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One of the best parts of covering hardware for computer enthusiasts is that there are so many different needs for enthusiasts. Usually when someone thinks of someone as being an enthusiast, they relate them with someone who has the fastest or most powerful equipment available. This isn't necessarily the case, especially with what we are looking at today. HTPC enthusiasts often look for something that is small and unobtrusive, or something that is silent yet powerful. Silent and powerful is something that is hard to come by with a HTPC, especially since fanless power supplies are few and far between.
A couple of days ago, I sold my old dSLR body and lens locally through a popular online classified ads website. For the veterans among us, you will know this is usually a straightforward procedure -- someone contacts you, agree on the price beforehand, set a time and location to meet up, show them the product, and cash exchanges hand. But with anything that involves humans, there are always exceptions, and this is what I want to talk about this morning. The person I sold my camera to came with her mom in a late model, fully loaded Nissan Pathfinder SUV with a fancy vanity plate. After checking out the camera, her mom tried to pull a fast one on me, and said she only has $300 on her, and told me to just accept it. Well, as someone who is born in Hong Kong, the land of haggling masters, and a guy who has been in and out of car dealerships ever so often since I was nine years old, obviously it did not work. I have haggling, and thus, anti-haggling skills, in my blood. To make a long story short, she magically "found" the missing $20 in her purse, and we both went our ways. The way I see it, she probably thinks this was a smart thing to do. After all, she could have saved $20, right? Saving money is smart; this is more or less common sense to people of all ages. In the computer world, it is no different. But as most of us came to realize that not all power supplies are created equally, Thermaltake has a new line of PSUs called the SMART series to take on a very simple concept: Budget price, no frills, and eco-friendly performance. That's smart. But is it right? We cracked open a Thermaltake SMART 730W to see what's inside the brain.
If you are white and you live in North America, chances are that you are not a part of the visible minority. That is, unless you are studying engineering here at the University of Calgary, or you are a computer power supply. While the Faculty of Engineering is dominated by Asians and most PSUs are black, a little over a year ago, NZXT decided to be brave and decided to be different -- they made a white power supply unit. The 80 Plus Gold certified NZXT HALE90 is certainly nothing short of impressive. It combines excellent performance, impeccable reliability, near silent operation, and top notch efficiency along with a sleek, unique appearance. So if the NZXT HALE90 is so distinguished from the competition, why did they resort to conformity and make the HALE82? As its name suggests, not only is it no longer over ninety percent efficient, it has also the same appearance as every other PSU. Hmm. So is distinguished excellence out, and blending in with the crowd back? Or is there more to the story? Read on to find out!
Another year has passed, and great things are coming out of APH Networks as usual. With lots of content returning to our weekly review schedule in collaboration with the rest of the team, it's definitely a great way to start off the year. I have the pleasure of doing the first power supply report of 2010, and man, do we have an interesting one this week. SilverStone has been highly regarded for both their quality chassis and power supplies over the years. From their Element line of PSUs, all the way to their Zeus series of power supplies, they have been known for both quality as well as value. They have used many OEMs ranging from FSP to Impervio; it is quite interesting how all these different OEMs branded under SilverStone have done so well.
XFX’s power supplies are easily getting a reputation for being some of the best value units on the market. While XFX don’t make any of their power supplies themselves, they do use one of the strongest OEMs on the market – Seasonic. We’ve already taken a look at two XFX power supplies; the Pro 650W Core Edition unit and the Pro 750W Black Edition unit. We felt both power supplies were incredibly strong and both walked away with awards, helped greatly by XFX’s extremely aggressive pricing and the overall premium performance of the Seasonic OEM designs used.
Today we have with us the XFX Pro 750W XXX Edition semi-modular power supply. This particular unit operates with 80 Plus Bronze efficiency and is semi-modular. With 750W there is plenty of power for any single or dual GPU configured system as well as enough for a tonne of storage drives. Like with all XFX power supplies it runs “EasyRail” technology essentially meaning all the 12 volt power is loaded onto a single 12 volt rail. Due to the fact this is a Seasonic OEM design XFX are able to offer a 5 year warranty on it…but without any further waffling on my behalf let’s take a look at this product.
Most people know FSP for their high quality Power Supply Units. In this review we take a
look at the FSP Aurum PT-650M 650 Watt PSU. It is Power Supply Unit with plenty of power
and a 80 Plus 80 Plus Platinum Certification.
Over the progression of time, the evolution of the human race and ideas change with it. This is quite obvious when you take a look at your photo album or history books dating back to who-knows-when. Whether it be experiences of your own life, or mistakes and successes recorded in the books of history, there are many valuable lessons to be learned. Success is what we all should take pride in, and further improvement makes us even more successful people. But as you flip the coin over and take a look at the failures, do we simply push them aside and forget that it ever happened? Getting your finger burnt on the stove teaches you to watch what you're doing and where you're placing things. Such concepts could also be applied in the world of technology. While in the process of developing the carbonized cotton-thread filament for the incandescent light bulb, Thomas Edison had said, "I didn't fail; I found out 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb". The process of trial and error is one of the many paths that can be taken in the development of ideas and technology. I'm not exactly sure how some companies get things done, but what I am certain of is that the method of trial and error has been used at least once here and there. What we have today is a fully modular 80 Plus Bronze Certified mid-range power supply from OCZ -- namely, the ZT Series 650W. From the looks of it, the ZT Series 650W is a more budget friendly power supply for those that are looking for performance with 100% modular cables. Generally speaking, is the OCZ ZT Series 650W an error or a success? Read on to find out!
Okay, here we go: Last in-house article of the year. Just when you thought you just got used to writing '2010', it is time to update our brain calendar and practice writing '2011' starting... well, tomorrow. For those who were dreaming of a white Christmas and didn't get any (Which is really not the case for me, because we get that a little too often here in Canada -- of course, other than the igloos we live in, and polar bears we ride on a daily basis), in yours truly's personal opinion, the next best thing is a white power supply. Yeah yeah, call out for a lame introduction. But the point is, NZXT's HALE90 is really one of a kind. When I loaded up the company's website a short while ago, the moment I saw the NZXT HALE90's photo on their front page, I knew I just had to get my hands on this for my next main computer refresh. Since 2006, I have used a variety of Seasonic power supplies exclusively for my primary system, mainly because of their excellent performance, impeccable reliability, near silent operation, and top notch efficiency. And all four attributes are just as important as the next. This is where the NZXT HALE90 comes into the picture. Other than receiving excellent reviews from reputable websites that demonstrates this product's high load performance, 80 Plus Gold certification, large 140mm fan (Without actually using it, my best guess is that it would be acoustically silent, in which we will cover later in this report), the company adds one more thing to push everyone else aside: Looks. Unlike traditional matte black power supply units, this one has a sleek white painted exterior. But what makes NZXT's HALE90 so great beyond the surface? We cracked open a 750W example open to take a look at the hardware under the hood.
Here is a quick question to test your IQ: What came after case windows? Well, vanity lighting kits that go inside your computer, of course. Back when AMD Athlon 64 processors were the rage among computer enthusiasts, my Cooler Master Cavalier 1 is equipped with two blue cold cathodes I purchased from a fellow American friend for $12 including shipping. It was really one of the coolest things in my opinion. I would stare inside, and marvel at the workings of my unique combination of printed circuit boards and multitude of fans working hard to keep the system temperature in check. Sure, blue cold cathodes look extremely generic by today's standards, and "cold" cathodes are far from being "cold" -- but the options we have do not go much further than that. The situation improved significantly when I got my hands on those Lamptron case lighting products in June 2008. In terms of technology, LEDs are compact and much more efficient, so it was easy -- at least for me -- to be creative with the color combination. But that's not for everyone, because even I have to admit a good amount of them were quite hard to mount properly. It was not until recently that chassis manufacturer NZXT finally came up with a solution to all these things. The NZXT Sleeved LED kit is a far more elegant answer to the usual improvised mounting methods employed by computer enthusiasts. Promising easy implementation for anywhere installation, how well does it translate to real life applications? We picked up three sets to see how it goes. Read on to find out what we have found!
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