Codegen P-Case 460W - Low Price, Poor Quality
by Martin Kaffei on April 27, 2012 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- Codegen
- P-Case 460W
- Q3335-A2
Fan and Electronics
Xin Yu Electronics is a Chinese brand we never heard of before but "SL" tells you this fan has a sleeve bearing. Everything else with higher MTBF ratings would be too expensive. The 120mm fan needs less amps than most fans we know (0.13A) and it has seven sharp-edged fan blades. Will it be silent, and can it keep the PSU cool? We'll find out on the next page.
Basically this PSU is not far away from other solutions. We've seen many forward converters with an asynchronous half bridge but this time the components are quite cheap. The internals consist of two very small heatsinks, a small transformer, and no PFC-choke which is an important requirement for European countries. You need CE to sell power supplies in Europe and PFC is essential for any PSU with more than 75W. Instead of a bridge rectifier this PSU has four RL205 diodes which can rectify 2A RMS current. That's fine by me but bridge rectifiers in a case have the advantage that heatsinks can be used.
There are no Y- and X-caps in the EMI filtering stage, missing a MOV as well. A thermistor reduces input current--nothing special. Of course PSUs without active PFC have less EMI because of the missing MOSFET but this is kind of disappointing. Can you see the wire cross-section of the conductors? It doesn't look like anybody should try to pull more than 250W from this unit.
An IC called SD6109 delivers some safety functions such as overvoltage protection. Instead of optical coupler the manufacturer is using an isolating transformer for the feedback. On the secondary side we found one choke for all larger outputs. It gone into saturation during our test. +5 V got a large diode in a TO-247 case and is definitely the most powerful output.
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gamoniac - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Not too often we see a review on a low-end PSU. Thanks for reviewing this one; it's an eye opener.damianrobertjones - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I love this review :)Now all we need is honest, down to earth reviews of:
- Apple kit
- Netgear products
- Android operating system
martinw89 - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5310/samsung-galaxy-...and especially
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfgs4EUeTlk
KompuKare - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Thanks for reviewing a low-end PSU. It's rare to find any reviews at this price-range. Seems €30 is too high a price though considering you can buy a Corsair VX430 for under €40.Would be nice to see some more budget PSUs reviewed - maybe there's even one which can actually delivery its rated output.
Iger - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
To be fair - it's €30 with the case!Sabresiberian - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
How is there anything fair about selling junk, at any price?pgari - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Codegen products are normally sold in markets with poor and expensive oferings:Here in Argentina a Codegen 500 PSU can be found by us$22.
The cheapest brand name alternative would be a CoolerMaster 460W eXtreme Plus RS-460-PCAR, the lowest in Coolermaster portfolio, at us$75.
The minimum PSU recommended for the for a Gamer configuration would be the Antec Vp450 at us$89
Considering that other PC componentes are also a lot more expensive than in USA, and that average income is 5 times lower, what PSU would you use for running a basic configuration for Internet browsing, Outlook and Word?
Klinky1984 - Sunday, April 29, 2012 - link
The review itself says you could probably get away with this PSU if you used it in a lower power demand situation. A budget CPU w/ integrated or budget graphics probably would not stress this PSU. Though you can't trust that the Codgen 500W available in your market has the same components as the 460W in this review.kmmatney - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I found a decent cheap PSU that seems to work well. I used it for a month on my main gaming rig, with an unlocked and overclocked Phenom @ 3.6 Ghz, and an HD6850.http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....
it's fairly quiet and seems to be able to supply decent power. I currently use a Corsair HX650, but this cheap one seems to due well for a basic gaming machine.
SilthDraeth - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
If you aren't using it anymore, you might think about contacting Anandtech to see if they will do a review on it.Maybe you dodged a bullet, maybe not.