Not my money please... NOO!

Sheesh. I have to get a new power supply for my computer now. The poor thing finally failed: it's darn hot, the fan isn't working at all and I've had a few sudden power failures lately.

Oh well. I was looking at the stuff in PCBox (nice store by the way), and they've got this Tacens Valeo 460W. Looks like a pretty good bang for the buck: 64 euro still, but I haven't seen a single bad review from them. Everyone's going "ooh aah".

It's also got some nice stuff, like built-in surge protection and a thermo-regulated fan which actually goes off when the comp's idle to reduce noise (it'll be always on in my case anyhoo). The fan seems to be bigger than usual: 135mm (I _think_ the normal ones are 80mm fans). Usually, bigger fans need less RPMs to achieve the same performance, I believe. Like most PSUs, it's also got support for both old-fashioned ATX 20-pin and the newer 24-pin ATX jacks.

There's also 2 SATA plugs, two +12V wires and support for dual core CPUs. This PSU might just outlive this computer LOL. For my currently relatively modest box it might seem overkill, but I really want something I can rely on for 3-4 years (after all, I'd like to turn my computer into a sort of light server). And who knows, maybe in the future I'll need those SATA ports if I want to install new drives. Not yet: IDE drives are still being sold (gah @ the 500GB Hitachi drive: that's just TOO much!).

The only thing it doesn't have is modular cabling, but that was a no-no with my budget: any modular PSUs were 80 euros and beyond. I wanted to stay in the 60 euro price range, where you can actually trust manufacturers to use good parts.

I've heard stuff about leaky capacitors and other mishaps due to El Cheapo PSUs. Sorry, I'd like to have a durable computer, thank you very much. I might just throw in a round IDE cable to improve the air flow in my case a little. Plus, they're much easier to handle. They're only like 3-4 euros after all.

And an UV light... na~nte sa! (Just joking!) I don't want a "I'M GAUDY!" sign on top of my comp.

Oh and honestly, I'm not EVER going back to the computer shops in Puerto Real. A waste of time. Thank the Kami they were only 5 minutes away. One had two generic PSUs (both looked horrible), and in the other, the shopkeeper said something like "oh, we've only got generic ones, but they're GOOD ones, we use them in our comps!".

Sorry?! Are you Tom's Hardware or something for me to trust YOUR judgement? Do you guys stress test your PSUs or something? Keh.

By the way, about Tom's Hardware: they do really stress test most PSUs they get. They've been getting awfully commercial lately, though. Hmm. Oh well, it's not like the 'net is going to run out of computer sites. XD