KitGuru Annual Awards 2013

The conclusion for the winner of our Best Value Power Supply of 2013, specifically highlighted the fact that this is an ‘extremely competitive market sector'.

The days when we would accept any non-name power supply from the Far East in a household PC are long gone.

The same is largely true for the first manufacturers to own this market in the high street (when ever city had a selection of computer stores to choose from). We're talking about a golden era from around 15 years ago, when 400 watts was considered a serious amount of juice.

We used to toss-up between brands like Enermax, Akasa, Sparkle and Tagen.

So that brings us to the winner in the Value PSU of the Year 2013 category.

Our winner claims 530 watts, but under KitGuru's watchful eye we managed to squeeze closer to 590 watts before it wanted to shut down.

In the sweet spot up to 435w, this 80 Plus Bronze Certified unit achieves almost 87% efficiency, dropping to 83% at full load.

Thanks to the inclusion of SilentWings fan technology this unit barely manages to hit 31 dBa, even at maximum output – which is as close to silent in a normal operating environment as you could wish.

Cross Loading is tough for a power supply and one of the tests that is most likely to show up cheaper components/design/assembly. This unit dealt with our intensive cross load testing – especially when we hit 15A on both the +3.3V and +5V outputs. There was a dip, but at no stage did it hit the danger zone.

Overall, it has a good modular design, offers stable power delivery, has 105C capacitors and is very quiet in normal operation.

Read our review, over here.

Our choice for KitGuru Best Value power supply of 2013 goes to the bequiet! Pure Power L8 530w edition, which retails at just over £60 in the UK.

Buy from Overclockers UK, from this link.

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