gaming
What I've found over the years is that an acceptable psu costs about $/€10 per 100Watts, a good one $/€15 and a great one $/€20.
What do you think about the chieftec psus? It's an old popular budget brand in europe but not many reviews are out there.
Hey Gamers Nexus, you might not want to state it as "% Over Current" in the OCP Data table (22:33) as that seems to indicate an 'additive percentage'. 64.5% above 32.25 amps is 53.05 amps; 164.5% above that is 85.30 amps. It might be better to state it as like "% of Current" or perhaps something else.
Cheaping out on the efficiency to make it cheap but safe is exactly what I want to see from a budget PSU!
Exactly. Heck I don't even care if it has just an 80 Plus rating, no bronze, for that price.
I've bought a few of these over the years for absolute budget computers that have extremely cheap components, and they've always functioned properly.
What my personal rule of thumb is when buying a budget power supply is to buy something with a lot of reviews, go to the one star reviews, and see what the most common failures are.
The number one complaint for these thermaltake smart power power supplies (when I last checked!) was them being DOA.
At the time when I bought these, there were no reviews for "it killed xyz" or "Went up in smoke when I plugged it in".
I've actually avoided more expensive power supplies from name brands as there were trends where it would take out components, like the Corsair VS units, and so far my tactic has been working well.
Yeah the reviews are pretty spot on, i've built hundreds of PCs with low end TT PSUs and i've only ever had one DOA
I'm so glad you guys are branching out into more and more areas of testing. It's been so cool to see you grow. :)
Great review guys, I love that you emphasized the target market for the unit and didn't just call it "the worst PSU in it's class" or some other drama centric nonsense. These "budget" parts exist for a reason and knowing that it does the job it's intended to and does it passably well is all most people in the position to need such a cheap PSU want to know. At these price points even $5 makes a huge difference in component specs/performance. I can't imagine the margins on these are very high so kudos to Thermaltake for even producing these at such a low price point while keeping the quality at least safe for the intended use (unlike cheaper units). This is the kind of review I like to see. Some channels seem to have forgotten that not everyone can afford high end parts and bash on budget options (unfairly) just to get views.
The review years ticker. This satisfies my pop up video nostalgia.
I bought an Emachine over 10yrs ago it still works.
I still have one!
I've used one for a HTPC which ran perfectly for 4 years. I only changed it when I swapped to a micro Inwin Gold Power Supply. I run a AMD 3400G chip, RX6400 Card. All that off 180 watts !
I just bought the 500 watt variant of this so I'm glad to hear that it's actually somewhat good. It's only going to be used in a home Plex server so not really too worried about it. It has a 5-year warranty so I don't know that really means anything.
It's not "good", or even "somewhat good". It's really just barely scraping by ATX Spec (and even missing that on the top end of the 5V and 3.3V rails). As Steve said, it's not unsafe, but its definitely not a great unit. Unless the 20$ are needed for you to get by, i probably wouldn't recommend this.
Some of the best PSU's I've ever used were the cheapest on the market. I had more Seasonic PSU's failed than I did non-branded PSU's.
5V is still used by hard drives, USB and associated peripherals. I do value criticism that the 12V rail can't hit the rated output but I wouldn't call it misleading either. I guess I'm saying that I'm having an expectation that there will be some additional load on the other rails that would go towards the total rated output and misleading is a bit too harsh of a term to describe it.
I love the new block diagrams in the review. Bonus coincidence that Patrick's eye line up with two of the capacitors on the board for a moment. Spooky. It would have been nice to have an AC square wave graphic given when Patrick was describing the rectification. Ditto for the part numbers being stated in the video.
Patrick: I'm going to teach you how a power supply works [begins speaking a foreign language]
This probably would be fine for an "old school" Pentium or Duo-Core or similarly modest computer that you are using for a singular purpose. I recently built such a (mini-ITX) computer just to run an image scanner. It has integrated video, 4GB RAM and two SATA hard drives (SSD + HDD). It requires a 250-watt PSU, but I went with a 450-watt PSU (not ThermalTake).
Not cheaping out on the power supply means not buying the most generic, off brand garbage you could get. I witnessed bad power supplies kill good computers because my dad didn't want to spend extra for something of reasonable quality. Needless to say it didn't take until later in his life to realize going the cheapest can end up being the most expensive. The upper midrange has always served me well in the price/performance delta as well as having less features to break on the top end. I get a very good quality item without paying 50% more for 20%(or LESS) performance.
"It didn't ship like that"
Idk, a build-your-own PSU sounds like enthusiast grade to me
Been using a Thermaltake Toughpower XT 875W semi modular Bronze supply for over 9 years now. It's been through an I5 4670K, I7 4790K, Ryzen 7 1700X, Ryzen 7 3700X, and currently a Ryzen 7 5800X. Also been powering a GTX 590, GTX 670, GTX 980, GTX 980TI, RX 580, and currently an RTX 3070TI. People say this is not a.good power supply, but it's never given me any issues and runs my custom builds perfectly. I don't know what the lifespan of a PSU is, but it's still running perfectly(knock on wood) to this day. Does anyone really know if this is a good psu compared to the newer ones?
Can you guys take a look at the Seasonic S12III 500 SSR-500GB3 500W 80+ Bronze PSU? A few months ago I was going to buy this one, but ultimately changed my mind due to the poor reviews from Newegg and Amazon. Something to do with Seasonic outsourcing this line of PSU's to a lower tier company. I am just really curious to see if these claims are true, considering how Seasonic it's considered one of the high tier PSU brands. Thank you for all your hard work and extensive research.
"3420" -> Not something I usually see on anything PC related, as that's the American-date-format! Usually, it would be in this order: "2034".
I would take a bottom-feeder Corsair CX way before that Thermaltake.
If it won't trip current until that high, could you do efficiency testing at 120 or 140% .... since someone could actually be running it that high....
I feel like "nothing seriously wrong" is a victory for this little thermaltake unit! It gave a strong showing for costing less than some high end case fans!
It's probably fine for APU builds or super low end builds. All that ripple has little effect on a standard small CPU.
I have a similar unit in my 7 year old build, with a Haswell i5, and GTX 960 (at the time, I had no other corners I could cut if I wanted to fit the 960 and quad core in the budget). I’m rather surprised it hasn’t keeled over long ago.
@@robojimtv yeah it would be perfectly fine for something like a i3-12100 & RX6500XT/GTX1650Super for 1080p/E-Sports Gaming
@@Lauren_C Yeah a perfect example of where these are useful, adding a 50/60 GPU to the 2000-4000 DELL Optiplexs that had a ATX PSU & Standard Mobo
I run a small PC company and we have a deal with Thermaltake on these.
They work great, we run their 430W model and 600W models respectively.
We mainly focus on lower-end systems but we've done higher-end RTX builds and still used these to save money for the customer, 0 issues in years of usage.
Prior to that we used a 450W Thermaltake model and it was fantastic also.
We used to use HighPower gold series (same that you see in Origin PC and other companies), and Apevia's gold series, I've found those to be less or equally reliable.
They get the job done.
How could you pass up such a hot power supply as Diablo? What could go wrong pushing electricity through something named like a fire demon?
Wouldn't be surprised to see Diablo PSUs as a sponsor for House of the Dragon, alongside Gigabyte PSUs
I had a diablo psu before, it smelled weird every time I used it
The flames are a feature
The fire that ensues is the next new in-thing. Step aside RGB LEDs, open flames are IN!
@@HoloScope I imagine the smell was similar to when a tube TV burns out or when an electrical socket pops.
Seeing your self-rating on your expertise in this field rate you as a novice because you’re just getting started is some next level integrity and i’m here for it
We're trying to make sure everyone is on the same page! Adding a new category is difficult, and we want to make sure it's clear when you may want to still check a second source while we learn and improve!
This comment are my words exactly.
@@GamersNexus You might think you're novices because of experience, but this is some top notch explanation and data gathering.
I want to know how many years is deity...
No, you're not truly novice since you have a badass like Stone aboard, plus the expertise of your team developing test plans, gathering data, and producing reports and copy. But, I appreciate the conservative ranking system. It's not often people will willfully sell themselves short for the benefit of their customer/audience.
A fun test for GN would be testing a well aged used PSU that was once high end. Say one from 10+ years ago.
Because people love buying old formerly high end used PSU's for cheap, believing they're getting the same performance from them as when new.
And I know myself, PSU's are a consumable item that doesn't age too gracefully in some cases.
Would have loved to send over my old well used Corsair TX 650W that had seen solid use since I bought it back in 2009. 24/7 runtime for the last 5 years.
But it self destructed after what I suspect was a major short from being absolutely caked up with dust, looked like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag.
The hardest part of buying old good quality PSUs are noisy or damaged fans, proper replacement fans are so hard to find since starting voltage is way too low in many PSUs (many PSU fans have a starting voltage of 3.0v) and the only brand I've seen that specifies Fan starting voltage is Arctic and Noctua. Besides, many are not PWM fans so this shrinks possible replacements even more. The only ones I was tempted to buy were Arctic's P12 or F12 since those have a starting voltage of 2.8v, good price and quality, no point in buying Noctua.
G'day Cyber😺,
I was thinking a similar thought as a comparison while watching,
would it be better to buy a new Low Cost PSU like this one or a Quality Used PSU a few years to 10yrs old or for similar price?
@@yorchli3152 Sunon KD1212PTB works pretty well for me. Double balls bearing and starts at 3V
That's why people say invest in a good psu, not only for the extra Watts/effic, but so that it lasts more than 3-4 years.
Speaking of low wattage, Seasonic used to have a 360w gold rated model (SSR-360GP). It scored a VERY good review from jonnyguru. I have like 3 at this point (plus an OEM model). I wish they still made them.
We'll look into what they might make today as a replacement!
SSP-300SFG is a 300W 80+ Gold SFX unit I'm running in a SFF APU build which I built in November. Good unit
I have a couple of what I assume are the OEM versions: SSP-350GT also 80+Gold, no PCIe Power but I used them for office PCs so they're just fine.
Ironically in a similar vein, I replaced most other office PCs with some random Thermaltake grayboxes that I got for cheap. Sounds dangerous, but they're solid unlike the old PSUs whivh were made of the cheapest Chinesium you can find, and had:
* 3 just died.
* 3 had extremely rattly fans.
* 2 had _no fans_ idk how they still worked.
* 1 had a capacitor cover just dangling around. Still worked somehow.
* 2 had no fuses to speak of, just bypassed.
@@GamersNexus There are BeQuiet budget PSU's Im interested in, should be good for any modern 300-350W system like an Office PC or HTPC or just a reapir of and old system people want to keep alive. There are so many 775 systems and stuff people still use for home businesses and stuff that dont even have a 300W rated PSU from Dell ;)
They are called "BeQuiet System Power B9 Bulk PC" on Conrad, the 300W 80+ starts at 46€ here in Sweden, the 350W is 49€.
There OEM/Bulk so not even painted, just silver like the old days.
I think Bequiets model number for them are BN206 and BN207
I think the 300W dont have PCI-E power but the 350W I think has so yea very basic BUT sometimes thats all you need.
Me and friends often have to fix systems on a budget that are low power but still used.
Nothing I would use for a modern Enthusiast build but for an old system or building from used parts it might be an option when the budget is almost null.
@ BQ's 300-350W models are decent little supplies, they're just decade-old tech. Still using FSP's EPN platform by the looks of it. Unless you are actually in the business of building PCs on a certain scale, I see fairly little reason to buy one when you can get a good used Straight Power 10 (CM) 400W/500W, Pure Power 9 (CM) 500W or System Power 7 500W for the same kind of money or less, all of which are substantially more efficient and modern.
Been watching GN for years . Seen GN grow from games to hardware to full on testing with genuine lab equipment. Here's the thing, as you and your team have grown so has the community that you have created. Not just in size but in knowledge. Repairs that I tackle today I would not have even dared back in the early days of GN. But armed with my trusty mod mat and years of shared knowledge by GN and the community, replacing dead caps on an old motherboard doesn't seem like that much of a big deal. You have helped me share my love of PC's with my children and we often have discussions at dinner on the latest upload. Thank you
That's so awesome to hear that! Genuinely one of the most heart-warming comments I've read on the channel. Thank you for sharing.
@@GamersNexus Thanks GN
@@GamersNexus I graduated my last year of High School, class of 1978, attending a Tech School, 3-quarters of Radio & T.V. Repair. So, I've been a power supply junkie for decades....To my knowledge, the explanation of the components & their functions has never been covered in detail like this in any 'computer enthusiast' video.
Congratulations and Job Well Done, Steve & Company! For me, this was very satisfying to watch... 🇺🇸 😎👍☕
09:47 that's interesting, I had a NTC thermistor blow up on an Enermax PSU about 12 years ago. The PSU would still work but I would hear a loud crack every time I switch on the mains, and when I looked I could see the green casing had blown out the side. The Seasonic replacement has been good since and I still use the PC for old games.
Wow! Still working since it was replaced 12 years ago?!
@@GamersNexus Yeah, that's how I learned it's worth spending on a quality PSU. Tempted to replace the whole PC when the new GPUs come out but I'm going to be in for a shock when I realise how much the typical prices have increased since then 😅.
I was running the included no name PSU from my amd opteron build back in 04 and it just died when I overloaded it with a new (used) graphics card and forgot to plug the fan in that I had re wired to an external header to keep the noise down.
Made it to almost 20 years, with about 5 years of down time before I upgraded the single core opteron to a used 3rd gen i5.
I have a Corsair GS700 that has seen i7-2600 when the CPU was brand new. Now powering i7-8700K @5.0GHz and RX5700XT and no prob whatsoever. Quality PSU will last a decade easily. If I ever need more power I will buy either Corsair or Seasonic 1000+w.
I had the same thing happen with a 10 year old HX or TX 650W Corsair made by Seasonic. It worked every time but there where sparks flying out of it every powerup.
I can solder and stuff BUT it was in such I tight space requiring a big tear down of the unit to get to it so I sad F-it and sent it for recycled it instead.
So its not a problem for just budget stuff, they seem to crack due to age I guess, heat cycling and also the shrink wrap around it is there to stop it exploding everywhere BUT dont help when its open at the top XD
This psu is in 3 of my office PC's for almost a decade now. They run 12hrs a day every day. & Get cleaned out every year. They have survived 1 lightning strike with no apparent failure of their capacitors or mov's.
You sure its the exact same model? I dont remember TT Smart being around that long. And even if it is the same midel, I highly doubt that they're using the same parts as they did a decade ago.
@@TKIvanov they are smart power 450 with 80plus white and pfc.. cables are not sleeved. but runs great they powering a q6600 & a7870k and r3 2200g (the systems have been upgraded at due to different needs of each user but they were all build around 2012 with all of them at first having p4 631. the psu is very similar , i need to find the box to let u know the exact model.
@らてちゃん looks and protection in some cases where there is sharp metal exposed. i have had one pc came with intermittent shutdown and won't turn on again till power cycled turned out the sata power cable has rubbed through and shorting into the metal case which is ground causing the psu to shut down in overcurrent protection.
Problem with this review is simple: these thermaltake smart units seem to change components and manufacture constantly, its why the labels/specs were different in 3 places.
interesting - makes sense
This seems to be a fair offering. I expected this one to perform worse tbh. One thing I would really love to hear more about during these psu reviews is noise level.
Yea, I thought this was an oversight on their part myself...It would be fairly easy for them to do...I have had several power supplies that were louder than my case fans!
Not sure how relevant this would be to the subject, but I have the 500w version of this series of psu and the the fan is basically silent. No coil whine to speak of.
I have this exact psu, its basically silent.
Yep, I have the Thermaltake Grand RGB and the coil whine is loud AF especially during idle.
Would be cool if GN put together a "logical increments" PC build tier list
Definitely. With click links so they get paid or similar reward when we buy.
what do you mean by “logical increments”? like how much you should spend on each part for certain budgets?
Something I think you guys may want to mention when discussing capacitor lifespan and temperature (so as not to make people think that their caps are going to go bad really fast) is that a capacitor's lifespan doubles for every 10°C below the rated temperature. So that cap will actually last 4,000 hours @ 95°C 8,000 hours @ 85°C, etc. It's not something the average person would know, and they might only hear "2,000 hours" and not fully understand what "2,000 hours at 105°C" actually means.
Thanks. I thought it was insanity that the manual claimed 100.000hr MTBF and then GN cracked it open to reveal 2000hr caps.
What kind of temperatures would be normal operating temps? Would they usually be in that 85° area extending the lifespan? Obviously there's a lot of variables like ambient temp, case, other hardware but I'm just wondering ballpark figures.
@@stevenjohnson1692 I mean it's really hard to say. Only the manufacturer would know that for sure. But under normal usage I would expect it to be much lower, considering the MTBF is 100,000 hours. To hit that, temps would probably be around 55° on average. 85° as normal operating temps would cause the cap to fail in less than 3 years at 8 hours per day of usage. But given the relatively low power of this unit, I don't think the air around the capacitor (which is what the temperature rating refers to) would ever really reach that temperature unless you are pushing it to the absolute limit and the fan has failed.
@@scuder179 ahh, yeah I didn't really think about the difficulty of getting a temperature on it. Of course especially for cheap products like this you gotta take everything the manufacturer says with a truckload of salt lol.
@@scuder179 I wonder why they didn't measure ESR (and ESL), that would give a lot better picture of the lifespan.
The power supply breakdown is solid gold. This information even helps me while restoring old CRT monitors. Thanks so much for this
In the "for what it's worth" department, I've built hundreds of machines with these over the last fifteen years, and they've been nearly perfect. I can't remember the last failure. I've also built with at least dozens, if not hundreds, of the other wattage of TT Smart PSUs, and I think the only failure has been a DOA.
@gamersnexus maybe add some testing that looks for performance impacts of the voltage variability?
In this price range, "meets the spec" is good enough. It actually makes the Gigabyte failures all the more ridiculous.
The -12V SCP fail is the real discrepancy for the target use case.
Two comments on the data:
1. The first pass on the block diagram would have been better if a bit larger and not presented as an overlay on Patrick Stone.
2. It would have helped to have the Intel spec identified on the chart if that value was in the chart range. I would not expand the chart to include it, but I think it would help to better understand what is, and is not, meeting the spec.
It doesn't quite meet the spec however. The cables are shorter than advertised :P
"The -12V SCP fail is the real discrepancy for the target use case." pretty sure they didn't include any protection in the specs, while only the -12V failed.
I have a Thermaltake Smart 630, it's been 5 years and the psu still works very well, with a few months exceptions, the pc has been on every day for roughly 10 hours, probably 50 power outages and several power spikes, B450+Ryzen 3 3100+RX 470
I have a 600 and it's seen a similar life for the past 2 years. Still quiet and reliable, just dusty
I’ve used a few of these in systems and builds and so far no issues. Yeah they aren’t excellent but for entry level systems, they work well. And I’d rather have Teapo capacitors than the no-name ones found in other cheap PSUs that are guaranteed to bulge or leak in a year or two.
Look forward to more testing of PSUs across basic to premium!
I started laughing when you reviewed this cuz I actually bought some of these for the all-in-one CPU with on board graphics motherboard combo. So good to hear that it's going to work. Feels good feel safer that you've tested this. Thank you.
this is a 430W PSU that handled 560W in the test, your spec is probably under 80W
I'm curious how this compares to the PSUs included in prebuilts (dell, hp and the like) since they often have good 80+ ratings but low wattage
What I also wonder is how this compares to the two other 30$ PSUs I could find on amazon which are the EVGA W1 500W and the EVGA W3 450W. While testing those is probably not worth the effort I still wonder how they stack up...
I'd like to see the W3 since the only legit review is gone and the enclosure has gone under some revisions, so possibly a changed internal layout. Last I recall, it actually performed pretty well for a group regulated unit like this smart.
The W1 has been reviewed by Aris(psu reviewer for tomshardware/kit guru/etc.) a year or two ago, and the result was the bridge rectifier exploding when under max load, so that'd be a fun test I suppose.
OEM prebuilts don't have cross-load problems because 12V-only, and can use higher quality parts at the same total cost -- again because 12V-only.
@@Vegemeister1 I didn't know they only used 12V. I guess there is at least one upside to proprietary stuff.
@@Vegemeister1 And a pretty smart way to save money / get a better psu for the same money
Honestly, I'm amazed they can design, build, and ship a halfway decent PSU for $30. So, to some extent, TT should be applauded for making something that *probably* won't catch your house on fire at this price.
That being said, I would never buy it, and would likely never recommend it.
Thermaltake probably didn't design it, hardly anyone selling power supplies do these days even if their logo makes it to the PCB.
If your shocked at this thing costing $30 you'll probably be even more shocked at how much it would cost if you take the TT branding away and get it directly from the OEM.
There is a very good reason seemingly every "makes" power supplies, it's very profitable even at the low-end.
@@zacharytaylor8523 yep good points. Although at this price point I'm sure TT isn't marking it up much. It would be curious to know what the BOM cost is. But then it needs to be branded, packaged, shipped, and the retailer needs to make something on it too.
@@zacharytaylor8523 Yeah, low-end stuff in particular is outsourced. According to old threads TT uses OEMs like HEC, Channel Well Technology, and FSP. This power supply has probably been in production for well over a decade though so it'll still be one of them.
TT doesn't make PSUs. It's basically the same hardware Great Wall and CoolerMaster and a dozen other budget brands use. Generally the brand companies order them to meet a certain price point and specifications, so you can get crap and great stuff coming out of the same factory, and for the same reason the work Steve and boys do is important because it is near impossible for consumers to tell what is what. Being a brand name does not automatically mean the unit you buy is any good (looking at you, CoolerMaster), just like a low end brand like Great Wall (which you'll find in stuff like Walmart PCs) actually isn't all that terrible - I mean, they don't blow up and won't fry your stuff
kinda crazy how cheap this thing is. you can get an entire power supply for the cost of a single premium case fan from Noctua or Corsair
Goes to show the actual bare margin on "premium" fan :-)
The molded parts are pennies and the PCB is populated in smd jelly bean. Yes its round so an extra penny..
If you take out development costs and copper winding /rare earth magnets then there should be quite a lot of money to gain
@@kitecattestecke2303 You're probably mostly right, but for premium fans I expect them to use more-costly forming processes for the frame and impeller since they need tight tolerances. Also Noctua claims to use their own proprietary polymer for the impeller rather than a commodity plastic, which would raise costs.
it is indeed - the power supply is fine, for reference a 300W/30V open frame (no fan) with 85% efficiency would be over $200 at mouser.
I'd really love to see some of the low end Corsair and EVGA power supplies compared to this. Especially the bronze models. Most of the budget builds I've seen run $30-40 PSU's from those 2 brands.
Agreed. Lots of people buying low end evga and Corsair.
I had a Corsair cx650m years ago kill the motherboard ram GPU and even the CPU it was i5 4690k,Msi Gaming 5 motherboard,2x8gb gskill ripjaws and msi R9 290X I got it all from the same company and they swapped it all went with a different power supply tho they said they would get reimbursed from Corsair as the PSU was at fault with there testing
@@randomshorts739 Daaamn! Mf took everything with him?! I had a no-name PSU die during a storm like 13-14 years ago, it took nothing with it.
@@TKIvanov Yeah destroyed the whole PC just bought all the parts and the first time I turned it on for about £1200 I paid. The company I bought the parts from was really good done testing on all the parts and agreed with me IT was the powers supplies fault they just sent out all new parts apart from the power supply got a seasonic instead
Corsair low end PSUs are crap, would trust this over a Corsair low-end PSU any day of the week
This is where Linus has lost the plot, he no longer provides reviews that the average Joe wants to see, tech like this. He'd rather show us his giant $10000 monitor in his house than tech people actually can buy and need. Well done GN!
I stopped watching Linus years ago, the guy definitely lost the plot.
Found there own niche though. Once the lab is done I'm sure we'll see more normal people stuff
I remember the days of getting "Free" power supplies with the case. In the early 2000's this was the thing todo when selling a case. Some of the most cool cases i found had a power supply included and no option to buy without for cheaper lol. The last one i had was a mini atx "Xcube" case around 2004, the PSU lasted about 6 months before taking out my motherboard. It smoked randomly, crackled, melted wires going to motherboard and the 24pin connector on motherboard.
@AdamsWorld I can remember buying a case with power supply for only $25 back in the 90's at computer shows, this was normal and everyone used these for builds!
@@davidg2731
The equipment of those times needed 75% less energy than modern components
I guess that's the whole explanation
I've had the 500w version of this in a spare PC of mine for around 2 years now, and I haven't had any problems with it so far. Granted, it only has to run an i3 9100f and GTX 1060 3gb, but at one point it powered a GTX 470 with no issues. I'd say for the price, it's not bad at all.
Running 6 years strong with my 750w Thermaltake PSU. Haven't had issues with my GTX 1070 and ryzen 3600x. I even stupid stuff before
You need to tell that power supply buddy of yours to slow down and enunciate his words. He is speaking so fast that it is difficult to understand and digest what he is saying. He is also jumping from one stage to the next very quickly without a clear boundary/break/pause etc from the other section and just keeps pushing through. Someone who doesn't have a clear understanding of components will just go all glassy eyed. I have noticed that people on youtube are in a hurry to rifle as many words at the audience as possible so they won't get bored or move onto something else. I do think this video is excellent and very valuable to people looking to purchase that power supply or understand the components inside. Buying the cheapest one isn't always the best idea for component longevity. Some of the testers that used to do this aren't around anymore so it's nice to see someone taking up the mantle and running with it.
While the cheaper power supplies are interesting, it would be nice to see GN review some of the really high end PSUs as well. It would especially give a good comparison of really high end components to components like this one. Additionally with the rumoured power consumption of the upcoming RTX 4 series, higher watt/higher quality PSUs will potentially becoming more important.
Something like the Antec Signature Series 1000W Titanium, or the Corsair AX1000, or the Seasonic Prime Titanium they are based on. These are the ultra top end (I have the Antec one myself). Would be interesting to see Patrick compare the components of the crème of the crop PSU components to the ultra budget like this, as well as the mid-range stuff.
Working on more. For now, this one fills that! ua-cam.com/video/ftF8V6Di84s/v-deo.html
does Antec still make power supplies? We can't buy them in Scandinavia anymore because they had too many warranty issues
I know this is a gamers channel but I'm interested in the low-load efficiency of cheap, low-capacity power supplies for home servers; or other always-on, low-power devices. It would be cool to see which, if any, supplies have decent efficiency at 10W or 2% of max rated capacity. Or does the spec as written not set a meaningful standard?
I'm also interested in this. My guess is that you'd be better off using a shared high-efficiency industrial PSU (e.g. 12V) together with one Pico-PSU (or its cheaper clones) per server. In one of the slides, you can see that the efficiency on all the consumer PSUs they tested is atrocious (50%-60% range) at 2% load, even the high-end ones, because they have fixed overhead and are not optimized for very low loads.
I appreciated the block diagram/walk through and discussion of component choices/topology compared to higher quality power supplies. I understood the fundamentals already, but the visual representation of it combined with the part-by-part explanation was quite helpful. Being able to identify group regulated PSUs visually will be helpful in my own PSU testing. I'm prototyping a PSU adapter specifically for building AT PCs in ATX cases, and some of the issues I've run into with minimum loads tie into the topology and regulation.
Isn't the 5volt problem not the bigger issue? Most modern-day PSU's only have a output of 100W on the 5 volt lines while a decent P1 system could suck up 150/200W. Also the -5 volt line has disappeared from the ATX standard for a very long time now (which was the white cable on the 24 pin connector) and is used by some ISA cards. I know the Soundblaster 16 and AWE 32 needs -5 volt to function properly, which was the reason I had to unfortunately hunt down a old PSU with the white -5 volt cable for my P2 system.
@@thundereagle4130 The limited 5v output of newer PSU designs is certainly an issue, but just checking spec sheets is usually enough to figure out if a PSU will do the job in that respect. There are a number of ways to implement a -5v rail when a PSU doesn't supply it: Phil's Computer Lab has the Voltage Blaster which is a tiny ISA card with VRM circuitry to supply -5V in a plug and play fashion. Alternatively, you can roll your own that fits inline between the ATX PSU and AT power connectors.
When I tell people "Don't cheap out on the PSU" there are a few good reasons for this;
Namely most people get to the point where their current hardware isn't keeping up and generally it's a new GPU that will get swapped in. Having a good PSU allows you, even 5+ years down the line to easily swap out and power a current-gen card.
The other reason is mainly all the horror stories about the Ali Express specials that tend to go pop and take other components with them
Yep. When I started building PCs I was a young kid going into high school and I didn't have much money so I always skimped on the power supplies... and always had problems with them. Luckily none ever exploded but I did get BSODs.
Definitely don't cheap out with lesser known brands. They've got much less to lose. With more known brands you're just very likely to get old, cheap to produce, designs with lower efficiency (and lower operating times, I.E. don't expect it to get far past years of insurance it has).
@@MLWJ1993 I had this power supply from OCZ ? You remember them ? Ever heard of them ? Too bad they no longer exist, they made good products. I loves that power supply and used it in 3 different builds. It was still working just fine in 2016.
Yeah -12V is not used anymore by any PCs/MBs, I believe it was used for RS232/RS485 or some other legacy stuff.
I hope intel removed that rail from the newest ATX standard.
Btw. 24:30 did you actually physically verify that the cables are 18AWG?
-12v is also used in old soundcards (isa/pci), but modern uses are likely nonexistant.
@@MeatPoPsiclez Yeah it probably would've been only few cards and obviously none are used these days really.
Someone does PRO audio stuff you just get external ones.
ATX 2.0 is really obsolete.
These new PSU reviews are great. I've a friend who needs a cheap PSU just to repair a office PC, I'd suggest this since it's serviceable. One suggestion for these reviews I think is that if it's possible to add wave graphs of peak to peak ripples just out of interest plus in my opinion, it'll better visualise the ripples.
What you want is called an oscillogram. That's a capture from the screen of an oscilloscope. I think Steve's Rigol is capable of saving screen captures. You have to look at scopes a lot to develop some context for their waveforms to have much meaning.
Anyway, I’ve used these PSUs in the past with “office computers” (think Dell Optiplexes and HP Pro/Elite towers) that were blessed with 24-pin power connectors. They’re perfectly fine with 2600/3770 CPUs and sub-225 watt GPUs.
It's amazing to see a $30 PSU built without Chinese crap capacitors and transistors! The topology of this is TTF + diode rectification, and I personally recommend this kind of PSU for people with low budget because it's really cheap and robust.
By the way, the choke nearby the standby transformer is the mag-amp for 3.3v, not for 5vsb regulation.
Teapo is cheap chinese crap. I've replaced thousands of failed Teapo capacitors in all matters of electronic equipment. The green vomit ones usually leak, the black ones with the gold stripe usually have a seal failure, dry out and short out.
I was super surprised. Some of their higher wattage models use the likes of chengx or asiax, so to see Teapo across the board and even 105°C rated, very nice.
@@GGigabiteM Teapo is Taiwanese, but for some people there's no difference there. :p
@@maicrowsoft8867 They're both China. One is a republic (Taiwan), the other is a communist totalitarian dictatorship (mainland China), for the time being. The CCP is making war noises, so we'll see what happens.
Both make cheap trash products. Both also make some good products, but the bad far outweighs the good.
@らてちゃん All capacitor failure is bad, but leaking is worse because the electrolyte is both corrosive and conductive. If the leak is left long enough, it will eat into the circuitry and can seep inside the PCB and cause irreversible damage.
A short can be good if the circuitry is properly designed, a fuse can be blown or have OCP and shut the device down. In that case, you just have to change the caps.
Capacitors that go high ESR is another bad scenario. The capacitor effectively becomes a big resistor that draws heavy current and can blow components both up and downstream of it. I've seen a single bad capacitor cause cause multiple cascading failures that blew quite literally every component on the device to pieces.
You should check more of theese cheap/mid range power supplies, Maybe you should check other brands too, like KOLINK, Xilence, LC power and such
When we buy PSU's like these, we know what we're getting into. I bought one to revive a 10 year old system and has been running as a file server with no issues for awhile now. Great video.
Yeah I saw a comment about some guy saying he has these in his office PCs and of course the comments are ripping on him for using them but it seems like they missed the part where he said "office PCs." I wouldn't trust this in any gaming PC but in a standard office PC with onboard graphics It's most likely fine...
@@Gatorade69 It's almost like they didn't watch the end of the video
@@Gatorade69 the standart officePC runs fine with 200W PSUs that can actually only output 150 but never gets more than 70W dragged from them
This ought to be fun. I regularly use this PSU in entry level client builds. So far haven't had a single one fail over the years. But then again they are usually Athlon 3000g, 2400g, or 5600 level builds used for basic computing and integrated graphics are all that is needed. Can't wait to see how these do when put through the ringer. Thanks Steve!!
Ouch lol
@Steve
The 430W total output rating is not misleading just because the +12V rail is only rated for 387W as suggested in the video. As it suggests the "Total Power [Output]" is the total output that the PSU is rated to sustain from the power supply; "Total" includes the +12V, +5V, and +3.3V.
Other higher end power supplies often are able to do the entire rated output on the 12V rail because they are using DC-DC to generate the minor rails (5V, 3.3V). They take the +12V output and convert it to 5V and 3.3V. This means DC-DC power supplies need to be able to output the full power on the 12V rail as the power for the 5V and 3.3V rail is being taken from the +12V.
The Thermaltake Smart 430W is a group regulated power supply which doesn't generate the minor rails from the 12V output, so it doesn't need to output the total power from the 12V. The 12V and 5V rails are generated together and the 3.3V is usually generated from the 5V output (generating from 12V is also possible but since 5V and 3.3V maximum output is grouped together at 110W it's likely generating 3.3V from the 5V rail). One of the big problems with group regulation is the power supply regulates the voltage of 5V and 12V together, so if there is a heavy load on the 12V rail which causes the 12V voltage to drop the power supply will compensate by raising the voltage to both 12V and 5V since they are regulated together, which can cause the 5V rail to fall outside of the +/- 5% tolerance allowed in spec - and vice versa if there's a heavy load on 5V and light load on 12V. These crossload scenarios are part of the reason why group regulated power supplies aren't recommended [at all really, but especially for] systems with high end CPUs/GPUs as the high 12V load can potentially drag 5V rail out of spec.
While the CPU and graphics card are the biggest power consumers in most systems, there are still a lot of things that require 5V such as USB devices, HDDs, SSDs, and more... Even though the power supply is only rated for 387W on the 12V out of the 430W total (90% available on +12V) you can (potentially, depending on the specific setup) still get the full 430W output from when you factor things like USB devices and drives. Just because the maximum rated output isn't available on the +12V rail doesn't mean it's misleading. Realistically having 90% of the power available on the +12V rail for a low wattage power supply like this is going to be perfectly fine for most systems except for very odd edge cases.
In a DC-DC system loading up the minor rails will reduce the output of the 12V rail, it's just that it's arguably more flexible as you *could* get the entire output on 12V rail if the 5V/3.3V rail isn't loaded, but it's unlikely you'd ever be using a system that *only* has a +12V load and 0W load on +5V. Whatever load you have on the 5V/3.3V rails is going to be taking that power from the 12V rail counting towards its maximum rated output.
I see a lot of comments on forums/reddit saying that power supplies are "fake" or "lying" if they can't output the maximum power on the 12V rail and it can be difficult trying to explain it to people, and I'm worried someone trusted like GN perpetuating the myth is just going to make it more difficult. You should instead educate people on how to read the output power table on the power supply label. The table shows the maximum output for the +12V rail. Instead of saying it's misleading just inform people that with cheaper power supplies (group regulated) if the total output for 12V is important to you then you may need to pay more attention to details of the maximum output of each rail instead of just blindly going off the total output.
I know GN is still new to PSU reviews, and I think this is the first group regulated unit you have looked at, so hopefully you get to read this and at least now understand why on this power supply (and other group regulated power supplies) the total output rating isn't the same as the total output on +12V rail.
The breakdown from Patrick Stone going over each of the components was excellent though!
Thank you for making this review. This is exactly in the range of my budget and I cannot really pay much more. I even saw this exact PSU as a potential option. Having your opinion on it is invaluable for people like me who can't afford what we would actually want to buy. We buy "GN it's OK" stamped hardware because we just can't do any better. I hope to see more of this budget PSU reviews on the channel, it really makes a difference for people like me. BTW, I know that there are some cheap "It's OK" cases out there waiting for your reviews that would really help the community.
“We removed the capacitor for safety” and immediately proceed to touch both electrodes. May as well have left it on and simply discharged it since it appears you discharged it anyway.
My thoughts exactly lol
Thanks for the review, as always, it's great to have more coverage of this otherwise under-represented part of the market.
One suggestion that I would like to see implemented is to show the output voltage and ripple at the point when OCP triggers. If OCP is at 150% at 12V but output and ripple stay under control, it's not much of a problem. On the other hand, if OCP triggers at 130% but 12V output drops to 10.8V with .1V of ripple, that would be a problem.
Either way, I look forward to your next review!
Long story short, it's not nearly as bad as the goons on r/buildapc say.
Personally, I really like the Thermaltake SMART series PSUs.
I’ve been using them for the last few years with absolutely no issues to speak of (from the perspective of an ‘everyday man’ casual consumer) , and is currently my go-to for my lower end and mid-range systems (from a Core 2 Duo 38600 + GTX 750 system, to a i7-7700K + GTX 1060).
Can’t say I’ve used the 430W, though; I usually go with the 600W or 700W model. Still.
Yeah that's age of parts where energy efficiency was prized
probably better size to most PSU's are not very efficient at full capacity
Thermaltake do not make their own power supplies they contract it out to various OEM, so if you buy their cheap PSU you get the ones made to be cheap. Their higher end PSUs will be made by one of the better manufacturers who don't cut corners and use high quality cap. i.e. their Toughpower range is generally good.
6:25 - The datasheet numbers are not sacred values. The datasheet says 8A continuous at a case temperature of 100C. It doesn't say you can't pass 10A with external cooling, like from the fan. However, it will never draw 10A unless it fails. Highest nominal current will be about 5A (~500W at 100VAC), so the 8A rectifier has 60% nominal margin. It's fine.
It's not a "YCAP" It is an MOV. It isn't a "XCAP" it is a Polyester Film Cap. Do you guys even know what they do? You guys have been hoodwinked by big box companies and don't understand what you are talking about. The reality is that any PSU is MORE then capable of doing the job asked of it. What you guys don't understand is that power conversion is EASY, and BASIC, unless you add a buck converter. Then you are adding a tonne of noise. Even a two dollar capacitor will half your voltage ripple. These companies are giving you what you pay for, and there is nothing wrong with a 90mV ripple. Your GPU's etc... have capacitors which filter that anyway. I could make a $10 PSU which will do just fine, $100 would be overkill, so for $30 you are going to get ripple. Use a $2 cap and throw it across your 12V rail, 5V rail, and 3.3V rail. But then that cuts into that $30. Those $400 PSU's are an absolute rip off... and intel wants to move the buck converters to it's board so motherboard manufacturers can charge more, and you have to buy a new one every platform. That's it. Your trip points are thermally limited, because parts at that cost point, use thermal protection. Otherwise you have to add a different circuit.
Good to see you guys review something like this, I feel that stuff like these budget units are often never reviewed. Keep up the good work.
Suggestions for PSUs to test:
EVGA 500w White.
Corsair TX650M.
Be Quiet System Power 9 450w.
Corsair RM850x.
Thats the exact same I bought 5 years ago for my ryzen "upgrade" knowing it would barely scrape what I needed.
It hasnt failed once yet so it was definetly a win for me for the price I paid.
Currently running a R5 1600, RX580, 32GB ram and way too many hard drives with no issues. I'm planning on getting a 3060 but I dont trust the PSU to be able to handle it comfortably so an upgrade is certainly on my to do list.
your system uses 185W + 65W =250 plus some 30 for the hard drives, coolers etc, you would be probably fine on a 350W PSU since they might be able to survive some 450W ocasional loads
you'll be fine. i used to run an i7 2600 and an undervolted rx470 on a 240watt dell psu. when i bought my ryzen system, i went for a 430watt evga psu and ran a r5 2600 and gtx 1070 with zero problems (undervolting wasn't needed, but i did it). i recently upgraded to a 1080ti (250watt tdp) and the 430watt psu is still doing fine with the undervolted gpu. granted, i do not feel comfortable running it without the undervolt, but i undervolt all my cards anyway.
also, i just looked up the tdp for each card, and it turns out that your 580 is actually rated for higher tdp than the 3060, 185watts vs 170watts.
Isn't the 3060 more power efficient than the rx580?
@@wisico640 yeah but in the end, its is a cheap psu that has been used for 5 years nonstop...
Plus the previous one I had I gave away to a friend that had a similar power draw than my pc and he ended up blowing it up a week later
@@QruisS fair enough, a good psu should last quite a while longer tho.
I have an old PC Power & Cooling 750w that has been running for like 14 years & still gives off solid voltages 😂
"Just save for a better model" is my most hated phrase including every other area of existence, the only people who don't use it are maybe clothes retailers and supermarkets (food retailers) ... I get it, I understand blah blah blah, but with power supplies you literally see no darn difference, at least with a gpu I can see frames, or processor I can feel less lag, I've bought expensive PSUs before, I get it they're safe and the zero RPM fan modes are nice, but honestly I would've been 10000x better off with money in my pocket! Good Bye Sirs
It would be nice to see a really good PSU for a high end system tested. That way you can see the difference in the 50-80 range and the say 120+ range.
Pffft lol I bought a 600W for 25 euro PSU a while ago and it works fine. I just put the case on my aluminium desk with nothing flammable around it. Nothing can happen. I'll take the risk.
I like that GN recently includes more of the other staff in their videos. Really makes you appreciate all their knowledge and different fields of expertise.
Diablo Tek still in business!? 😆 my cousin bought a Diablo 550w back in 2006, I think it was $20-$30, that blew and took out most of his components with it. I was running an 800w BFG PSU ( I miss BFG 😔) because I needed the 6 pin PCI-E connectors for my 8800 Ultra
Just wish they made more BETTER PSU's since like the smallest you can get(of GOOD quality) these days are like 550-650W which is a bit overkill for a 100W pc
You can get 300 watt PSU Be quiet has a good one for the price be quiet! Pure Power 11 300W, 80 PLUS Bronze, power supply
Have a look into PicoPSU.
Although you get to 200W+ really fast (far from 450 though). A smaller CPU, MB, maybe a PCI-e card and a disk or two probably already comfortably get you there.
I bought an 80+ White from them, 650W. It freaking burnt my RX 570 PCIE connector. It was all black instead of white. I called them and they said it can't happen, it was due to misuse for sure and that the best they could do would be to send a replacement BUT I would have to send the problematic one and pay for both way shipping, which was 80+ $CAD. Won't ever buy any PSU from this company... EVER.
Good thing is I could change the PCIE connector (female) on the graphics card and it worked fine afterwards. Still a headache.
Could someone please help me . I have two gpus both of which have the same issue when I boot up any game the cpu usage goes all the way too %100 and the gpu usage will be at like let’s say %30 MAX. Ik it’s the dedicated gpu from using occt tool and hwinfo . I’ve tried every driver for the gpu past and present update bios, running through all the power plan settings etc nothing fixes the issue. For some reason after playing overwatch for awhile it fixes itself but after I reset the pc it happens again.
Build :
I7 2600
Sapphire rx 470 4gb
DDR3 12gb
450w psu
Pleaseeee help
Hello, I want you to help me buy a regular computer. I saw your videos from expensive collections. If you can help me to buy a mid-range gaming computer with the following specifications, please i7 4g 128 GB SSD 1000 GB hard disk 8 GB RAM If you can 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Hello, I want you to help me buy a regular computer. I saw your videos from expensive collections. If you can help me to buy a mid-range gaming computer with the following specifications, please i7 4g 128 GB SSD 1000 GB hard disk 8 GB RAM If you can 🙏🙏🙏
Hello, I want you to help me buy a regular computer. I saw your videos from expensive collections. If you can help me to buy a mid-range gaming computer with the following specifications, please i7 4g 128 GB SSD 1000 GB hard disk 8 GB RAM If you can
About 2.5 years ago, I received TWO of these and they were BOTH DOA. I mean, what are the odds? For the record I'm not stupid and I know how to troubleshoot. I sent them both back to be replaced -- and one of them became lost within their bureaucracy. I was so disgusted at the whole ordeal that I just couldn't put forth the energy to fight and get the 2nd one credited and a single replacement shipped out. Fortunately, the one RMA'd PSU that they did manage to get back to me DID WORK. I was almost surprised, except then the odds of three bad PSUs in a row from Thermaltake must be astronomically long. Let's just say at this point that I'm unlikely to be a repeat customer for this company, though I'm sure experiences vary but this is the single worst experience I've had in my decades of building computers (most of that time -- as part of my job).
The worst power supply i ever bought was a thermaltake TR2 RX 750w this was over 14 years ago I remember having a GTX 460 and a i5 760. And every time i played any game the power supply would had a horrible coil whine sound.
Thermaltake was shit back in the day and it looks like it’s still shit today
One thing is that it works when it's new. If I buy a PSU, I want to trust it 3-4 years down the road also (minimum). With "lower lifetime parts", I'm not sure. 2000h, that's 83 days and 8 hours - so not even 3 months.
I'd rather spend a bit more money and not worrying about this kind of stuff.
I got the Thermaltake Grand RGB 650W for $100 and it has been working well for the past 3 years. Though the voltage ripple is as bad as this one and the thing I hate about it is how loud the coil whine is, especially during idle. My next power supply won't be a thermaltake for sure.
Can GN test SFX PSUs as well such as the Corsair 750w (platinum) and Cooler Master 850w (gold) as these are a regular amongst ITX higher end builds. Thanks ☺
I don't understand why people keep buying this 430w, when you can usually find the 600w version from the same Tt Smart 80+ White label series on sale at the exact same price...
I've had this exact psu for over 5 years with an i3 9100f and a gtx 1650 and have had 0 problems with it. Fairly regularly my area loses power abruptly due to high wind speeds and never has a component on my pc broken.
The fact that something like this can even be build for $25-$30, and the supplier can still make like a $5 profit is mind blowing. Cheap Chinese labour exploitation FTW!
At what point is a power suply good enough? I'm looking at the be quiet! Straight Power 11 Platinum 1200W because I want a rtx 4080. I there any problem with that?
I wouldn't even consider anything under 850 Watts these days. Who would even buy this low wattage crap ? Someone running a Voodoo 3DFX?
Hi, can you replace the dead diode on the -12v line, and replace all the electrolic capacitors for good quality brand like rubycon or nichicon? I am curious to see how much will the ripple and effenciency improve. Thanks alot
Silverstone Essentials 700W lately had a sale for only $23. 80 plus certified and overall better than this one. Maybe budget builders could look out for silverstone deals
I have one of these and it seems to do fine with my 3090
“The SMART series… which we assume is because, in modern society, intelligence is not valued.” Fucking golden. ❤️
Shouldn't you compare 80+white to 80+white ? Evga has a 80+white, Corsair has a 80+white too, that sounds more fair ?
16:04 that's the wrong table. Voltage ripple is in table 3-5 under section 3.2.5. That table implies 500 mV p-p for the 5V rail but that's the maximum deviation from nominal voltage (typically depending on the load) not the ripple.
Couldn't you technically sue them for misleading product information, and consumer endangerment? (if it were bad and didn't pass inspections?)
Great review, thanks! It's fantastic to see a thorough review for a lower end part like this without it being a just for laughs slam dunk on a garbage, dangerous part.
I do think that in the load testing for the review, you should stick to the sticker loads. On a higher end supply, meeting the overall sticker wattage on just the 12V rail might make sense. But for a budget supply, it kind of doesn't. Besides that, it seems somewhat misleading to apply gamer or overclocker standards to this kind of unit. If the sticker loads are correct, and it meets the ATX spec, then that should be emphasized a little more.
That said, SCP not working on a rail is bad! And no rational person would disagree with the conclusion of the video.
tl;dr: amazing content i love a good low end review
Ultimately I can't help but feel that if a power supply is supplying power within the spec (is it still +/- 10%?) then whatever is plugged into it should handle that as well, so maybe there's a little misplaced stigma towards lower end power supplies.
Isn't 430W what it draws from the wall? Why would ALL the power being drawn from the wall go to the 12V rail?
Oh shit. I'm actually watching this video on a PC that is using this exact PSU. But it's a 14 year old Core 2 Quad PC with a 550ti, runs just fine a old lower powered PC.
Great video, any chance you guys can test the "phanteks AMP" Power supplies? No one has that I can find.