300W to 450W: 20 Power Supplies on the Test Bench
by Christoph Katzer on December 31, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
FSP Blue Storm II 400W
FSP power supplies sold under their own brand always come in the typical FSP blue paired with a golden fan grille. The Blue Storm II is also one of the older power supplies we are testing today, but it still tries to carry the standard for FSP. We have seen new topologies from FSP that look very interesting and hope they bring out new versions rated at less than 1000W. The Blue Storm II uses a very successful design that FSP has sold to many companies during the past several years. This particular unit might be one of the last survivors of that topology.
This design became famous since it was one of the first ones with heatsinks based on just a piece of aluminum without any fins. The lack of fins should make it difficult for the heatsink to dissipate heat into the air effectively, but somehow it works okay so we don't want to bash too much on this issue. The main capacitor is made by Ostor, which is often used by FSP and Seasonic. The secondary caps are made by CapXon, which we also see often in FSP power supplies. The marking on the PCB shows that this same design is used from 250W up to 500W. It's too bad that we haven't seen a 250W unit with this design in the market; we know many people that would be very happy with such a unit.
As the Blue Storm II is one of FSP's retail products, they equipped it a little bit better than the OEM models. It comes with six Molex and three SATA connectors of decent length. The 24-pin, 4-pin, and 6-pin PEG connectors have a length of 40cm, which is still not very long but better than cables as short as the OEM version. In standard FSP fashion, the cables are sleeved in blue and the PCI-E cable harness is in red.
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Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
We cannot run after every brand there is and if those companies don't come to us... there are surely many more missing but we can only test products from companies that are actually interested in us testing their stuff. We had an Akasa unit before though...boboko - Sunday, January 4, 2009 - link
>"We cannot run after every brand there is and if those companies don't come to us..."I guess that is the problem with almost all review sites. And the worst thing is not that you skip the smaller guys, but that what you are reviewing is not off the shelf, it's sent to you buy a company that wants a good review. So even if they have rotten quality control, and half their stuff is DOA, you know the one they send you has been triple checked and fine tuned. Not your fault, but to me the reliability is MUCH more important than a few extra watts or a few less decibels, and there's just no way to get good data on that.
Griswold - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - link
If you read the reviews here, you'd know that this assumption is false in general. AT has had junk on their bench on more than one occassion - if every supplier would do what you claim, all reviews would take place in happy bunny land where everything is dandy and no negative notion is possible. But thats not the case.Surely there will be those who go the extra mile to make their product look better than it is off the shelf, but you just cant hide every trace of incompetence and bad quality.
Much like we cant expect a review site buy every piece of hardware to test it and hope they can re-sell it without a loss.
marc1000 - Thursday, January 1, 2009 - link
wow, I know it was said before, but you guys really do listen to us. that's the reason I come here everyday to know the news! keep up the good job at 2009! regards!C'DaleRider - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
I'm just curious why the "old" version of the Antec Earthwatts 430 was dug out and retested since Seasonic is no longer the OEM for it but now has Delta as the OEM supplier and has been for many months now.Seems it'd be only fitting that the "new" version would be tested instead of a version no longer being made or sold, except as NOS (new old stock).
Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
If only "someone" could send it to us :] I will make sure to get new revision on time, you're totally right.sprockkets - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
What were those bad things happening to the SII Seasonic PS?JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
I believe Christoph is just saying that he's received an increase number of email messages from people saying that their Seasonic PSUs have failed. It's anecdotal at best, and it could just be a case of more people buying their PSUs and thus a small fraction that fails can still result in more complaints than before.Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
Yes ;)There was a revision in the beginning that had problems with certain motherboards somehow, something to do with the "power good" signal. They've upgraded the series long time ago though.
Lonyo - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
I'd just ordered some new parts, including a CX400 about 30 minutes before I saw this article come up.Nice to see that my choice seems fairly solid.
I'm sure this article will be relevant for other people as well.