Good PSUs?

I'm looking for a new PSU for a friend. He owns a (probably socket
370) Pentium III with a couple of hard disks, so it won't need to be
that high-rated but I don't want something too crappy and cheap. I've
searched a few places and have come up with this selection (by the way
I live in Ireland, so please no links to US/UK stores):

Q-Tec 400W Dual Fan........... 33 Euro
Chieftec PSU ATX 360W......... 55 Euro
Enermax PSU ATX 350W ......... 62 Euro

Mmmm, don't really have much of a choice unless I get some unbranded
crap. What would be the best of these three? What companies can I
trust?

And they will work with any ATX motherboard, won't they?

Thanks for any help

--
Zilog Jones

On 26 Sep 2003 06:06:03 -0700,
(Zilog Jones) wrote:

I'm looking for a new PSU for a friend. He owns a (probably socket
370) Pentium III with a couple of hard disks, so it won't need to be
that high-rated but I don't want something too crappy and cheap. I've
searched a few places and have come up with this selection (by the way
I live in Ireland, so please no links to US/UK stores):

Q-Tec 400W Dual Fan........... 33 Euro
Chieftec PSU ATX 360W......... 55 Euro
Enermax PSU ATX 350W ......... 62 Euro

Mmmm, don't really have much of a choice unless I get some unbranded
crap. What would be the best of these three? What companies can I
trust?

And they will work with any ATX motherboard, won't they?

They will work with standadr ATX motherboard.

The Q-Tec make is (sometimes) a well dressed, pretty power supply, but
always junk. Even their 550W model is poor compared to name-brand
300W.

The Chieftec is (at least those sent to the US) same as Highpower or
Thermaltake. It's a mid-grade power supply, should be fine and while
not great, is better than a generic.

Enermax is overpriced for what's inside, but also fine, should be ok
for that system. If I had to choose from among only those 3 PSU, I'd
choose the Enermax, assuming it has dual-ball-bearing fans, because I
think the Chieftec doesn't, rather the Chieftec fans' label may say
ball-bearing on it but it's a one-ball, one-sleeve bearing type.

If they're available there, I'd get a Sparkle/Fortron 300W, though
unless that system has a high-powered video card a 250W might work
too. Just buy a name-brand unit, by which I mean a large,
long-established name-brand, not something like Q-Tec, Kingwin, etc.


Dave

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:47:39 GMT, kony wrote:

On 26 Sep 2003 06:06:03 -0700,
(Zilog Jones) wrote:

I'm looking for a new PSU for a friend. He owns a (probably socket
370) Pentium III with a couple of hard disks, so it won't need to be
that high-rated but I don't want something too crappy and cheap. I've
searched a few places and have come up with this selection (by the way
I live in Ireland, so please no links to US/UK stores):

Q-Tec 400W Dual Fan........... 33 Euro
Chieftec PSU ATX 360W......... 55 Euro
Enermax PSU ATX 350W ......... 62 Euro

Mmmm, don't really have much of a choice unless I get some unbranded
crap. What would be the best of these three? What companies can I
trust?

And they will work with any ATX motherboard, won't they?

They will work with standadr ATX motherboard.

The Q-Tec make is (sometimes) a well dressed, pretty power supply, but
always junk. Even their 550W model is poor compared to name-brand
300W.

The Chieftec is (at least those sent to the US) same as Highpower or
Thermaltake. It's a mid-grade power supply, should be fine and while
not great, is better than a generic.

Enermax is overpriced for what's inside, but also fine, should be ok
for that system. If I had to choose from among only those 3 PSU, I'd
choose the Enermax, assuming it has dual-ball-bearing fans, because I
think the Chieftec doesn't, rather the Chieftec fans' label may say
ball-bearing on it but it's a one-ball, one-sleeve bearing type.

If they're available there, I'd get a Sparkle/Fortron 300W, though
unless that system has a high-powered video card a 250W might work
too. Just buy a name-brand unit, by which I mean a large,
long-established name-brand, not something like Q-Tec, Kingwin, etc.

Thanks for the advice. I thought the most expensive one would probably be
the best - it's like that with everything else, so why shouldn't it be like
that with PSUs?

I don't know exactly what graphics card he has, but it's the one that came
with the PC so I very much doubt he'll need more than 250W.

I'll look out for Sparkle/Fortron - I might have seen *something* made by
Sparlke in the OEM section of a local shop but I can't remember what it was
now...

--
Zilog Jones

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