Hey guys so I was looking at EVGA's b stock to see if they had any good deals...
I was wondering if anyone has used their refurbished psu's.
This is really two different issues. First, are EVGA B series PSUs any good? And, second, can refurbished PSUs be trusted?
First, IMO, if the budget is tight, the EVGA B series PSUs will serve you just fine. I've used a couple here with no problems. One thing that stood out, for me anyway, is even though the B series may not have the best regulation or ripple suppression compared to other EVGA models, I was very happy to hear - or rather,
not hear the fan. That is, they still used quality, quiet fans and that is important for me because I hate fan noise. I
really hate fan noise.
Second, the thing about "refurbished" is we, as consumers, never know what that really means. Because retailers cannot sell returned products as new, they often just tag all as "refurbished" even though it may have been returned because the user ordered the wrong size, a cable was missing (at least for non-modular models), there was a tiny scratch, or some other issue not related to the actual power supply's performance - to include "NTF" (no trouble found).
Point being, "refurbished" does not necessarily mean the PSU was faulty and repaired. So can you trust them? If they are certified as refurbished by the maker (and not just the reseller) then yes, you can trust them. But understand in many cases, you end up with a much shorter warranty that may or may not make the reduced price worthwhile to you.
Last, do not confuse "Open box" with "Refurbished". Sadly, there is no industry standard so talking generalities here. But "generally", "Open box" is a retailer term. That is, it is Newegg or Amazon selling the product as an "Open box" item and it is "generally" assumed it is good, or at best, tested by the retailer. But "generally", it has not been tested or certified by the original manufacturer as good. While "Refurbished" products "generally" have been tested by the original manufacturer (or a factory authorized service center) and are certified as meeting factory specifications.
For me, I would take a factory certified "refurbished" PSU over a used PSU from eBay any day.