Thermaltake Silent Purepower Xaser Edition W0011 - power supply - 480 Watt

Advantages: Powerful, cheap, quiet
Disadvantages: none

...Modern PC's are requiring more and more power. Cheap power supplys simply arent cutting it anymore, and can often cause problems. I recently purchased a Hercules Radeon 9700Pro graphics card (which I have also reviewed on Ciao), and thus I decided to equip my PC with a more capable PSU. >Value< Thermaltake do several lower models, but I felt that the 420w would be a safe bet to cope with my 2 Optical drives, new graphics card, and other hardware. Online reviews of this power supply were very good, so I was pleased to find the unit lived up to my expectations. I was even more pleased to find that the unit retails for about £40 on dabs.com - much cheaper than equivalent models from Antec or Enermax. >First Impressions< First impressions were good - the unit sports a dual fan configuaration with smart, strong gold... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Modular power connectors, good design, solid build, designed in the UK.
Disadvantages: Large

...for the power supply[1]. ATX 2.2 includes changes to the main power connector (20pin to 24pin), removed auxiliary power connector and includes a need for a 3.3v tolerance. Effectively ATX2.2 is a a new standard variant based on older designs looking to power newer technologies but also to provide increased power modulation and better tolerances to power deviation. Intel BTX, another form factor standard that talks about heat sinks, finalised about a year ago. From the point of view of the consumer it makes it harder to have a very small case that complies to all specifications however it should also improve tolerance to heat substantially. From the point of view of the manufacturer it is difficult as it means doing some simple redesigns. SLi (Scalable Link interface), this is the interesting specification that's going to take some time to... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Very cheap, 2 fans
Disadvantages: None

...Arguably the most important component inside your PC is its power supply, the power supply unit (PSU) provides the power to every other component inside your computer ie: Motherboard, hard drive, processor, graphics card etc etc... and all these components require a powerful and extremely stable PSU in order to operate as intended. 14 months ago i built my current PC and opted to use the Q-tec 550 watt dual fan gold as its power supply unit, most modern day PC power supplies average around 350 watt and they are predominantly fine for most PC's but as you add extra components to your PC like extra hard drives, or a faster processor or faster graphics card then you may get close to reaching the limit of your particular power supply which can result in either the PSU not functioning properly (causing serious system instability) or in... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful