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Good power supply for about 100$

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ripit

Member
Joined
May 16, 2004
Just like the last time I bought a power supply, I spend a few weeks trying to find the best ballance of brand, power and the specs I need and just about go crazy doing it. I'm not sure why it is so hard for me to decide on what I want but it sure is. I don't ahve this problem with anything else in my computer, just power supplies.
I had finally decided on the antec true control (based on a model that I saw in store with a 30a 12v rail). So I look at newegg and see the 12v is only 24a. Thats just great. So If I want the 30 amp model I have to pay 130$ locally which is way out of my budget, but I'm so frustrated I don't care. So I do a little searching on the reason for the diffrent specs on the antec and see all these posts about antecs failing and thier quality having gotten worse. So now it is time to start over looking again.
Could someone recomend a few models to look at that are high on the 12v rails with a single 12v rail (not split 12v rails)? My budget is about 50$ but obviouslly I am going to have to spend more than I can afford. Under 100$ would be nice but I could stretch it a little over 100$ if nesasary.
My current system specs are an athlon xp 2500 and a radion 8500 (both overclocked) but I just build an athlon 64 system for a friend and was drooling over the speed so I need something that could run an overclocked athlon64 and a beter video card (I might as well spend a little more now rather than have to get another power supply in 6-12 months if I upgrade the cpu and motherboard. The 12v rails are important, not only because I keep reading that 12v/24a isn't enough for some systems anymore, but I run a lot of 12v equipment (4 hard drives, 6 if I ever find the right raid card), 2 dvd burners (possibly a dvd rom in the future), a lot of fans including some high power ones that take a lot of juice, lights etc. I am also messing around with pelts (I have three 50 watt pelts and would like the option of running a 200watt or so pelt in the future). Obviouslly I'm not going to run all that off a 550 watt power supply. My system is setup for plug and play dual power supplies to run the big pelt and or some of the other stuff, and I have a couple of old at power supplies that can be ran externally for some of the small pelts, but I would still like the main power supply to power as much as it can (at least the drives and cpu fan).
Anybody have any thoughs (something similar to the true control 550 with 12v/30a or beter)?
Any help would really be appreciated as this is really driving me nuts!!!!
Forgot to mention, for now, it has to power the athlon xp 2500, radion 8500, 4 hard drives (with raid), two dvd burners, and some of the fans (particularlly the more powerfull ones). The pos second power supply I am running now can power lights and smaller fans (and thats about it). The at power supplies can run the 3 50 watt pelts). The rest are just possible future upgrades that I would like to plan ahead for.
 
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I would recommend going with the Fortron 530w, it has adjustable pots to allow you to tweak the lines to perfection, mine has powered both Nf7-s and 2600+ mobile( Heavily overclocked) with numerous drives,fans,6800gt,swiftech pump and CC lights without a hiccup as well as my current A64 setup and the lines have been stable throughout, also the price is very reasonable for the quality.

-Milkman
 
In the past, fortron and enermax have always been ones I liked. Thanks for the input, I'll check those two out!!!!
 
I'm still kind of going through the fortron power supplies as thier are a few that might fit the bill. One that I was kind of considering is the enermax 465 series like this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103464
Maybe my thinking is flawed here, but I like the idea that it has 12v/33amps on a single rail (not split between two rails). If I ever do a higher power pelt setup that 33 amps should serve pretty well if I set it up as the second power supply.
I'm kind of curious about that too. If a power supply has the 12v split on two rails, you cannot really use it for a pelt unless one of the rails supplies enought power, right? I'm not sure I'll ever run a full size pelt (like a 200watt) but another thought. Lets say that I upgrade to a beter motherboard and cpu that is pretty power hungry on the 12v channel (some of them are getting pretty demanding on the 12v rail)? Wouldn't it be beter to have a single 12v rail so that all the 12v power is avalable to the motherboard and if it's running a little short on 12v power for the whole system, just run drives/fans off the second power supply leaving most of the first power supplys 12v for the motherboard? Thats why I have been shying away from power supplies with split rails but maybe I just don't understand it well enough? Fyi I am farmiliar with the reasoning for the split rails (more stable voltage to the motherboard) but don't the singe rail ones provide stable enough power (if it is a good power supply)? Even if I wind up getting something under 500 watts (like the 460 watt enermax or other 450 watt power supplies), wouldn't it power most cpu/motherboards out thier if another power supply is taking the load of the drives and fans?
Fyi the other thing I like about enermax is that they have always had higher than average 12v rails (though I am still looking through the fortrons and am still considering them).

Edit, I ordered the enermax (still need one more and I'm looking at a 350 watt fortron, maybe bigger). It looks like they have done some decent updates with the enermax whisper 2 over the old whisper but kept the single 12v rail. am I wrong for liking the versatility of use a single 12v rail gives? Is it really beter to have dual rails?
 
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