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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/5791/codegen-pcase-460w-low-price-poor-quality
Codegen P-Case 460W - Low Price, Poor Quality
by Martin Kaffei on April 27, 2012 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- PSUs
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Codegen
- P-Case 460W
- Q3335-A2
Codegen P-Case 460W
Codegen is a well known brand for inexpensive power supplies. The P-Case 460W has passive PFC (no universal AC input) and no finish since most customers simply don't care how a PSU like this looks like. In addition there is no sleeving for the cables. The delivery contents of the case/PSU bundle include a power cord and all necessary screws. You'll note that there's no 80 Plus certification on this one, which isn't too surprising considering the target market. Read on to find out if this PSU is still recommendable.
The casing is very simple and grey with a length of just 14 cm. According to the label this PSU has a single +12V output rated at 25A, which is not much. +3.3V and +5V are specified at 26A and 20A. Those outputs have no combined power rating, which is quite bad for our calculation but we tried to focus on the smaller rails since they are stronger. The total power is 460W.
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.
Cables and Conenctors
Cables and Connectors (650W) | ||
Connector type (length) |
Main | 1x 24-pin (30cm) fixed |
ATX12V/EPS12V | 1x 4-pin (30cm) fixed | |
PCIe | 0x 6/8-pin | |
Peripheral | 1x HDD, 1x SATA (ca. 30, 45cm) fixed | |
1x HDD, 1x SATA, 1x FDD (ca. 30, 45, 60cm) fixed |
The main cables are very short at less than 40cm, and there are only two SATA and two Molex power connectors along with a single FDD connector for disk drives and some fan controller. We don't want to be too quick to judge, but this is not a good configuration for a 460W PSU; it looks more like a 200W PSU. We'll get into more details now.
Voltage Regulation
+3.3V Regulation/Ripple and Noise | |
Load | Voltage |
5% | 3.36V (8mV) |
10% | 3.35V (12mV) |
20% | 3.34V (27mV) |
50% | 3.29V (34mV) |
80% | |
100% | |
110% | |
Crossload +12V max. | |
Crossload +3.3V/+5V max. |
+5V Regulation/Ripple and Noise | |
Load | Voltage |
5% | 5.21V (12mV) |
10% | 5.19V (14mV) |
20% | 5.16V (19mV) |
50% | 5.02V (25mV) |
80% | |
100% | |
110% | |
Crossload +12V max. | |
Crossload +3.3V/+5V max. |
+12V Regulation (Worst Ouput)/Ripple and Noise (Worst Output) | |
Load | Voltage |
5% | 12.31V (16 mV) |
10% | 12.36V (10mV) |
20% | 12.44V (46mV) |
50% | 12.78 V (80mV) |
80% | |
100% | |
110% | |
Crossload +12V max. | |
Crossload +3.3V/+5V max. |
Noise Levels
Loudness (subjective) | |
Load | Opinion |
5% | audible fan bearing |
10% | low rotation noise |
20% | low rotation noise |
50% | strong rotation noise |
80% | |
100% | |
110% |
Efficiency and PFC
Efficiency and Power Factor 230 VAC | ||
Load | Efficiency | PFC |
5% | 58.50% | 0.477 |
10% | 66.62% | 0.513 |
20% | 71.01% | 0.540 |
50% | 73.32% | 0.576 |
80% | ||
100% | ||
110% |
The power factor reaches a maximum of 0.576. We had to test this PSU with 230VAC only but everybody can image how low the results would be with 115VAC input. Under load the power supply is clearly audible, and the fan's bearing can be heard sometimes. The PSU didn't survive 80% load and died. It was impossible to document the results here. Moreover there was a clear overvoltage on 12V during 50% load. According to ATX specification the upper limit is 12.60V. In addition ripple & noise could be lower.
Conclusion
It's clear that some PSUs should never see retail shelves in Europe. The Codegen P-Case 460W belongs in this classification if you want a 460W PSU. In fact, the Codegen is a ~230 watts power supply without power factor correction--not to mention the fact that the efficiency is always below 74%. If you just need a cheap power supply that will function at loads under 250W, perhaps budget products will fit the bill, but we'd suggest looking elsewhere as long-term power costs (and the risk of damaged components) makes this a gamble at best. In our case, the PSU died at 50% load.
Codegen offers nothing more than a few short cables and no PCIe connector. Moreover a cable sleeving would be a nice extra, but we'd like to see better electronics first. Overall the PSU provides two SATA and two HDD connectors on two 20 AWG cables. Additionally, you get a 4-pin CPU connector and a 30cm long 24-pin cable. With 45-60cm the peripheral cables are short too.
Internally, the PSU has a single-layer main PCB. Codegen only uses cheap capacitors and the main caps are common types with only average endurance at 105°C. Most components are undersized. Transient filtering is inadequate and there's no MOV (as an AC overvoltage protection). The SD6109 IC has some important safety functions including OVP and SCP but this is not enough since OCP is missing. +5V and +12V are connected to the same controlling and share one output choke which gone into saturation during our test. Overall, the component selection and build quality make this a low-end offering.
+12V is always higher than 12.31V (12.60V is the ATX limit) while the other rails are lower. The voltage regulation is bad--even for such an affordable product. While efficiency is only 73% at high load, the ripple results could have been worse. The power factor is very low on 230VAC since there is neither a PFC choke nor an active PFC circuit. Another disadvantage is the high fan RPMs at 50% load. The PSU is relatively silent from 5 to 10% load and still quiet at 20%. However, it does get too loud at higher loads--nothing unusual for a PSU like this, but you'll want to ensure your PC doesn't reach high loads if white noise bothers you (and that your PC won't die).
In summary, the Codegen P-Case 460 from Q3335-A2 bundle is one of the worst PSUs we have seen so far. It doesn't have any special features beyond an acceptable noise level (at low load). We can hardly recommend a 460W PSU with 230W real power and no power factor correction. In addition the PSU died during our test. The whole bundle costs about 30 EUR in Europe.
You get what you pay for!