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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7Enigma - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
That is a heck of a lot of work for this article and we appreciate it immensely! Between this article and the upcoming mid-range builders guide (I'm begging...please get it out asap) you have reaffirmed for me this is the #1 site.Thanks again.
TheDoc9 - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
The breakdown of the cable connectors and the build quality descriptions were helpful. The power noise charts look useful as well.mino - Monday, January 12, 2009 - link
Copy that, one of the best PSU roundups around.magreen - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
We definitely appreciate the roundup. It addresses our needs as consumers. I wish you'd add more info about the Antec Earthwatts 430 though... it's one of the most popular PSUs on the forums here and always shows up for cheap in the hot deals section, often bundled with an Antec case. Wish you'd give us more details on its efficiency, ripple, and your overall take. I don't think you actually said anything about its performance at all. Thanks!OddJensen - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Isn't there a Delta made version of the 430 as well?Christoph Katzer - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Yes which we didn't have.Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...">http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...Here's the original review from a year ago. Even though I didn't mention it in the conclusion I think you have a great comparison with the respective graphics towards the end. :)
donjuancarlos - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
Thanks for this article. I am one of those who does modest OCing and no SLI, and this article was pertinent for me.eetnoyer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
No temperatures at load? I would think that temps at 100% load for each unit shouldn't be too much. Just as a worst-case thing.