So today I was notified that the Mushkin RAM has shipped, which is great. Should be expecting a number of parts in the mail over the next week including another Antec HGC-620W power supply, a couple of I/O shields for the two Core 2 Duo builds, the Mushkin ram, and the motherboard and ram for the Reiter case.
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The Antec PSU is a very good buy for the price, usually is on sale at NCIX and Newegg.ca for between 70-90 dollars (+tax and shipping). It's nearly fully modular aside from the 24pin and the 8pin connectors (which you need both of anyway). Also, the finish is pretty nice and it's a single rail PSU (which I'm all about). In my opinion, multi-rail PSU's are a bit of a headache because the CPU ends up being on one and then leaves the other rails to be desired by the GPU and other accessories which can sometimes overflow the rails (especially in an SLI or Crossfire environment). Not too bad on energy efficiency neither for an 80+ Bronze PSU. And in it's price range, for having all Japanese capacitors (which are more reliable and tend to last longer), it's one of my top picks indefinitely besides an XFX PSU. Some other brands tout that they have Japanese capacitors, but in a number of cases it just ends up being the main capacitor that is Japanese and the others are slightly lower grade. That being said, there are brands that even though they don't specify Japanese capacitors they are still of good design, however only are worth picking up if can get it cheaper than an Antec HGC or an XFX.
Tom's Hardware keeps a tier list active on their forums of power supplies that are recommended/not recommended. Check that out here
Certain brands to stay away from:
A-TOP technology
Achieve
Aerocool
Allied
Apevia
Apex (SUPERCASE/ALLIED)
Arrow
Artic / Ace (They're the same company)
Aspire (Turbocase) > Dangerous! They don't even pretend to meet the ATX/AMD/Intel specs!
ATADC
ATRIX
Broadway Com Corp
CIT
Codegen
Coolmax
Demon
Deer
Diablotek
Duro
Dynapower
Dynex
Eagletech
Enlight
Evo labs
EZ-cool
Foxconn
Foxlink
G7
HEC / Compucase Orion
HEDY (should be WAAAYYY lower down than these units. They're that bad)
Hercules
iBall
iStar computer co.
InWin (most of their older models)
Jeantec
JPac
JustPC
Keymouse
Kingwin
L&C
Linkworld Electronics
Logic
Logisys Computer
Macron Power
MGE
MSI (just stick to their GPUs and motherboards)
Mustang
NMEDIAPC
Norwood Micro/ CompUSA
Okia
Power-Man (except FSP models)
Powercool
Powmax
Power-Up
Powerstar
Pulsepower
QMax
Q-tec
Raidmax (except Topower/Tagan models, research specific model first)
Real PC Power
Rhycon
Rosewill (research specific model first)
Rocketfish
SFC
Sharkoon
Shuttle
Skyhawk
Startech
Storm
Sumvision
Tesla
Thermaltake (SIRTEC and non-Toughpower Units)
TMP-ANS
Tsunami
Turbo
Turbolink
Ultra
US-Can
Viomax
Reason being that most of the ones on the list end up being very low-grade capacitors or just a poor overall design, efficiency, or aren't up to proper specs. Case in point is Aspire PSU's. They may be cheaper, but I would rather pay a bit more for 100% reliability and the ability to solidly overclock the system than risk getting a low-grade PSU that you can't really do much of with and also possibly risk frying your motherboard or other hardware (has happened to me before with a few of the ones on this list). The reason Rosewill is on the bad list is because even though they sometimes source their PSU from other reputable brands, they usually don't have as good of specifications (hence why they're cheap) which is a bit bizarre but I would rather rely on a reputable brand with a solid warranty. As I've said, though when it comes to the ones listed below, still research on the specific model as some may have different specifications and the list below is just a generality of which brands are reputable and worth spending money on.
Some good brands:
Antec
Be Quiet!
Coolermaster (research specific model first)
Corsair
NZXT
OCZ (makes decent PSU's but research the specific model first because there are a few that aren't as good)
Seasonic
Silverstone
Thermaltake (see above reference to their bad PSU's)
XFX
I often find myself at an impasse when it comes to choice of PSU, but it comes down to the rig itself. If the rig has ample cable routing, you can go with a semi-modular or even a non-modular power supply (dependent on the wattage necessary). With non-modular PSU's it can often be a bit of a hassle once you go over 650W in terms of the amount of cables that are attached to the PSU, but it's all user preference. I prefer to go with semi-modular in most cases just simply because of ease of use and the cleanliness of not having a ton of extra cables bundled up in the case somewhere, but it also depends on the price of the units. If you have an excellent case design that has tons of cable routing and a non-modular of the same 80+ energy efficiency as a semi-modular design but at a much cheaper price (with them both being the same wattage and at least a 20 dollar difference) go with the non-modular. However, in the case of the two Core 2 Duo system's I'm building, I went with HGC-620W semi-modular simply because they were on sale and are of a good design.
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In any case, the builds are shaping up and look quite promising for what they're being used for. Prior to having to RMA the Corsair ram, I was getting boot times of maybe 20 seconds to the desktop with all the installed start-up programs running. However as the ram developed its defectiveness, started to notice a lot of boot loops and BSOD's (mostly due to the fact that the voltage was starting to become too low for the timings that were specified on the ram) but now that I've got some new Mushkin ram on order, hopefully, everything will run smooth as glass now. Both the Raidmax Reiter case and the Broadway case are definitely accommodating to their builds and am looking forward to the finished products.
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