XG Duro 900 Power Supply

[Rob Williams]

If the motherboard is the brain of any PC then the power supply is the heart. Today we’re taking a look at a power supply that has all the heart you should need for any modern enthusiast system and the cost won’t put your wallet on life support.

After reading Matts review of the Duro here (http://techgage.com/review.php?id=4774), discuss it here!

[DarkSynergy]

One, valid suggestions will be taken into consideration but comments such as "By looking in your images, after getting past the fact that your cock choker is included all I see is plastic going around the cables."

Who talks like that.

And two, offer suggestions instead of insults. I know of no one who uses 3 DVD drives. I know of no one that games on a dual CPU setup and I know of no one that uses 6 HDDs. I currently have 4 HDDs. 2 Raptors (74GB) and 2 Seagate 250s. 95% of users dont even have that. I also dont run a server so my single CPU will work just fine.....I dont need a dual setup.

You are just looking to upset someone. You wont find that here. It's hard of someone to talk all sorts of shit and not even give a name....

[madmat]

Insulting anonymous posts will be deleted. If you're going to insult me at least have the guts to identify yourself.

Just in case you're wondering, Mr. Whoever you are, I listed the specs that the box listed incomplete or not. The shielding refered to by XG is the body of the PSU not the cables. The cables are SLEEVED, if you were an enthusiast of any merit you'd recognize sleeving.

As to whether the PSU is a 750W, 700W or 900W I honestly don't know. For all I know Seventeam tweaked the rails of the PSU to supply a full 900W under load but XG's documentation is too muddled to make anything out. As to my hands being in the pictures, well, my anti-gravity genny died the day before the review so I was forced to hold things in position manually in order to get pictures of what I wanted. Sad to know that you view a man's hands as sexual devices. Maybe you need to re-examine your leanings.

[Unregistered]

We will just have to see what you have to say for yourself in a few hours. By the way I talk you might think I know a thing or two about hardware. I might even know a few people in the industry, like Jason, MGE's new rep. If you would like to take it to the front pages we can do so.

The fact is, he dropped the ball on this one and now you are taking a very dangerious step by posting my IP address. Not that I am really worried about some hacker getting through my 3Com 5680 router on that IP address. Even if they do, what can they find. More power to them, please share all of my music with the world.

[madmat]

If you don't want your IP address posted don't make an ass out of yourself on our site. It's as simple as that. You don't see us going to Mc Donalds and giving you crap.

[Unregistered]

I am sorry you feel that way and am glad you have decieded to remove my ip address for the pages of your website. The screen shot will forever remain my wallpaper.

Now, let's just pretend that I am a consumer and not someone who recieved products in the mail as you do. How many 4-pin molex connectors does the product have? We already know that there are only 4 SATA connectors but the PSU has 25 and 30 amps on the 3.3 and 5-volt rail. I am wondering how I could use such a high amount of amperage.

As a consumer I would like to know if the product would work on something that can take advantage of SSI, such as a dual Opteron or dual, dual core system with SLI 7800 GTX cards.

Are you familier with the products history with DFI Expert and Venus products? They will not power up due to a problem with the 5-volt stand-by line, atleast that is what one of the people I know who has this product is reporting.

[madmat]

I am sorry you feel that way and am glad you have decieded to remove my ip address for the pages of your website. The screen shot will forever remain my wallpaper.

Now, let's just pretend that I am a consumer and not someone who recieved products in the mail as you do. How many 4-pin molex connectors does the product have? We already know that there are only 4 SATA connectors but the PSU has 25 and 30 amps on the 3.3 and 5-volt rail. I am wondering how I could use such a high amount of amperage.

As a consumer I would like to know if the product would work on something that can take advantage of SSI, such as a dual Opteron or dual, dual core system with SLI 7800 GTX cards.

Are you familier with the products history with DFI Expert and Venus products? They will not power up due to a problem with the 5-volt stand-by line, atleast that is what one of the people I know who has this product is reporting.

Are you not "with it" enough to realize that 6 ATA power connectors means 6 four pin molexes? I thought you were familiar with PC products and "Knew a thing or two" about them.

I can see why you're afraid to identify yourself, if the people sending you stuff in the mail knew that you made such an ass out of yourself they'd likely cut you off. I know I'd personally be very hesitant about sending product to someone that was an unmitigated asshat.

For your edification I know "people" too and the Duro will be proven to be either an over-rated 750W or a truly good buy of a 900W in the near future.

Obviously the Duro will work on a dualcore system with SLI 7800GTX's. After running nearly an hour of loops of 3D Mark '05 with Super PI running in the background the rails never budged on such a system. Maybe you need to actually read the text of the review and not look at the pictures.

BTW, about the list of connectors, here you go, ripped bleeding from the review:

Sadly mine didn’t include a 24 to 20 pin converter which means that if you’re using this PSU on an older mobo that doesn’t have a 24 pin ATX connector you’ll have to let the other four pins hang off the end. It will work with some boards but others will have difficulty due to crowding around the ATX plug. Since I’m on the subject I’ll list the rest of the connectors.

* 1 – 24 pin EATX
* 1 – 2 X 2 pin ATX 12V
* 1 – 2 X 4 pin EATX 12V
* 4 – SATA 5 wire
* 6 – ATA
* 1 – Floppy

[Unregistered]

Well I do have to admit that I have only slept 5 hours since Friday morning so I did miss the 6-ATA connectors listed....sorry about that. I think I was blinded by all of your ads by goooooooogle and did not see the rest of the specks on the second page, apart from the specks on the first page.

I just wanted to stop in and say, as a reader of your articles that I think it was a piss poor review. Nothing personal, if you cannot take critism then you are in the wrong business. We all get it and we all drop the ball from time to time. Hell, you are the only one from all of the reviewers that has even discovered that this is really a rebadged 750 watt product. I was just disappointed that you did not hold your review up to sample the Seventeam product or get the schematics for both.

After you posted my IP address you pretty much had me on fire and who knows what will be the end result now.

[madmat]

I can take criticism from people that can spell spec.s and if I was able to aquire the 750EAD to pit against the Duro I would gladly do so. The fact remains you didn't offer criticism, you came in here and started bashing around like a bull in a china shop and deserved to have yourself identified even if it was just by your IP addy. Do it again and I'll do the same, there is no law against it.

If you have issue with me personally my email address is listed and you're free to contact me via email although that would mean you'd actually have to slip from behind the mask of anonymity.

Still yet for $150 an active PFC PSU with monsterous PFC circuitry even at 750W is a good deal. As to my score the Duro is $300 less than the 850SSI, quieter than the 850SSI and solid rails under a pretty heavy load adds up to a 9 in my books. I don't see how I dropped the ball at all. Without the benefit of a load tester I'm in no position to disprove the 900W claims by MGE. They gave confusing documentation and I noted that but I still cannot arbitrarily go dinging them points on a score just because their vendor uses a 750W frame. If Seventeam is selling them that PSU and telling them it will push 900W continuously and it won't then the fault lies with Seventeam. If MGE is buying a 750W PSU and falsely claiming it will do 900W the fault lies with MGE. Without a Seventeam PSU to disect and directly compare to the Duro I have no way of telling if it's a case of a 750W frame being rebuilt with stronger parts to allow higher wattages or a 750W PSU being rebaged as a 900W with nothing but hopes and dreams to sustain the wattage claims and I'm not going to damn MGE by calling them liars.

As I said earlier the Duro will eventually be put to the acid test and it will either acquit itself or it will end up damning itself. I will happily post a link to the findings either way as I'm interested to see what happens.

[DarkSynergy]

Well I do have to admit that I have only slept 5 hours since Friday morning so I did miss the 6-ATA connectors listed....sorry about that. I think I was blinded by all of your ads by goooooooogle and did not see the rest of the specks on the second page, apart from the specks on the first page.

I just wanted to stop in and say, as a reader of your articles that I think it was a piss poor review. Nothing personal, if you cannot take critism then you are in the wrong business. We all get it and we all drop the ball from time to time. Hell, you are the only one from all of the reviewers that has even discovered that this is really a rebadged 750 watt product. I was just disappointed that you did not hold your review up to sample the Seventeam product or get the schematics for both.

After you posted my IP address you pretty much had me on fire and who knows what will be the end result now.


Having posted last night and then to bed, I left this post before it went completely frickin' crazy. The posting of an IP is a bit immature but so was the post "criticizing" the review.

As it stands though, we are a site that welcomes any and all criticism, albeit constructive. There is a right and a wrong way to go about things here and obviously your first post wasn't exactly the type of post we can learn from, nor would we have wanted to. The original text should be put back up as an example of how to not go about things.

I personally want you as a reader and I know everyone else here do as well but you will not come in, insult us and then later on, threaten us and say woops, I love the site and this all was constructive criticism. That just isn’t going to happen.

And Madmat, best of luck finding anything out from MGE. I have emailed them twice about confusions I am having with this Viper 2 case review and have received nothing in return. So the whole "who’s fault is it that this PSU is labeled wrong" might not get resolved without some hard digging.

[DarkSynergy]

By the way I talk you might think I know a thing or two about hardware. I might even know a few people in the industry, like Jason, MGE's new rep. If you would like to take it to the front pages we can do so.

One, by the way you talk, you might know some things about hardware but you certainly don't sound too terribly professional. If I were Jason, I would do a little damage control and distance myself from you as his product recieved a good review and you came along to troll about.

And two, what I said earlier stands. We do want you as a viewer and your input will help us out in future reviews. I personally do not want you around though if you cannot act like you are out of high school.

You want the front pages? I'll see you there. Your not going to come in, bash our staff and threaten us with your "contacts."

[Unregistered]

I have to say that was the best 5 hour nap ever.

There must be a misunderstanding here, as I didn't threaten you with "contacts".

I am done with it. If you cannot see the error in the review then you are just a marketing team doing this for the hardware and not for the consumer. If a consumer pays for 900 watts then they should expect 900 watts and not 750 with an inflated sticker.

[madmat]

If you can't understand the concept of building a PSU with higher capacity parts to allow more wattage on a 750W frame and innocent until proven guilty so be it. I am going to give MGE the benefit of the doubt here simply because I haven't seen it proven otherwise. I sent this review to MGE prior to publishing so they were aware of what I had uncovered. Normally if you catch someone in a lie they become defensive and MGE never did. That tells me they're either awesome poker players or they have nothing to hide. Now if the Duro fails to push 900W when it does get tested on a PSU bench I will say that I'd never want to play cards with the boys from MGE and edit my score to reflect the deception along with update my review but until then I am not passing judgement on anyone.

[Unregistered]

Wow, turn a blind eye while the jury is out but still give the product a nod? You are a marketing company at best, your “reviews” should be considered nothing more than marketing propaganda.

Do you even know what the word means?

re•view

v. re•viewed, re•view•ing, re•views

1. To look over, study, or examine again.
2. To consider retrospectively; look back on.
3. To examine with an eye to criticism or correction: reviewed the research findings.
4. To write or give a critical report on (a new work or performance, for example).
5. Law. To reexamine (an action or determination) judicially, especially in a higher court, in order to correct possible errors.
6. To subject to a formal inspection, especially a military inspection.

As far as what you said, about playing cards with MGE. That is just BS, nearly all of these companies have been caught in a white lie before but it is our duty to “write or give a critical report on” what is really going on.

In my opinion you should have held the review until everything was clarified.

[madmat]

Man, just piss off. There's a difference between being diplomatic (Which it appears you have no clue about) and being a PR machine. Being diplomatic means you give someone the benefit of the doubt. MGE uses a solid product and as far as I am aware they've never fudged any figures before on the XG line so rather than come across as an ass and tell them their fulla sh!t when it's 50/50 either way I gave them a score based on the merit of the product as I WAS ABLE TO TEST IT. Now, if the jury comes back with a different verdict I will be taking MGE to task over misrepresented wattage claims but until I have a way to prove it I'm not going to be like you and start waving my arms and screaming BS.

I imagine that when you review products that unless you have proof and I mean solid proof otherwise that a product doesn't live up to it's spec.s you don't go giving it an arbitraily low score just because you think something may be up. As to why it was posted when it was well, bud, I have deadlines. As much as I'd like to push a review back by a month to suit trolls like you I can't because I have responsibilities to my site owner to fulfill.

[Rob Williams]

Unregistered, until you want to post valid arguments in a civil manner, I will remove your posts as I see fit. Mocking the staff doesn't help anything either.

Edit: I just finished reading the thread. I didn't realize it escalated as it did. I will work with Matt to get to the bottom of this ASAP.

[Unregistered]

I really did not mean to be uncivil it was one of those days and after reading about a product review getting a 9 out of 10 score with the possibility of it being a complete fraud I was blown away. I have discussed it with a few others in the industry, some with much more time in than myself and we have all come to the same conclusion.

[Rob Williams]

Unreg, I am not saying I disagree with you.

Fact is, I agree with Matt to the extent that we don't have an expensive piece of hardware in order to gather accurate results. I wish we did. I have absolutely no clue as to how anyone knows it's 750W to begin with, because I obviously missed out on a slew of posts that have since been deleted.

Either way, Matt and I will get to the bottom of this.

[sbrehm72255]

I sure hope that this fool is gone, I really hate reading all that crap. Isn't there something saying that you have to be over 13 to post on the forums or something like that.

[Unregistered]

I will just voluntarily leave, I am sorry for the disturbance.

[DarkSynergy]

No...

As a staff member, I would like to see you register here and contribute in the future. This would benefit not only us, but you as well IMHO.

This is also assuming that you can avoid using the immature comments that you did use in the earlier posts.

We at Techgage, cannot get any better without the feedback from readers like you. I would like, however, to see our readers inform us of any mistakes that we might have made, in a mature manner and not in the form of insults. Which is what happened in the earlier posts. We are working to correct the mistakes in the review so please, let us do our jobs. We do not want to lose any readers regardless of past posts.

I hope this changes your mind.

[madmat]

As I said before I'm not letting this issue lie. I've been on the horn with Jason and spoke via email with the PM of the Duro and here's what I've discovered: The Duro has a nominal wattage of 820W continuous (@ 25°C I assume) a peak of 900W and a continuous wattage of 750W @ 50°C. Jason tells me that after finding this out MGE will be modifying the packaging of the Duros in stock to reflect the true wattage and the next batch delivered will have new packaging with the proper spec.s on them.

As soon as I can get with Rob I will be modifying my review to reflect these findings but don't assume that I'm going to be overly harsh in my final score. I will be dropping it to a 7/10 over this, no lower since they are going to make it right and 750W @ 50°C is still a respectable amount of power from a $150 PSU.

[Unregistered]

I am glad to hear that MGE will be changing the way they market the product and allow the consumer to see a more accurate power rating. There is still one major problem and as a number 2 or 3 man in the organization you might now be aware of how this works. Someone at MGE knew in the beginning that this was not a true 900 watt product. I do applaud them for taking the necessary steps to fix the problem after they have been called out on it. I do hope that what they claim now is factual because we have a unit on the way to an independent testing facility.

In all fairness, a true 750 watt product, with a lifetime warranty (that was actually my idea and was proposed through Kali) for 150 dollars is incredible and would deserve a 9 or higher rating. As far as changing your score from a 9 to a 7 I am not so sure that really needs to be done as long as MGE takes the appropriate steps. With a 900 watt claim the product should score a 3 but at 750 watts a 9 is perfect. This is just my opinion BTW.

I see this as an industry problem since there is not a standard in which PSUs are rated. Setting a real standard would solve the problem but why would a company such as MGE or anyone for that matter want to give their true numbers when a PC Power & Cooling advertise Real World Specs.

As a consumer I would like to thank you Matt for taking the time to find out all of the details on this product. If I offended you with my previous posts please understand that I was not making trying to make a personal accusation but one of your reviewing practices. I am not one to sugar coat anything so when the hammer falls something usually gets pinched.

[madmat]

I've changed it to a 7 because MGE passed off a 750W PSU as a 900W, had the rep not told me that they would rectify the situation I would've dropped it to a 5 simply because people buy equipment based on the spec.s printed on the packaging and they'd be buying something that won't do what it advertises and that's supply 1/5th more power at 50°C. Had it been advertised at 750W it would've got a 9 and editors choice award but it wasn't.

As you say, when the hammer falls something gets pinched, in this case it's MGE's score.

For what it's worth the product manager who designed this PSU with Seventeam knew the true wattages but for some reason the cooked wattages made it onto the box. Honest mistake? Marketing scam? I don't know but I'm not happy about this.

[Bobbythecat]

Indeed Matt...as little as I know thus far, there are a few contract claims by consumers here, and potential for a class action.... We rely on the representations made by the seller on the fitness of their products. It would likely be a material breach where the heart of what was promised is broken... Anyways, back to studying..

Edit: Probably negligent representation, but then again..it's all up to Discovery....

[Buck-O]

Well MGE certaintly wouldent be the first and far from teh last to market a PSu with faulty power output ratings. Bassed on total peak, and peak optimum ratings.

This issues gets even worse when you get into the audio arena, and you have people start talking about wattages. Where you have RMS and PMPO, neither of which are truely acccurate.

You get 560 watts PMPO, 100 Wattts RMS, and in terms of actual rated wattage, its about 4-5.

Kinda funny when you hear a "10 watt" tube amp go up against the latest and greatest 550 watt Yamaha reciever, and bolw the doors off of it in terms of db @ 1m.

As to the unregistered guy. Really, you should register. I was formerly in teh industry as well. And still know plenty of people around the watering hole. And have my hands in plenty of peoples business. As such, i give Rob and the gang here a ton of greif over stuff. But they constantly bounce back. And return with better reviews. I thing as a result of my bitching, they finally gave their first sub 7 review. ;) I kid, i kid. Anyway, couldent hurt. And another industry punter is welcome in my book.

[madmat]

I'd like to let everyone know that MGE got the spec.s changed for the Duro on their site. It now correctly states 750W continuous and 900W peak.

Their rep assures me that the new shipment will be correctly labeled as well. I hope that he's right.

[Unregistered]

I recently acquired a DFi Lan Party UT CFX3200 motherboard and my Thermaltake PurePower 680 is dying. I borrowed my friend's Duro 900 thinking it will be just fine whilst I wait for my RMA. I removed my PSU and replaced it with the Duro 900. I plugged everything in and an led which is normally lit up solid was blinking. I got out a psu tester and everything checked out ok. I plugged the Thermaltake back up, the led was solid. I unplugged it and connected the Duro 900, no go. I finally noticed that pin 17 was missing. ping 17 is missing. Theres a hole there like any other 24 pin plug, just no wire in there. Is this common or is there something wrong with this PSU? By the way, if you hold the 24 pin plug vertically with the clip on the right hand side as you're looking at it; it's going to be the 5th hole up, starting from the bottom.

[madmat]

It's common on most new PSU's today to see that pin missing. It's for the -5V wire which isn't used by modern ATX motherboards for anything.

[madmat]

Just a quick update, I have loaded the Duro to 750W with 600W on the 12V rails and the 12V voltages dropped .02V at full load from 12.06 (at 580W, 432W on the 12V rails) to 12.04V and a total of .10V from a 96W load which were 12.14 with a 48W load on the 12V rails. At 750W the ripple on the 12V rails was a mere 20mv and the 3.3V rail was at 10mv as was the 5V rail. The 5V rail was at 17A and the 3.3V rail was at 14A on the 750W test.

I'll try a higher output wattage after I have some time to sit and calculate the wattages for the load, this test was done on the fly. As it sits the Duro is an awesome 750W PSU, I'd be hard pressed to find another PSU that has so little ripple with a 600W load on the 12V rails.