Why you should not buy an EVGA SuperNova B3

[Frick]

wait, wait, wait... these are bronze? who The F buys Bronze series PSU's anymore?

At the very least go silver, if not gold. They're like 3-5$ more expensive.

Sub par efficiency and sub par quality are nearly the same thing lol.

Me, and many with me? Personally I would never spend more than about €50-60 on a PSU no matter what it powered.

 

[R-T-B]

sorry for the attitude, but I hate posts with the "I am a rich person" attitude

Personally, I am a poor person... and that's in no small part because of my expensive PC.

Personally I would never spend more than about €50-60 on a PSU no matter what it powered.

I can think of a few instances in which I bet you would... granted they are mostly medical though.

 

[yogurt_21]

Me, and many with me? Personally I would never spend more than about €50-60 on a PSU no matter what it powered.

yes yes all of us who spend more are total morons

@ the rest of you

Also I get it you all seem to loves you some lowend PSU's but not word definitions such as what the word "nearly" means lol

are "nearly" and "equal" synonyms?

because most if not all of your responses would indicate they are.

Yes there's the old argument about higher wattage plus or bronze vs slightly lower wattage gold or platinum but you have to understand what you're doing there. Plus and Bronze are not the best the company can build. In fact they are rated so because they failed to pass at the silver, gold, or platinum levels. If that doesn't bother you that's fine. But at some point "you get what you pay for" has to kick in.

If everything highend was barely better there'd be no reason for the higher quality, efficient, or performance parts.

And the power supply is going to be there for rig after rig after rig. If you're willing to trust 3-10 thousand dollars of parts to a 50$ PSU that's fine for you. Excuse me if I want a bit more insurance than that.

My last PSU lasted 9 years and went through 6 major rig changes and 12K worth of parts. I paid 200$ for it to ensure it would have enough power and longevity. (80 plus back then was also a much higher premium than it is now)

this time around a single benjamin would do as parts were getting more efficient and I wouldn't need as much wattage and gold was quite a bit cheaper these days. Platinum would have been nice but I chose not to pay the premium for it.

Bronze would have saved me a whopping 15$ . Yes 3-5$ may have been exaggerated, so sue me "how dare he slightly exaggerate on a tech forum, BAN HIM!, make sure everyone quotes him for the next 2 pages to make sure he knows we don't tolerate slight exaggerations here!" 15$ vs the efficiency gains over a 9-10 year period = I will actually gain that back several times over in energy savings by the time this thing retires.

but yes go buy your plus's and bronzes. Sorry you all took such offence to the my slight against them lol.

 

[Frick]

yes yes all of us who spend more are total morons

I didn't say that, but now I'm thinking it. I just don't think the increased effeciency is worth it. If I got a deal on a decent PSU with a ten year warranty I might go for it, but otherwise I just don't see the point.

 

[shilka]

Higher efficiency levels does not make a PSU better and the best example of that is SilverStone Strider Titanium with its very poor ripple suppression
A higher 80 plus rating does not make something better nor does a lower 80 plus rating make something worse

Ripple suppression and voltage regulation matters more then efficiency does
Efficiency has nothing to do with the problems the B3 has and the two are not related

 

[yogurt_21]

I didn't say that, but now I'm thinking it. I just don't think the increased effeciency is worth it. If I got a deal on a decent PSU with a ten year warranty I might go for it, but otherwise I just don't see the point.

right saving money on energy makes me a moron

gold vs bronze = 5% more efficient which means bronze costs you 5% MORE to run.

If you run your rig so little that the energy costs don't factor that's one thing.

If you run it more than that over a 5+ year period well then you are the one overspending. Not me.

Say you only run your rig 2 hours a day on the weekends and it draws 500 watts from the Wall on the Gold. It would draw 525 watts on a Bronze unit. Times that by your 4 hours of usage a week and we're only at .1kwh more not too bad. Times 52 weeks times 5 years? 3.12$ US on .12 cents a Kwh rate. (times your rate by 26 Kwh to get yours)

so in that scenario sure get the Plus, its' not even worth it for the Bronze


But what about avid gamers and enthusiasts like ourselves? 4 hours a week is all the machine is on? I think not.

my rig usage between gaming, encoding, compressing, editing, and etc is in the 20 hours a week range. That's 10 Kwh a week in Gold and 10.5 Kwh in Bronze times 52 weeks times 5 years? 15.6$ in energy savings at .12 cents per Kwh granted that rate is much higher in summer on peak billing. For the 10 years I keep the PSU the savings over double as my power company will only raise rates, not lower them.

And I use more than 500 watts from the wall when gaming and encoding. So these figures are quite a bit under what the total usage is.

Like I said buy your bronze, even if it lasts 10 years I still saved more than you.

 

[Vayra86]

yes yes all of us who spend more are total morons

@ the rest of you

Also I get it you all seem to loves you some lowend PSU's but not word definitions such as what the word "nearly" means lol

are "nearly" and "equal" synonyms?

because most if not all of your responses would indicate they are.

Yes there's the old argument about higher wattage plus or bronze vs slightly lower wattage gold or platinum but you have to understand what you're doing there. Plus and Bronze are not the best the company can build. In fact they are rated so because they failed to pass at the silver, gold, or platinum levels. If that doesn't bother you that's fine. But at some point "you get what you pay for" has to kick in.

If everything highend was barely better there'd be no reason for the higher quality, efficient, or performance parts.

And the power supply is going to be there for rig after rig after rig. If you're willing to trust 3-10 thousand dollars of parts to a 50$ PSU that's fine for you. Excuse me if I want a bit more insurance than that.

My last PSU lasted 9 years and went through 6 major rig changes and 12K worth of parts. I paid 200$ for it to ensure it would have enough power and longevity. (80 plus back then was also a much higher premium than it is now)

this time around a single benjamin would do as parts were getting more efficient and I wouldn't need as much wattage and gold was quite a bit cheaper these days. Platinum would have been nice but I chose not to pay the premium for it.

Bronze would have saved me a whopping 15$ . Yes 3-5$ may have been exaggerated, so sue me "how dare he slightly exaggerate on a tech forum, BAN HIM!, make sure everyone quotes him for the next 2 pages to make sure he knows we don't tolerate slight exaggerations here!" 15$ vs the efficiency gains over a 9-10 year period = I will actually gain that back several times over in energy savings by the time this thing retires.

but yes go buy your plus's and bronzes. Sorry you all took such offence to the my slight against them lol.

The reason you're feeling forced to explain yourself now, and the reason people are responding to your initial statement, is that regardless of the semantics (whether it be 5 or 50 bucks difference really is irrelevant here) you were generalizing and drawing a line where there isn't one.

I'll repeat that: there simply isn't a measurable quality gap between all bronze and all silver or better PSUs. Keep re-reading that little statement until you get it. Because even in your responses you apply the same blanket statement you applied earlier. So yes, we could go for another four pages trying to convince you otherwise What you're thinking, simply isn't true, its a reality you've told yourself because you grossly overpaid on a PSU at some point. And there is nothing wrong with that, but there is only a very, very tiny niche that really requires to go for Gold or Platinum, and that is precisely your use case of 24/7, high load situations for extended periods of time. Only then will a higher rating pay off.

Also, components degrade anyway, regardless of quality - it all goes sooner or later, so there really isn't a black or white here. Similar things go for writing off an entire brand for PSUs; its this generalization that hurts many people when they buy a PSU, there are way more variables in play. Only looking at total wattage is another such generalization that has allowed budget brands to produce outright hazardous PSUs.

Now a blanket statement I DO support with PSUs is that it generally isn't worth saving every last dime to get the cheapest one, and another one is that you always need to look past the brand on the box and into the company that actually did the manufacturing and design - and even THEN you can't bluntly say 'CWT sucks' or 'SuperFlower is always great'.

 

[yogurt_21]

The reason you're feeling forced to explain yourself now, and the reason people are responding to your initial statement, is that regardless of the semantics (whether it be 5 or 50 bucks difference really is irrelevant here) you were generalizing and drawing a line where there isn't one.

I'll repeat that: there simply isn't a measurable quality gap between all bronze and all silver or better PSUs. Keep re-reading that little statement until you get it. Because even in your responses you apply the same blanket statement you applied earlier. So yes, we could go for another four pages trying to convince you otherwise What you're thinking, simply isn't true, its a reality you've told yourself because you grossly overpaid on a PSU at some point. And there is nothing wrong with that, but there is only a very, very tiny niche that really requires to go for Gold or Platinum, and that is precisely your use case of 24/7, high load situations for extended periods of time. Only then will a higher rating pay off.

Also, components degrade anyway, regardless of quality - it all goes sooner or later, so there really isn't a black or white here. Similar things go for writing off an entire brand for PSUs; its this generalization that hurts many people when they buy a PSU, there are way more variables in play. Only looking at total wattage is another such generalization that has allowed budget brands to produce outright hazardous PSUs.

Now a blanket statement I DO support with PSUs is that it generally isn't worth saving every last dime to get the cheapest one, and another one is that you always need to look past the brand on the box and into the company that actually did the manufacturing and design - and even THEN you can't bluntly say 'CWT sucks' or 'SuperFlower is always great'.

The reason I'm explaining myself is based on how poorly you all reacted to a sarcastic statement made on a tech forum.

in case the sound didn't make you get it, here's another clue.

the statement had some merit but was never meant to be a blurb in an educational course on the effectiveness of 80+ power supplies.

the math in my prior post explains that 24/7 usage is not anywhere near required for a user to actually save money by getting a more efficient power supply. My usage is 20 hours a week and I saved more by going GOLD. At 24/7 usage you will save 8.4 times as much as I did. If you want to justify not spending more at the time of purchase that's your business. You WILL spend more over time whether failure happens or not. Hardware degradation only fuels the efficiency argument as higher efficiency parts will degrade at the same or possibly slower rates as lower efficiency parts.

Also none of you seem to be grasping that "nearly" is not synonomous with "equals" and spouting basics to a 12 year member of TPU on the merits of brand quality is idiotic at best. Search my post history you'll find things I've said about that from 10+ years ago. Ie I've been in this business a long time as have many here. Trying to grow your online bluster through me will get you nowhere. There is literally nothing new any of you can teach me on this.

Again sorry to rustle all your feathers to an apparently very sensitive budget community.

 

[Vayra86]

A

The reason I'm explaining myself is based on how poorly you all reacted to a sarcastic statement made on a tech forum.

in case the sound didn't make you get it, here's another clue.

the statement had some merit but was never meant to be a blurb in an educational course on the effectiveness of 80+ power supplies.

the math in my prior post explains that 24/7 usage is not anywhere near required for a user to actually save money by getting a more efficient power supply. My usage is 20 hours a week and I saved more by going GOLD. At 24/7 usage you will save 8.4 times as much as I did. If you want to justify not spending more at the time of purchase that's your business. You WILL spend more over time whether failure happens or not. Hardware degradation only fuels the efficiency argument as higher efficiency parts will degrade at the same or possibly slower rates as lower efficiency parts.

Also none of you seem to be grasping that "nearly" is not synonomous with "equals" and spouting basics to a 12 year member of TPU on the merits of brand quality is idiotic at best. Search my post history you'll find things I've said about that from 10+ years ago. Ie I've been in this business a long time as have many here. Trying to grow your online bluster through me will get you nowhere. There is literally nothing new any of you can teach me on this.

Again sorry to rustle all your feathers to an apparently very sensitive budget community.

OK MAN. It was all sarcasm and you really didn't mean to say anything of substance. I get it... I guess.

Just didn't sound that way at all When you're not being understood by a wider audience, its time to look in the mirror - just a piece of advice that even a 12 year vet could use.

 

[Tatty_Two]

This thread appears to have moved from a topic about shortcomings with one particular manufacturer/model of PSU to a very general PSU discussion around PSU's, their efficiency/ratings, prices and economics, feel free to continue that discussion in another thread but not this one please.

 

[Kanan]

Oh wow. He ran away saving himself from the explosion(s)

Anyway, if we also consider EVGA's case with those GTX 1070's and GTX 1080's, maybe this company gets much more credit than what it deserves. I had suggested an EVGA PSU recently, but I think I am not going to do the same in the future.

EVGA and also every other great company has its failings. Asus too, MSI too, Gigabyte too, every brand out there. If you want to select brands by sheer perfectionsm you will soon buy nothing and recommend nothing anymore. EVGA is a decent brand still, but everything where humans are involved, there will always be mistakes too.

/sorry for offtopic if this isn't allowed, thought I make a last statement in defense of EVGA, I think this has gone way overboard.

 

[john_]

Oh wow. He ran away saving himself from the explosion(s)


EVGA and also every other great company has its failings. Asus too, MSI too, Gigabyte too, every brand out there. If you want to select brands by sheer perfectionsm you will soon buy nothing and recommend nothing anymore. EVGA is a decent brand still, but everything where humans are involved, there will always be mistakes too.

/sorry for offtopic if this isn't allowed, thought I make a last statement in defense of EVGA, I think this has gone way overboard.

And everytime they are failing, consumers should turn their back on them, until they fix their mistakes. I turned my back to MSI when their AM3 motherboards where having major problems, with motherboards failing to support high TDP CPUs, even when those CPUs where in the supported list, even when running at default settings. MSI was the reason for starting undervolting my CPUs, because back then, I happened to have 3 MSI motherboards and one of them died when running at stock with a quad core Phenom. The funny detail here is that, the motherboard was an updated revision because in the first revision's VRMs where dying! Searching on the internet found that MSI had the most problems. Also ASRock is going to lose me for a few years, after failing to offer me support in a recent case. They get our money. They should be better than offering hardware with crucial features that do not work, or lack of support, especially when they have a strong brand in the market.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Hey shilka

is SuperFlower Leadex II Gold affected by this ?

 

[EarthDog]

I dont think the bronze are SF units...

You can look it up by UL number and see.

 

[shilka]

Hey shilka

is SuperFlower Leadex II Gold affected by this ?

As far as i am aware Super Flower still make their own units they sell under their own name

No idea how much Super Flower actually has outsourced but i dont think they would with their own branded units

I dont think the bronze are SF units...

You can look it up by UL number and see.

Some of the EVGA Bronze rated units are HEC and others are Super Flower
Or in the case of the B3 some if not all are outsourced to RSY

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page2293.htm
http://www.orionpsudb.com/evga

The old B1 was FSP made

 

[eidairaman1]

Well here is affirmation

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ples-of-the-supernova-b3-to-jonnyguru.237767/

 

[EarthDog]

I think you mean, regurgitation.

 

[Keullo-e]

All electronics work with smoke, if the smoke gets out, then the device doesn't work anymore.

 

[ShurikN]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/evga-750-b3-power-supply,5229-11.html

Another one dead boiz

 

[EarthDog]

Tom's doesnt test in spec .. its somewhere in the thread...

And they say

If you are confident that you'll never overload the 750 B3,

Im not saying there are not issues, however when run in spec, there doesnt seem to be a problem?

 

[ShurikN]

But we should warn you that an overload can be also caused by a short circuit.
And they say

Haven't seen other psus tested "out of spec" die

Oh and then they also say

But we should warn you that an overload can be also caused by a short circuit.

 

[EarthDog]

Again, not saying it shouldnt be adressed, but when run in spec, it seems to be fine. Its rare people run their psus out of spec. Have you seen the psu help threads and how many people suggest a 650w+ unit when they dont break 300w.

At least it shuts down gracefully in either case!