• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Power Max 550W PSU

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

miketay89

Registered
Joined
Oct 16, 2002
Location
OHIO
Hey is Power Max a good PSU? I found a 550W for $35 on ebay. I have a 400W now but would like larger and more connectors.
 
Is it really Power Max and not PowMax (Leadman -- weak, according to Tom's Hardware), Powerman (FSP, makers of Sparkle and PC Power & Cooling supplies), or Powertronic (also real good)?
 
I powered amd xp1700, 3 X CD/DVD/CD-RW drives, 2 X 40gig 7200rpms raid, 4 X 80mm fans, dragon orb 3 7000rpm and a D.Doc 5 3 sticks of 256meg ram and 5 pci cards and never had a single power problem / fade and that was on their 500W powmax
*I think there good and you cant beat the price!
 
You're right it is powmax.
Power that I am drawing:
CDrom, CD-RW, 4 80mm case fans, a chipset fan, gpu fan and the rest is in my sig.
 
larrymoencurly said:
How much power were you drawing? Tomshardware.com said that the 500W Powmax could put out about 425W.
I dont know for sure and have no real way to test it as I had sold it. I will try and pull the specks for it off the apc (they have a calc to figure out what size ups you will need)
 
AGP card.................30W 32mb tnt2 w/fan
5 PCI card...............25W modem/nic/capture/sblive/usb 2.0 5port
raid controller.........15W promis
Floppy drive............5W mitsume
50x CD-ROM............25W lite on
16x DVD-ROM..........25W acer
24x CD-R/RW..........30W acer
4X 80mm fans.........10w sunon 2200rpm?
RAM 768 3 dimms....50W kingmax cas 2 cl 2
7200rpm hard drive.30W maxtor 40gig'ers w/fdb
Motherboard............30W KR7ARAID
XP1700....................75W
Digital doc 5.............5w
Total....................355W :burn:
*this is only a ruff estimate (the calc at apc is gone so I just used numbers from a power supply site) , and I am sure on start up I would have peak over 400Watts
PS I do run all my systems through a “UPS” (always have always will!)
 
Last edited:
So I do at least need a bigger psu. How does the ups help? Does it ensure a constant suply of steady power, such as it could improve performance during a brown out.
 
I had a 500W that recently died on me after about 9 months. It ran very well when it did, but expected it to last longer than that. I guess I got what I paid for.

I got a TTGI triple-fan 520W to replace it iwth from Directron.com. I found a $10 off coupon and got it for less than $50. It's been very nice so far...appears to be much higher quality than the POWMAX was too.

I won't not recommend that PSU, I'm just a little hesitant about taking a risk on one again.
 
miketay89 said:
So I do at least need a bigger psu. How does the ups help? Does it ensure a constant suply of steady power, such as it could improve performance during a brown out.
You got it man,
little known is that voltage spikes / drops can cause memory errors that can go unseen and cause problems later, a true ups will prevent that kind of issue and will save you from other things like the brown outs (old homes that the lights dim when your whatever turns on), lightning strikes, over volts, ect.
 
Back