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450w-500w PSU Battle Royal

You guys asked, "What about regular mid-range PSUs?" So we bought five power supplies and then tested them to see if they would do what they were advertised to do. A melting fiery mess proves you get what you pay for. 5 PSU enter, 1 PSU leave.

Why Do a 450w to 500w Roundup?

To date the majority of power supplies we have reviewed have been at or near the top of the spectrum in capacity and in cost, marketed under well known brands such as Corsair, Enermax, Thermaltake, Ultra, and so on. However what we have not looked at so far are power supplies from many of the lesser known companies, with budget price ranges, and mid range capacity power supplies that make up the vast majority of power supplies in circulation. Like most PC products the high end, which we have focused on so far, accounts for only a small percentage of sales and the vast majority of PCs still do not require 1000w power supplies.

So today, we take a step away from the high end and enter the midrange power supply market and in the process go off the beaten path to look at some power supplies that don't get a lot of coverage in our program, or any place on the web, in order to see what the state of the mid range power supply is in today’s market. All of the power supplies reviewed today are available in both e-tail, and often retail locations, at price points varying from $19 to $99. We purchased all of our power supplies for this article from Newegg and they represent a good cross section of what is available on the market in the 450w to 500w range.

The Power Supplies

Apevia (formerly Aspire) markets a wide range of computer components including cases, power supplies, keyboards, and more. Apevia’s various power supply models cover the range from 500w to 680w and are some of the most colorful and flashy power supplies on the market. This would seem to indicate that the general audience Apevia is aiming for is one that places a large emphasis on looks when selecting components. Today we are examining the ATX-AS500W-BL one of Apevia’s “see through” models. For this power supply Apevia has paired themselves with Taiwan YoungYear Electronics Co. Taiwan YoungYear Electronics Co has been in the power supply manufacturing business since 1981 and they boast an output of 2,500,000 power supplies a year. YoungYear's products have been marketed, and maybe familiar to users, at various times under the MGE label, Rosewill, and the original X-Connect among others. Many of these power supplies have shared the same traits, (flashy, relatively cheap, high wattage output) as the Apevia unit were are looking at here today, and we will see if the Apevia ATX-AS500W-BL follows in the same performance trend as those power supplies.

The second power supply we have selected for this roundup is the FSP Blue Storm II. FSP is one of the few actual power supply manufacturers, so the unit we are looking at today may show up under labels other than just FSP and is based on FSP Epsilon platform. Among the other brands FSP can be found providing OEM services for are at various times OCZ (GameXStream and ProXStream), Zalman, Aopen, Antec (Basiq) and many more. This wide distribution of power supplies by FSP is not surprising given that they have been in business since 1993 and are one of the top 10 producers of power supplies coupled with being widely regarded as a manufacturer of basic workhorse type power supplies that just get the job done. The BlueStorm II from the onset seems to fit the role of being a solid no frills power supply but it does include some eye candy in the way of a very blue color scheme however it is far from as flashy as the Apevia unit in this roundup.

The third power supply in todays roundup comes from LianLi. LianLi requires virtually no introduction as their cases are legendary and exceedingly popular in the enthusiast realm. LianLi was founded in 1983 and has spent most of that time developing the outstanding Aluminum cases they are now known for. However, recently they have also begun branding power supplies and with their stellar reputation in the case development arena their power supply offerings are sure to catch the eye of customers. LianLi has paired themselves with Sirtec to produce the HPC-500. Sirtec has one of the longer company histories of power supply manufacturers having been founded in 1968 (obviously not manufacturing power supplies for PCs at that time). In the interim ~40 years Sirtec has diversified and is involved in not only power supply manufacturing but also other electronics, molding, and plastic development. Over the years Sirtec has been best known to computer enthusiasts when their power supplies were the power behind the original Thermaltake power supplies and Highpower power supplies. Sirtec power supplies over the years have garnered mixed reviews so it will be of great interest to see how their partnership with LianLi has worked out in this first Sirtec/LianLi power supply we have reviewed to date.

The fourth power supply in the roundup today is the PowerTek 500w. This company has really just popped out of the woodwork recently with these units being available on Newegg. A quick search of the PowerTek website finds a very interesting “About Us” section that serves as the front page. It appears Powertek was founded out of a meeting at CES by unknown parties in an unknown year. Given their recent emergence at Newegg and other retailers I would estimate that the company can not be more than a couple of years old but according to their company website they are devoted to:

PowerTekPro™ continues to raise the bar by creating power supplies that are powerful, reliable, feature rich, and silent. PowerTekPro believes in keeping a close eye and ear on the industries technology trend setters such as, Intel™, AMD™, NVidia™, ATi™, and Alienware™. These trend setters believe in pushing the limits just as PowerTekPro believes in pushing the limits of the power supply industry.

In order to further their goals PowerTek has partnered with Deer Computer Co LTD. Deer Computer Co is a partner of Foxconn and is a rather infamous manufacturer of power supplies best known for Deer, Allied, and some Foxconn power supplies. These power supplies tend to be found bundled with economical cases or as very economical stand alone units. The PowerTek 500w is certainly on the lower end of our price scale being the $19 unit we picked up for the review. However, just because the unit is inexpensive does not automatically make it bad since there are a large number of rebated and free after rebate power supplies floating around that are decent units. Therefore the performance of this power supply may be of the greatest interest of the lot.

The final power supply in our roundup is the Xclio 450-BL. Xclio (Meridian Technology Corp)is another company making a name for themselves by marketing both cases and power supplies. Their 450-BL in particular has been a budget recommendation almost since its debut. In addition to the 450-BL Xclio now markets a range of power supplies from 450w all the way to 1000w. All of these products are generally found in the budget end of their respective market segments which has driven much of their early popularity. To produce the 450-BL Xclio has partnered with Channel Well Technology.

Channel Well Technology was founded and began manufacturing power supplies in 1993. Since 1993 Channel Well Technology products have shown up under various guises including Antec, Xclio, 2theMax, and CWT themselves. While most familiar to our US users under the Antec brand CWT is one of the more complete OEM manufacturers as they have a fairly high level of vertical integration providing transformers all the way up to their well designed independently regulated SMPS. This pedigree coupled with budget pricing has made the Xclio 450-BL a very popular choice and one we simply could not leave out of this roundup.

Now that we have briefly covered the 5 power supplies we are going to be looking at today lets dive into the first unit the Apevia ATX-AS500W-BL.