Or these guys doing testing.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

I've had bad luck with the modular utlra PSU's. I went through 3 in 3 months and then decided to go with a different brand and haven't had a problem with it since (7 months). It is a 850 watt Themaltake PSU but it is over 200 USD.

j razz

The big thing these days seems to be upping the efficiency. There's apparently a new "80+" standard, meaning that the power supply is at least 80% efficient at converting power coming in from the mains into power going out on the various buses. Here are some examples at NewEgg.

There are numerous power calculators out on the Internet. If your system needs 300w, there's little necessity, in my view, for a massive 600-800w supply. In fact, I think I read somewhere that a partially-loaded power supply is less efficient than one more closely matched.

The only other consideration I would suggest is getting a supply with a humongous fan on the bottom and no fan out back. The big fan can move lots of air with almost no noise whatsoever.

Supplies seem to go on sale at places like Fry's every 6 months or so. I've never paid more than $40 for a name-brand supply.

I just bought this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817371001

Honestly, every "cheap" PSU I've bought has blown out in ~a year or two for no reason. Every single one. I've had several antec's & one has never blown out w/o a power surge, and the equipment has always been fine, just the PSU went. I say several because I had one for wife's, one for mine, power surge blew it out (along with other things in the house), one to replace that & one for my current rig.

I looked at the power supplies that store carries and the best one I saw for the money was the Seasonic S12 550 watt at $119. It would be even better if they had the newer Seasonic S12 II, but that one is really good too.

John

Just got a Tagan BZ 800w with modular cables and it is performing as I expected so far. (1 week old). And yes, the huge fan sucks inside computer air and blows it out of the computer.
JJK

Thanks. My current one is a stock case one and the back fan is pretty loud. It also has a bottom fan, but it's not 120mm...maybe 92mm.

Would the bottom fan be interferring with the Arctic Pro? It's almost right on the top of the heatsink for it. It just seems like the power supply got louder lately...it wasn't as loud as when I first put the new fan in. I know I'm probably more used to it now, but something still doesn't seem quite right.

It may be resonating off of it because of the proximity. Can you re-orient the power supply or will that block the airflow through it?

John

I don't think I can move it. I mean, I don't have a small case, but I can't see it going anywhere else.

I meant, can you turn it?

John

I'm not sure, I've never messed with power supplies before. Here is a pic of it from a couple of months ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15341017@N08/1760677878/

You definitely want a PSU with a 120mm exhaust fan if you're going for quiet operation.

I'm currently using the Antec TP3-650 TruePower Trio:
http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=011025&cid=PS.808

It has great reviews, especially at staying stable at high load (no power fluctuations).

Even with your ear right up to the back of the computer, it's basically silent, so you won't likely ever hear it in actual use.

It's a little over $100, but I'd say it's worth it. However, if you want to go for a lower-priced model, there's the 430W and 550W models which may suite your needs (both are under $100 on the site you linked to).

another vote for seasonic. I read on anandtech or toms reviews over the years and they consistently do well. The 430 and 550 that I bought are fairly quiet and they're 80+ efficient.

seasonic S12 (II) is the one I went with.

Sean

What kind of difference do higher wattage power supplies make? Do they allow things to function quicker? Keep the heat down?

This might be what crafttech meant, but I keep hearing this slow pulsating hum, which might be the bottom power supply fan and the Arctic Pro blowing on each other.

As to not make a mess of the forum, just wondering if anybody has experience with this...

I'm trying to do a memory diagnostic (bought new memory recently, been having random reboots...possibly before I bought the memory, not sure) but memtest86 makes no sense to me and the Windows one didn't seem to work. I don't really know what I'm doing. I burned the Windows Memory Diagnostic file onto a CD-R, and booted up my computer and I got this Caldera DR-DOS thing coming asking for some command and I have no idea what it's about.

Go here, scroll down the page until you see the download section, get the "iso" version, use a program such as Nero to burn to a CD-R disk, then boot from that disk. Or, if you prefer, download the floppy version, copy that onto a blank floppy, and then boot from the floppy. I'm assuming here that you know about your PCs BIOS and how to make if boot from a CD or floppy.

The free Memtest program will just start running and cycle through your entire ram with a variety of tests. The idea here is that you don't want ANY errors indicated even after hours of running. If you get errors, try to isolate which ram stick is the culprit.

I've concluded that there is junk ram and quality ram. No-name ram runs most of the time.Quality ram runs all of the time and you can overclock it, if you enjoy that sort of thing. I'd suggest you buy name-brand ram from a vendor such as NewEgg.

It's best to run a memory testing utility in DOS from a CD or floppy so you can test all the ram. If you run a diagnostic from within Windows, a significant portion can't be tested, because it's needed by Windows.

> What kind of difference do higher wattage power supplies make?

If you plan on using a power hungry Quad Core CPU or a high-end graphics card or a lot of hard drives you will need a lot of wattage to feed them. I've got a Seasonic M12 600W and it is very quiet. Works great with my ZALMAN CNPS9700 NT heat sink. You can't go wrong with anything from Seasonic.

~jr

You really need to look at Coolermaster Power Supplies
I swear by the reliability and efficiency of their cpu fans, and the specs including dBa for these Power Supplies are truly impressive. I have lost more than one PS to a cheap fan, a problem I just don't think will happen with these models. And, in keeping with CM's design strategy, they look cool too.

Mmm,
Wonder why my links aren't working. Here's the url
http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?language=en&act=category&tbcate=22

EDIT: See two posts down.

I got at least one error after running for 42 minutes. Guess I'll be seeing which stick it is and then taking it or both of them back.