Buying the best Power Supply (PSU)

Introduction

Today we are going to look at a slightly different class of power supplies than we have typically reviewed in that both products we are looking at today are house brands of one retail chain. The concept of house brands is a familiar one to most of the purchasing public and at times can represent a solid value when the product is of comparable quality to that of the "name brands" but at a lower price point. On the flip side, however, house brands can also be overpriced inferior products that simply exist to pad the profit margin of the retail chain while not providing users with a solid value. So today, we are going to look at two house brands, Dynex and Rocketfish.

The names Dynex and Rocketfish may not be household names to everyone but if you have ever strolled down the aisles of your local Best Buy or had products serviced by the Geek Squad you more than likely have seen these two brands hanging around Best Buy shelves. A quick search on those brand names at the HardForum finds a couple hundred results in the last 10 months. While Best Buy stocks a number of power supply brands Rocketfish and Dynex appear to be related companies owned by Best Buy that solely distribute through Best Buy retail channels and Best Buy’s website. Both brands maintain very similar product profiles that include a huge range of PC components, home electronic components, and accessories; but today we are going to look at two power supplies that greet users when they walk down the PC component aisle of their local big box retail giant. These two power supplies are the Dynex 400w (DX-400WPS) and the Rocketfish 700w power supply (RF-700WPS). Both of these units are provided by the same division of OEM Shenzhen Chi Yuan Industrial CO LTD, Huntkey Enterprise Group.

Huntkey Enterprise Group is not a name familiar to the majority of US users but Huntkey was founded in 1995 and claims to be the largest producer of power supplies in mainland China. Huntkey is a completely vertically integrated SMPS manufacturer that produces everything from wiring to transformers to telecom power supplies to open frame power supplies and finally PC power supplies. The majority of their products seen in the US to date have been integrated products or sold under the Huntkey, Dynex, and Rocketfish brands. As such today is the first of a number of Huntkey products we will be looking at with both a Dynex branded unit and a Rocketfish branded unit.

Best Buys?

We have had a fair amount of mail from [H] readers asking about these Best Buy power supplies, hence the article here today. So we moseyed down to our local Best Buy and bought the power supplies we needed for our review.

Given that both the Dynex DX-400WPS and the Rocketfish RF-700WPS are house brands and seen only through Best Buy these two products are hardly going to have huge marketing campaigns behind them. However, since both Dynex and Rocketfish do have web pages let’s see how both companies are positioning these products for when customers grace the hallowed halls of Best Buy.

Dynex DX-400WPS

Keep your important computer components running with this 400-watt ATX power supply that features a 6-pin PCI Express connector.

Rocketfish RF-700WPS

Keep your computer components going with this 700-watt power supply that accommodates high-end graphics cards.

Well neither Dynex nor Rocketfish has much to say about these two units, although we do learn the Dynex unit is intended to “keep your important computer components running” where as the Rocketfish just keeps “your components going.” Given these are not truly targeted at the absolute top tier of the power supply market we can understand there not being a lot of marketing behind these units. These two products are, more or less, aimed at the “Hey it works now!” drop-in replacement crowd.
So, let’s see what we have to look forward to when we purchase the Dynex 400w and Rocketfish 700w power supplies in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality before moving on to the actual testing beyond works/doesn't works most people will put these through. First, we will look at the Dynex 400w.

Full article here