Let us have your comments on the PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 Express review.

__________________
SLCentral does it better www.slcentral.com/

If you're a UK swinger have a look at our swinging site.

$200 for a loud, low-efficiency PSU? And you call this the "cream of the crop"? Lol, crawl out from under your rock.

Powmax user?

I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to read all of the way through to the last page. Yes, the power supply can be loud. Yes, the efficiency averages around 73-75%. Yes, it's expensive. But rating product has to cover a wide range of variables. Did I give it a 10? No. Did I give it a 9.5? Not even. I gave it a 9 because of everything weighed out. And my tests primarily focuses on POWER, something the PCP&C has no shortage of.

I'm sorry they don't make this PSU with glowing blue lights and a shiny finish too. I'm sure if it did, it may have scored a 10.... On most any other website.

I like it under my rock. Feels like home. If you don't like it, there's plenty of review sites that like power supplies for a lot of different reasons I do.

__________________
Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

I'm sorry they don't make this PSU with glowing blue lights and a shiny finish too...

Oops, the poor performance of this unit has nothing to do with esthetics. A PSU is designed to deliver stable power with a minimum of waste and noise pollution. This unit fails miserably on the last two items...but at least it delivers on the first, right? Right?

Oh wait, you already admitted to the possibility of your test sample being defective, given its zero-load and full-load error condition. And you didn't give details on your test methodology, so I don't know how the unit performs under extended load, high ambient temperatures, input transients or under/overvolts, or the demand spikes typically put on a PSU by a modern computer. I imagine you simply hooked it up to a load tester, then slowly ramped up the wattage and chortled with glee over the results.

Your single reason for the high rating appears to be the fact it can delivery almost 650 watts. Now that might appeal to some teenager wanting bragging rights...but not even an overclocked Prescott with dual raptors, 2 gig of ram, and SLI 6800s is going to consume so much power. Not to mention the fact that at 68% efficiency, such a load would be consuming nearly 1000 watts...enough waste heat to roast you alive in an underventilated room, or burn out your AC unit early in another. I won't even mention its effect on your power bill...but you could fuel a Ferrari for less than it'd cost you to run this thing 24x7, even at $3/gallon for gas.

The joy your express over the unit's power factor is also amusing, given that for a residential user with a primarily resistive load, there are no benefits. It helps your utility company-- it doesn't help you.

I don't want a flame war.. and I'm not saying you're trying to start one and I do want to hear what you have to say, but I think you need to actually read everything before you come in here as an anonymous user and put down the review... which you are certianly entitled to do, but I at least expect you to READ the whole thing first and not just whatever page some other website linked you to.



On this page: http://www.slcentral.com/raidmax-rx-520xp-psu/page4.php

I said: I will not report on noise. SilentPCReview does a GREAT job on testing power supplies for noise. You want to check them out. If a power supply is really quiet, I'll state it. If a power supply is really loud, I'll state that too. But I'm not going to report noise levels in decibels, etc. To effectively test a power supply for noise, one needs to either install the power supply into a system or have a test rig designed for the task. One also needs to have access to an accurate sound meter. I do not. SilentPCReview does.

You want a review that tells you how quiet a power supply is? That's not my review. You can't say that I didn't state that "the fan is just too noisy." But I can only make an observation, and I'm not that concerned with PSU fan noise myself. Am I not entitled to have an opinion based on my own personal preferences?



What part of the review did you read? Just one page or maybe two? It seems like you missed the first page with the links to "Overview, "Wattage, "Parameters," and "Methodology." (look at the top of http://www.slcentral.com/pc-power-a...press/index.php)

You could just start here: http://www.slcentral.com/raidmax-rx-520xp-psu/

I'm sorry it's mixed in with the Raidmax review, but we figured we'd just link that part instead of including it over and over again for each review.

But in this portion, not only do I tell you what I use, but how I use it. That I am getting wattage reading on both the AC and DC side of the system (which is how I figure out efficiency) and that the power is actually NOT "ramped up" at all. The power is actually rushed through the PSU and is sustained for no less than an hour.



No. If that was the case, it would get a 10. Although it is the PRIMARY reason it got a high score. Again, you need to read the Methodology part of the review. The 650W was not measured on the AC side using a Kill-A-Watt. Your right that 650W doesn't mean anything... IF I got that wattage rating from the AC outlet because with 75% efficiency that is about 1000W at the outlet. I agree that if I was measuring 650W at the outlet, that would only be about 500W or less on the DC side of the PSU, which may or may not be enough (depending on how the load is distributed across the rails) for a Prescott, pair of Raptors, SLI, etc... but again... READ the methodology and the load distribution (where I actually state HOW I split the loads up and why) and you'll understand.



Again... Read. It's 642W on the DC side, not the AC side and that's with a 34A load on the 12V rail alone. I don't care if you have a dual core P4 with SLI, you're not even putting a 24A load on the 12V rail and if you did, it wouldn't be sustained. That's where test three comes into play, which is a 30A load, which is still really overkill and the PSU worked at a 73% efficiency.



This website is based out of the UK where customers are charged for Power Factor and power supplies without Active PFC are not even legal for sale. Only in the US is Power Factor NOT a concern.

I don't mind constructive criticism and it's ok if our priorities aren't the same when shopping for a power supply, but if you're going to pick a review apart, at least READ IT.

__________________
Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

Actually, I did read the entire article. I saw the links on page 1 and assumed they were pointing to the other pages of the review itself, not another review entirely. My apologies.

So onto the methodology as given....unless I missed it, I still don't see how long the PSU was tested under load. Your post though says an hour, which should should be long enough. Ripple and noise also isn't tested...but you point that out yourself, so I won't quibble on it.

I'm suspicious of the stated efficiency curve. By design, a normal switching power supply will be most efficient at max load. But your curve shows nearly flat, with actually a slight decline in efficiency. It could be that the supply is actually a hybrid design, but it does make me wonder about the accuracy of the test equipment and whether its being thrown off the the phase shifting done by the APF correction.

You want a review that tells you how quiet a power supply is? That's not my review...I'm not that concerned with PSU fan noise myself

Fair enough. Noise is third on my list of concerns, the first two being stability and efficiency. You're entitled to your opinion, true enough. I'm also entitled to mine, which is that a low-efficiency psu is a poor one, regardless of how powerful it is.

Powmax user?
You say you don't want a flame war...but them's fighting words!

Actually my current PSU is a Seasonic SS12-500. Hits over 80% efficiency, and so quiet I never hear it. It's also cheaper than the Turbo-Cool 510.

This website is based out of the UK where customers are charged for Power Factor ....


I admit my ignorance here, and this would definitely be a plus in favor of the supply...if this is indeed true. I was under the impression that no country charged a PF surcharge for anyone but industrial and large commercial installations. Perhaps you have a link to information on this, as I'd be interested

BTW, in the US- as in the UK- such surcharges are regularly applied, and such customers spend great amounts on capacitor banks to correct their load.

I figured the "Powmax" reference would get them flames a-throwing!

I actually noticed the "efficiency curve" with all of the power supplies I've tested so far. But only when the power supply was over spec and the more over spec the power supply was run, the sharper the curve. In my mind, the concept sort of makes sense. What happens when you overload a MOSFET? It overheats. What's heat? Wasted energy. So the curve sort of makes sense to me. The transistors are rated at a specific wattage and the PSU manufacturers use this as part of what they use to determine the capability of a rail. So naturally, the manufacturer of the transistor gives it this spec based on tests THEY do on the transistor itself. I would guess that they draw the red line on what a transistor can and can not do once the transistor can no longer perform efficiently and it starts to take a nose dive (and in the case of the Thermaltake I reviewed... eventually BLOW UP!)

Welcome aboard. I love to talk shop, so feel free to sign up and shoot the shit anytime.

EDIT: And speaking of Seasonic.. Renz tells me I might have one coming to me for a review! I can hardly wait because I know it can do the power, I know it's efficient and I know it's quiet, so I can forsee it getting at least the same score as the PCP&C.... If that makes you feel any better.

__________________
Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)