DFI Recommended Power Supplies (UPDATED October 20th, 2006!)

[davidhammock200]

The review was from jonny guru, a guy that is very trusted.

Who that bumb!

 

jk'ing , Jonny is to be trusted, however he is the champion of the under-dog & will recommend units that I would consider marginal.

[MC FLMJIG]

Who that bumb!

 

jk'ing , Jonny is to be trusted, however he is the champion of the under-dog & will recommend units that I would consider marginal.

 

 

LOL, not nice!

 

Yes, I noticed you guys have a few disagreement.

 

Question.

 

You recommend the Liberty 620w. It's in your top list, however the 500w is nowhere to be found? Why?

 

The 500w is one, well, was, one of the best PSU. It's better than some of the lower end ones on the list... Just an observation.

 

Thanks for helping.

[Guest lokiel]

WOO-HOO!!!

 

TigerDirect.com.au now taking pre-orders for OCZ GameXstream PSU in Oz, ETA mid-September.

 

See http://www.tigerdirect.com.au/index.php?cP...2a&filter_id=38

 

This is BIG news for us here in Oz since we have not been able to purchase them yet and nobody has stocked the 520W PSUs for months (so many were being returned that many refused to sell them).

 

I've tried 3 PSUs on my Expert board, including the "recommended" Enermax ELT620AWT which would not even POST the board so I'm looking forward to getting one of these babies!

 

PS: In case you didn't pick it up earlier: Don't buy the "recommended" Enermax ELT620AWT PSU for your DFI Expert, it probably wont work.

[davidhammock200]

LOL, not nice!

 

Yes, I noticed you guys have a few disagreement.

 

Question.

 

You recommend the Liberty 620w. It's in your top list, however the 500w is nowhere to be found? Why?

 

The 500w is one, well, was, one of the best PSU. It's better than some of the lower end ones on the list... Just an observation.

 

Thanks for helping.

Enermax is recommended as a brand & the Liberty 620W is DFI-Street.com Certified, what more do you want? :confused:

 

Obviously the Liberty 500W is fine for lesser duties.

[Angry_Games]

I'd like to update a little bit

 

Hiper is going to send me some of their psu's to test:

 

Hi Travis,

 

I will ask my colleague to arrange samples of HPU-4K580 (580W) and HPU-4K530 (530W) to start off with and we will arrange sample of the new flagship 4S730 when it becomes available.

 

If there is any further question, please do not hesitate to let me know.

 

Thanks!

 

so we'll have not only the Antec psu's arriving to test. but now it looks like 3 models of Hiper coming down the pipe also!

[davidhammock200]

I'd like to update a little bit

 

Hiper is going to send me some of their psu's to test:

 

 

 

so we'll have not only the Antec psu's arriving to test. but now it looks like 3 models of Hiper coming down the pipe also!

Excellent!

[wevsspot]

You know you've hit the big time when companies are offering samples up for testing purposes (hoping to get that big A++ recommendation when the testing is done). Congratulations HG. I know it's more work but you just can't turn down free samples!

 

Hopefully the units will be randomly pulled out of their production stream and not just some custom built or hand picked samples.

[davidhammock200]

Almost everyone sends "pre-tested" hand picked samples. :cool:

[red930]

Almost everyone sends "pre-tested" hand picked samples. :cool:

 

Kinda be dumb not to really...especially when people have already expressed concerns about them.

 

Too bad we can't afford to buy our own to test so we'd have a better sampling.

[davidhammock200]

Kinda be dumb not to really...especially when people have already expressed concerns about them.

 

Too bad we can't afford to buy our own to test so we'd have a better sampling.

It's not all that bad really, our samples will still show how well their "good" PSU's work with DFI mobos.

 

When a customer's PSU doesn't live up to our samples, we just tell them to RMA it, as we KNOW that a "good" one will work.

 

Dave

[KimTjik]

I'd like to update a little bit

 

Hiper is going to send me some of their psu's to test:

 

 

 

so we'll have not only the Antec psu's arriving to test. but now it looks like 3 models of Hiper coming down the pipe also!

That's good news. My own experience with Hiper is very good and the contact I've had with them tells me that they put a serious effort into producing quality products.

 

The only technical problem I ever faced had to do with a faulty cable. The Hiper office in Britain intervened to speed up that RMA process, which was nice.

 

The connectors for the modular PSU line are designed very well. I wonder if you'll get to test the new 730W unit. Anyway it will be interesting to see what you think about it after some testing.

[Angry_Games]

You know you've hit the big time when companies are offering samples up for testing purposes (hoping to get that big A++ recommendation when the testing is done). Congratulations HG. I know it's more work but you just can't turn down free samples!

 

Hopefully the units will be randomly pulled out of their production stream and not just some custom built or hand picked samples.

i demand only off-the-shelf models that would otherwise go to Newegg or another vendor. I refuse to take hand-picked cherry parts because it leads to a false sense of quality if I get a hand-picked item that does 400FSB and not a single normal module (or psu, or vid card, etc) will do past 275...it inflates a company's sales at the expense of my forum users and I won't tolerate such nonsense.

 

The hand-picked or custom-built bits I get once in a while I never report on them and I inform the company(s) that give them to me that they are between the company and Angry_Games, not DFI-Street unless they are prepared to dump a bunch of them on the market or give up certain batch info and guarantee that the rest will preform to spec that my cherry ones do.

 

Sounds kinda corny or self-important but that's just the way I like to be. I miss out on a lot of killer things (probably a reason why I have never had a single AMD64/X2/Opteron hit 3Ghz stable enough to put in the OCDB). I could have a lot of killer but private cherry things but I just don't have time to play with everything anymore, and I know the company would much rather give them to some other forum user who will promote them as 'just like what is for sale' and get some sales that way. (Andy @ OCZ can verify the truth of my statements as can CPU Killer from DangerDen)

 

The only real disappointment has been Intel. I would have taken a cherry cpu from them but I wouldn't report about it because I wanted a real, live, off-the-shelf-from-newegg cpu, and they were making waves all over the net with everyone else who didn't have much in the sense of morality for his forum users and would pimp their new processor like little kids with a new toy and would bow to the party line.

 

I will never get an Intel Core 2 Duo or whatever they are called now, and I don't really much care. If DFI wants to buy one for me, or if Intel decides it might be a good thing that I have one, then I will get one. But neither of these scenarios are going to come true and as I've stated a hundred times, I have no interest in Intel Conroe cpu's and don't plan on putting much time or effort into the Intel line (I don't even have an LGA775 cpu anymore other than my video editing rig but that is in an Asus motherboard setup and it is all parts that I bought with my own money and I'm not breaking down my killer vid editing rig for anyone).

 

On top of that it is pretty hard to support a platform where you can't get the main ingredient...the cpu that everyone is talking about and clawing each other's eyes out to get one of. Rgone has a Conroe but he isn't saying much about it publicly because it too is an Engineering Sample that a forum user sent to him just so he could have one, but he, I'm quite sure, believes that it would be bad form to post anything about it, being an ES version and all.

 

AMD on the other hand, keeps bringing trays of processors and I keep getting them. I've got a 3800+ X2 and 4800+ X2 socket AM2 and soon I'll have a few bits more here and there, and that is why I keep supporting AMD products and have made my way here by pushing and promoting DFI + AMD for the last couple of years. I'm hoping in some small way that what Rgone and I have done has helped AMD achieve a bit of equality in the cpu market, as they deserve it for their quiet but reliable support and commitment of DFI and our users here at the forum.

 

They simply give us as many processors as we can beg for (heh) and never ask us to post anything...they know that the fact they give us trays of the things means we will spend the majority of our time using them for both testing, but more importantly, as our own personal workstations and gaming machines and HTPC's and Servers etc....you guys see us using nothing but overclocked AMD cpu's and for almost 2 years only a handful fought the grain and used Intel cpu's. Everyone else, even the most hardcore Pentium guy, gravitated to the AMD side and it shows here as well as almost every forum like this on the net.

 

I don't hate Intel and I am not bitter towards them. They have their reasons, and I am not the most likeable guy, and I'm very demanding and very blunt in my opinions with everyone. I refuse to lie about a product to benefit myself (I don't need benefits, I already have more high-end hardware than any 10 of you in the forum, and I can't even use it all for what it was engineered for). I still believe that either they think I'm too small fish for them, or they don't like me becuase I'm an obnoxious jerk, or that I would expose their cpu as 'not really any better than an AMD when you get right down to it'.

 

A little ego boosting from myself to myself never hurts either, and like everyone, I have a bit of self-importance that I believe is true and the rest of you think is sickening.

 

I'm quite happy with where things are. I'm finally playing with the Socket AM2 and the Infinity DFI board, and I am beginning to really really love it. I don't really have a lot of time for any of the things I used to do around here, other than stop in once in a while and make stupid, boring, long-winded speeches like this.

 

But in the past week I've done my job very well and have helped get Antec and Hiper interested in DFI-Street's user base. Antec wasn't happy that we weren't putting their psu's on the Recommended list, and Hiper has an excellent relationship with Bulldog, our EU rep, and I think Hiper realized that it couldn't hurt to have a 24k member strong community constantly talking about their product, and having it promoted for free by the admin and his users that believed the admin when he said that the psu's were fantastic and Recommended.

 

It's a small price to pay to have real users promoting your product for free. It takes money to make money as my pappy used to say I guess. Grass-roots marketing is where the money is for companies these days. We are wiser and more apt to do a little research before we pull the trigger on the BUY NOW button, and techies like us are even more ingrained to read up on a product before buying it.

 

Most of us have become a bit disgruntled about review sites these days too, knowing that reviewers rarely get to spend real time with a product other than a review (what I call a "showcase" now since that is all it really is). Most of us have also read a glowing review of a DFI board only to find out what kind of hell it will put you through, and you resent that the reviewer skipped over some pretty damn important issues, or didn't bother to try the things you were wanting to try before it really made you mad and you RMA'd it 3 times before finding this site and realizing that if you'd found the forum a month ago, you'd not have gone to jail for beating your neighbor up in a fit of rage over your stupid DFI motherboard that wouldn't even boot, but now runs 3012Mhz and slices through World of Warcraft with every conceivable option cranked up to the max and you can smell the aluminum of your case starting to bubble and warp.

 

OCZ and many others realized this a bit ago, and they helped not only me and DFI-Street, but more than a few other community members at other forums and sites get started using OCZ products. I don't blindly promote OCZ. The things you don't hear about certain products that I never tell you about are the OCZ products that I just don't believe are right for the users here. Most times they are just products that I never requested or received but there's a few stinkers that I've turned my nose up at after playing with.

 

Instead of clouting them with a bunch of negative words about their product openly, I choose to instead put weight behind my opinion of a DIFFERENT OCZ product that a user should try instead. This isn't lying to you, the potential customer. It is simply guiding a potential customer to a different OCZ product that I do believe in wholeheartedly. If you insist on the part that I don't like, I will try to steer you away from it, but I never tell you that you are a dumbass and that the XP-Niner5000 burned down my house it was so poorly made (this never happened, this is just a stupid example) and you should rot in hell for being so lame as to not listen to the almighty Angry_Games.

 

So if you see me steer you into a different product, and I'm adamant that you should really consider something else, there's probably a reason behind (either I've tried it and it stinks, or more often than not there's a different product from the same mfg that is simply awesome, and very near in price, and you'd be foolish to get anything else but it!)

 

Anyway, OCZ has treated me well. I'm not their whore, but in a way they've made me their whore by consistently making top-quality products and offering me one to see how well it stands up to the pressure of Rgone and Angry_Games (Rgone has his own means of getting OCZ stuff so his is usually different than mine which is exactly how we planned it about 2+ years ago as it gives wider coverage to a company's product). I even caught myself getting an OCZ USB memory stick a month ago just because it was OCZ and I was actually buying it...and a similar stick was about 50% cheaper in price.

 

Loyalty (but not stupid blind loyalty) is something that just can't be bought and respected. It must be earned, and if it isn't, you guys are smart enough to see right through it. Blind promotion of a product is like blood to a pack of snarling dogs, and I want no part of being ripped apart by the pack because I foolishly and blindly promoted something I hated, or worse, never used, never saw, never touched.

 

A lot of companies don't like me because of this (I'll never get an Ultra-X or Aspire psu nor a Christmas card from either company, but I have to admit I have a fond weakness for Aspire cases and I purchase them with my own cash even though I won't go near their psu's when I am actually buying something).

 

A lot of companies have complained directly to my bossman Jacky and even to our CEO about this.

 

I just shrug and tell them the truth about why it is this way, and then we fight about it for hours, sometimes weeks, but I won't budge, and either DFI is making too much off me and this forum to honestly care, or they finally realize that I have some integrity and try to smooth it over with the mfg, I don't know. Probably the former haha.

 

Which is another point in a way. I pay for this place with my own money. I get a paycheck from DFI, but it is pitiful. I complain in a way, but if I really was insulted, I would simply go to work for another company (and a few have offered me double or more the salary DFI is paying me because apparently I am talented and they are willing to risk my big mouth and heavy-handed ways and my in-your-face style that is shown to both customers as well as executives).

 

I do love my job, even though it can be hateful sometimes. It's not too tough, but it is stressful, and I'm always mentally tired because it does require a lot of thinking, and sometimes completely emotionally drained because a big bunch of you love to push the buttons and watch me go whacko so you can tell everyone at your pet forum away from here just what a %#@$#@ crazy sumbitch that idiot Angry_Games really is and how you can't understand how DFI could even want to have a single thing to do with me.

 

Most times I'm just happy to help out and do good things for others because karma is a classy lady and I want to get the handout, not the slap in the face when the karma-cream man comes rolling through my neighborhood. Sure I'm a bit selfish. But realize that if I was just doing it to make myself look good, I'd have grown tired of you overgrown babies throwing tantrums a long time ago and told you all where to stuff it and then taste it if stuffing it wasn't good enough. I do like 99% of you, and I do like helping others. I was doing this for free long before DFI came knocking, and if I move on I am sure I will still gravitate towards these kinds of places and give a helping hand without asking for anything but a naked pic of your sister in return.

 

I'm not a very kind person as you most know, but the one thing I believe I have and in excess of is integrity.

 

This is why some companies like Hiper and OCZ and DD come to me. They don't have to worry about me ruining their business, and they see that for some stupid reason a lot of you believe the things I say and will buy just about anything I say is good because you know in your heart that I have tested it and if I didn't like it, you wouldn't see me ramming it down your throat to buy it.

 

The fact that Rgone (who is much nicer, quieter, less in-your-face by a longshot, and while older definitely much wiser than me) and I have been consistent in our hits over the last couple of years is a good track record to take to other companies and beg for necessary items from them.

 

A lot of companies ignore us (mostly because they hate me I'm sure). Yet enough say "hey, this is great. these guys are studious, honest, and dedicated, and their word is mostly gold at their house of worship so let's do ourselves a favor and see what they are made of when it comes to our product!" that we get buy with excellent products to recommend to you.

 

Once we've recommended a killer product that we believe in, the dominoes law kicks in. Once the product has blown us away, we tell you, and a few tenative users at first eat it up and buy the product, and it blows you away, and then you tell others we weren't shitting anyone when we said it was great, and then a big rush of users got to have whatever it is that is the new hot topic, and then suddenly it turns into a rush. SVC or Newegg sells out of them once, twice, sometimes 3 times and the business from then on might slow down but it remains steady until a new bit comes out that we love and we start the cycle over again.

 

Money just can't buy that kind of promotion, and smart companies who are willing to take a little risk find out the gamble was worth it in many ways. Loyal customers sometimes become fanboys and those guys, while we hate most of them, are important and have their niche in the game also.

 

Sometimes I want to stand back and look at this whole mess I've created with lots of help from Rgone and many others, and think I'm just the greatest thing to the world of enthusiast computers.

 

I think that it is normal to be ultimately proud of something that you've started that has become incredibly successful (except in teh making money department lol).

 

Mostly I just think "god, what a wreck...it's grown to the point where I cannot control anything about it anymore and I can't even pay attention to all the different angles...I wish I had shut my mouth back then and just helped out for free and gotten a real job with a crappy schedule but less responsibility".

 

But hey, the two guys that actually finished reading this...if you made it this far without throwing up or writing a nasty letter to my bossman/CEO to tell them what a bag of crap they have working for them, understand that you are the ones who have really made this place successful.

 

Without users, we have a dead forum. Without constant users who stick around and help everyone they can, no matter how big of a jerkoff some can be, we'd be a ghost town, and I'd be working that real job and Rgone would be eating caviar out of my bleached skull with a platinum spoon lol .

 

You users are the lifeblood now around here. I am just here to be the bad guy and police it a bit and make everyone hate me just a little more and make companies like Hiper and Antec nervous but willing to take a shot at gaining marketshare within our user base.

 

I'm glad this place is successful, and I am glad you guys showed up and I'm glad a big chunk of you stuck around for a long time. I hope I win the lottery one day so I can buy 10,000 plane tickets and take you all to an NHL game, but since that will never happen (I mean, hey, I can't even get Intel to drop a single Conroe cpu at my door so you know my luck since they were giving them out to everyone including babies and old women), you'll have to live knowing that I am a sorry excuse for support manager, and a rude know-it-all whom you love to hate with a passion so much that you show up everyday hoping to nail me to the wall in a lie or with some other ridiculous, incredibly offending thing I've done.