Introduction
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Today we are getting this USD 20 power supply called “Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK” that is offered by Apevia and is available at Newegg.com to see if it is a good option for users on budget. Let’s check it out.
The first thing that caught our eye is that nowhere on the power supply is written that this is a 450 W unit. This is the oldest trick in town to deceive users, and we thought nobody was still doing this: the manufacturer can simply say that “450W” is part of the product name, not its real wattage. Therefore, we are almost sure to be facing a unit with a fake wattage.
It looks like this unit is manufactured by Solytech.
Figure 1: Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK power supply
Figure 2: Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK power supply
The Apevia Turbolink ATX-TL450W-BK is 5 ½” (14 cm) deep, using an 80-mm sleeve bearing fan on its rear (Apevia DFS8025). This unit doesn’t have an active PFC, being based on the outdated half-bridge topology.
The cables included are:
- Main motherboard cable with a 20/24-pin connector, 18.1” (46 cm) long
- One cable with one ATX12V connector, 18.5” (47 cm) long
- One cable with one SATA power connector, 17.7” (45 cm) long
- One cable with three standard peripheral power connectors and one floppy disk drive power connector, 13” (33 cm) to the first connector, 5.9” (15 cm) between connectors
The cable configuration is awful. This unit has only one SATA power connector, which is not enough even for an entry-level PC, since even basic computers will require two SATA power connectors, one for the optical drive and one for the hard drive. Plus this unit doesn’t have a video card power connector. All wires are 20 AWG, i.e., thinner than the minimum recommended.
Figure 3: Cables
Let’s now take an in-depth look inside this power supply.
