Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions The 1.5TB Seagate has dreadful reviews on NewEgg. If anything, I'm lucky mine lasted as long as it did.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions I didn't buy it, it was a gift. My girlfriend knew I liked to download shows and saw a gigantic and cheap HDD on NewEgg. She didn't look at the reviews to see why it was so cheap. It's the only HDD I've ever had that required a firmware update out of the box.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions @Sonu, yeah, what Pdraggy said. If you're doing 3D, you need your refresh rate to be at least double what you use normally, otherwise you're basically getting 30hz.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions You were right. My power supply just went up in a puff of smoke. OCZ bought out PC Power and Cooling a few years ago, and OCZ is known to have pretty shitty quality.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions Ouch. I didn't realize they were bought out by OCZ. At one time they were the tops. They still have a lifetime warranty? You could get a new one, sell it on ebay and then go with something else.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions It's a five year warranty now. I think I'll RMA it, and just sell whatever they send me back on ebay. I'll probably go with Corsair. OCZ has such bad quality that they completely pulled out of the ram business. Doesn't surprise me that they can't produce a decent power supply. I'm going to be pissed if this POS damaged anything when it blew. To be honest, I was suspicious when I got the power supply and it felt light. When it comes to power supplies light means cheap.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions That's the one that had the strange firmware issues? Mine is still spinning; though it doesn't get thrashed with I/O too often anymore. Certainly takes its sweet time spinning up though.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions Yes. It wasn't used for anything critical. I just used it to store TV shows.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions ocz is refusing to honor their warranty. Big surprise. I sent them an email about how their crapass power supply blew up and could have caused a fire. I'm curious how they'll respond. They have Chingrish tech support so my guess is they'll just blow me off or ignore it. Guess I'll be buying something modular from Corsair or Antec in the 500-600 watt range.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions This look okay to you guys? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016&Tpk=bp550 It's $50 after MIR with free shipping and it has good reviews. I've used Antec PSUs before, and I've never had trouble with them. ocz can suck my balls.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions Looks great. Antec is the brand I would buy if I were in the market. Zero bling but a quality PSU. I always thought OCZ climbed to the top by going overboard with the bling.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions This Silverstone is another option for the same price after rebate, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256061 Bought one for a PC at work and the quality is really nice for the price. I also bought a Corsair 450 non-modular for a identical PC and the Silverstone impressed me more while being cheaper to boot. I think for a single GPU system a moderate single 12v rail is better than 2-4 small ones with a few going unused. I'd rather have a nice beefy 34A rail than one 24A doing all the work while others just sit idle. I've had a couple of Antec PSU's in the past (several years ago) and they've been reliable, but that one sure does look plain. Not that I like bling, just a nice matte black finish.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions Neither do I nor do I ever want one. I was just surprised by the overall appearance of quality for such a cheap PSU. I'm sure both are great PSU's, as I said I like the single rail over several weaker ones for lower end PSU's but that's just me.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions Well spotted, I've never had to return a PSU under warranty since the only ones that ever died on me were cheap ones that didn't have a long enough warranty. Still, I think the Antec is now the better value for the 3 year warranty alone. It's a shame because Silverstone really had me sold as a high quality low price solution. I guess I should pay more attention to warranties.
Sonu\'s n00bish PC questions Seasonic's PSU's are for sure a level above the Antecs and Corsairs, you might look for one of those if they aint much more expensive.