EVGA 500 W1 100-W1-0500-KR 80+ WHITE 500W Power Supply

Pros: This is an EVGA power supply. EVGA is a name I have come to trust. Trust that is based on a foundation of years of product use and excellent customer service. EVGA flat out has the best customer service of any company I've ever had to deal with. They won't give you the run around. If there's a problem, they'll help you fix it or replace your problem hardware. EVGA is synonymous with quality. They make some of the best enthusiast hardware and their entry level gear is excellent as well. For the price, this is the perfect power supply for anyone who wants to do a build that isn't based on a high end graphics card. There's enough juice here to power any system with a single graphics card that uses less than 200 watts peak power. This power supply is 80+ bronze rated. I wouldn't buy a power supply that wasn't 80+ rated. Buying a PSU that isn't 80+ rated is like buying a car stereo amplifier that is rated for 4000 watts peak power but only puts out 600 watts RMS. You never know exactly what it is you're getting. If the company that makes that PSU doesn't meet the 80+ standard then it's a sub par power supply and has no place in any of my builds. Especially when you can buy one as high quality as this for less than $50. This power supply has pretty much everything you could want in an entry level power supply. It has support for older devices for those of you who want to rebuild something older and it has support for all of the latest devices as well. It's got the 20+4 pin motherboard connector, a 4+4 pin CPU power connector, the two 6+2 pin PCI-E power connectors, an old style four pin floppy drive power output. Which I have also seen power sound cards in the past as well. It also has six SATA outputs and three 4 pin Molex. I would have liked to have seen more Molex, but I can work with three. When powered on, you can barely hear the fan spinning. And that was with the case open and my face about 12 inches away from it. Sure it will make a bit of noise if you stress the PSU to it's limits for extended periods. But for the most part, it's near silent. The power supply itself is an attractive design. For what you pay, you might expect it to be aesthetically plain. But it is a nice looking PSU inside of your case. Even the packaging it comes in looks nice. It is also well packaged, secure for shipment. The cables themselves have a bit of flexibility to them. I have had PSUs in the past with terribly rigid cables that you could barely work with. But these ones do have a bit of give to them. Especially right where the connectors are located. At the back of the connector, the cables are able to flex nicely. Allowing for some fitment in tight spaces.

Cons: Not the greatest power supply for people interested in extreme overclocking. If you want to do heavy overclocking you should get a power supply with ample overhead. Pretty much any piece of hardware you buy these days will tell you how much power it requires. Do the math and add 200 watts is what I would do. I'm not a huge fan of how they have the PCI-E power outputs. There is two 6+2 pins, which is nice. But, they're both on the same cable which can make it difficult to connect to your graphics card and can cause problems with cable management. You'll have this rigid loop sticking out from in front of where your graphics card power inputs are. For my system it was a problem. The card I'm using has two 6 pin inputs facing towards the drive bay, and the large cable loop that is made by this design got in the way of my hard drives power and SATA cable and I accidentally damaged the power connector on my hard drive when I was trying to mount my graphics card. Fortunately, it didn't kill the drive. But it easily could have. It's not a modular PSU. But it doesn't have an over abundance of cables, so that's not really an issue. In fact, I used every cable, eliminating the need to hide any unused cables.

Overall Review: This power supply is remarkably versatile. The quality is excellent, the price is great and it has enough power for just about anything. If you're building an HTPC, like I am. Then look no further. This is the perfect PSU for that. I've never been a fan of mail in rebates. So I never factor that into any of my purchases. I got this PSU for $40 with a $10 MIR. So in my mind it was $40. In it's category, there are no better power supplies at it's price. There were a couple other power supplies I considered, but in the end I wanted the best I could get for as cheap as possible. That is why I chose this one. It had everything I needed, it met my criteria for quality and the it was the least expensive. There was another PSU that I would have bought, had it been less expensive, but the offer of a mail in rebate doesn't count for anything with me, so I buy the one with the best retail price. I gave this PSU 5 Eggs. Even though I had a bit of trouble with my build. This power supply is just so impressive, that I couldn't bring myself to deduct any Eggs.

Pros: I wasn't expecting much from this power supply but it impressed me. Right out of the box, it had no high pitched noises, humming, fan noise, squeaking, etc. That alone beats most other PSUs in its price class. In a 150 watt total TDP system, as measured by a meter at the socket, the air coming out of the power supply wasn't even warm. The overall build quality is decent. The outside is hard to damage or bend and the unit weighs quite a bit.

Cons: The plastic used for the tops of all connectors is a bit cheap but none has ever fractured when I installed a few of these power supplies. The voltage readings in the motherboard varied quite a bit under the same load compared to a really expensive power supply but not nearly enough to cause problems or frequency instability. This still beats the stability of any OEM power supply I've seen in any store-bought PC.

Overall Review: Considering this power supply it only 80 plus certified, not bronze or higher, and a lot of uncertified PSUs rate themselves at around 77% (3% lower) efficiency, I think other power supplies are lying. They output heat like a hair drier compared to this power supply, more so than 3% difference would suggest.

Pros: Works fine for my needs. Seems pretty quiet with minimal noise levels.

Cons: Not modular, but that's pretty obvious from the pics/specs. I prefer modular, but this was a budget build so had to cut corners somewhere.

Overall Review: Put this guy into a small, cheap internet-browsing only build for the mother-in-law. I had no issues. Full machine specs: Intel Celeron G1840 Processor BX80646G1840 Gigabyte LGA 1150 Intel H81 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX DDR3 1600 Motherboards GA-H81M-DS2V Kingston ValueRAM 8GB Kit (2x4GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM SR x8 Desktop Memory KVR13N9S8K2/8 Crucial BX100 250GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT250BX100SSD1 ARCTIC Freezer i11 CPU Cooler for Intel, 150W Cooling Capacity, 3 Direct Touch Heatpipes, Vibration-Dampened Fan, 23dBA Noise EVGA 500W 80PLUS Certified ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply 100-W1-0500-KR Antec NSK6580 Black/ Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel construction ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430W Power Supply Windows 7 Professional x64

Pros: -Cheap!! -threaded cables -80 plus -under 50 dollars for 500 watts

Cons: none really, i guess maybe just that the 24 pin grip so it can stay attachted took alot of wiggling to make it secure. i guess thats it.

Overall Review: a good entry level powersupply for a budget build like what i made for portable lan party -4gb 1600mhz corsair xms3 -evga 500watt -intel pentium g3220 -asrock h81m itx -coolermaster 120 - amd 260x

Pros: got it because it was cheap kept it because it worked

Cons: box was crumpled when it came in

Overall Review: do you unwrap the muffin before you eat it or do you eat the muffin top off first?

Pros: Capable of delivering its rated power (its worth checking out PSU reviews that do load tests online) Cheap

Cons: Capacitor quality isn't top tier so it probably won't last as long as some of the more expensive units Only 80+ white (and lower efficiency means more heat)

Overall Review: If you need a cheap PSU that delivers a moderate amount of power, then this is a decent choice.

Pros: It's been running everyday for nearly 4 years. Price was cheap at the time I bought it. Single rail, Still works, never had any issues with it.

Cons: I guess that it is a 80+ white, not so efficient as some others. My fault, I didn't pay attention at the time because I was just looking for single rail, wattage, and lowest price of a brand I kind of trusted.

Overall Review: The computer it was in was always on, my kids played video games on it probably about 8 - 12 hours a day. The system has a AMD Phenom II Quad core OC'd to 3.8ghz, 970-A mobo, single 7200rpm hard drive, 660 GTX, and about 6 or 7 120mm LED case fans lol. Not a real high power demand and I think that's why it still works. I don't know if I'd trust it to run both of my old GTX 660's. If it was on sale real cheap and I needed a PSU, I would buy this again. I think I paid about 35 bucks on sale and got free shipping too. So at the time, for that price there was nothing else that compared IMO. I like doing a little research to find out who really makes the PSU units, the oem company. I usually only buy Sesasonic now or units made by Seasonic as the oem. Or I might buy something that's made by another good oem company if it's on sale real cheap. Or if there is a popular model with tons of good reviews and not many bad reviews I'll buy it as long as it's priced much lower than a top quality model I usually go for. I can't believe how many hours I've spent trying to find the best PSU for lowest price.

Pros: worked great for one year

Cons: worked great for one year

Overall Review: if you need a power supply that will work great for one year this is it!