what happens when you mix in garbage marketing
with a garbage power supply well
you get the gamemax vp650.
now i was alerted to this power supply
by a couple of viewers in australia who
sent me the link for this ad and they
said look brian you've got to check out
this power supply it's 650W watts it's
coming in with a good price
and it's shipped free to your door you
can buy a heap of these
and put them in gaming pcs and you've
got yourself
potentially a new meta for giving people
the best value
and as soon as i saw the power supply ad
i was actually
very worried and concerned and the first
thing that
rings alarm bells is when you look at
the power rating
of this power supply they're saying it's
a 650 watt
yet then they're saying on the 12 volt
rail that's the most important
rail by the way for giving your things
like cpu
and gpu power when i saw this rating
i was like 34 amps that does not really
equal a 650 watt power supply
and then there's further things in this
ad that really disturbed me
they were using the capital w after the
650 meaning they're saying that this is
a true
650 watt power supply then after that
they're saying that this is certified
in australia by regulatory commissions
for being in safe and use
so let's dig further in depth to this
story about why you should seriously
consider avoiding a power supply like
this 650 watt right here
and getting if you're on a budget
something like this in my hands
today's video is brought to you by intel
oris and ple computers bringing you
ready to go custom gaming pcs that are
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are powered by an intel 10th gen core i7
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so before we even turn on the game max
vp 650
we can see some things that are even a
little bit disturbing
just by looking at this sticker right
here the first thing is this 12 volt
rail right here
it's saying that it's max current is 34
amps then they're saying that the max
power is 469 watts
that is not how you do conversions from
amps and voltages into watts
you generally just times this 12 number
here by the amps and you'll get the
watts so
they're even misrepresenting the power
supply on the sticker label
which apparently got approved by all
these different organizations right here
and even in australia the e triple s
regulatory commission
which after seeing all these approval
certifications here i am a little bit
worried
as to if these boards here are doing
their job
properly and approving this stuff here
because if i was in one of these boards
i would not approve this power supply
right here
just based off the fact that they're not
even representing the product
properly to begin with the second thing
is here when i look at the advert
this is 80 plus bronze where they've
rated it at
yet when i look on the actual ad itself
it says it's only been rated for 80 plus
so the bronze thing is a manual
efficiency rating which they've slapped
on
and they haven't even had it certified
properly they're just saying it's 80
plus bronze but we'll find out that very
soon
when we test it on an rtx 3070 gaming pc
to see the efficiency versus something
like this mwe 450 right here
which is 80 plus certified they're not
marketing it as
80 plus bronze because it hasn't been
properly certified for that so
i am a little bit worried that perhaps
these certifications here
aren't actually true certifications
they're just popping them on the sticker
and saying that they have had them
certified which does make me wonder
how this stuff is even sold in a place
like australia where i'm currently
living
to begin with though if you want to see
how bad a power supply is to begin with
you can just quickly simply check the
weight of the power supply a really
cheap power supply
is going to have cheap components and
hence it's actually going to be pretty
lightweight
so you see here this power supply weighs
in at just over one kilogram
and if we put something like the mwe 450
watt on the scales
we can see that that is coming in at
1260 grams
so a 450 watt power supply is weighing
more considerably more
than a so-called 650 watt power supply
the next thing we're going to do is
compare the
cables and the actual thickness of the
cables themselves
and how many cables you actually get now
you may be wondering straight away why
am i comparing a 450 watt
mw from cooler master to the game max
vp650 right here
and the main reason is is that they're
actually a very similar price
in australia this right here you can get
this for 59
it's in stock this one right here is
64.60
if you buy more than four or four or
more you can get it for as low as 60
dollars
shipped so the prices are very similar
but the quality is certainly
not where we look at the actual gauge
used
on these wires right here for the game
max now that they're using ketchup and
mustard cables which is
generally considered the cheapest form
of cabling on a power supply
nowadays they're actually only giving
you one pcie
eight pin connector as well as the cpu8
pin here
does feel very flimsy and cheap so i
wouldn't be using this
on any cpu with a rated tdp of higher
than 100 watts that's just me personally
and then we've got this right here i've
had to add in my own 8 pin
pcie connector because we're going to be
doing some testing later on
with this power supply on the rtx 3070
i7 pc now we've got right here the mwe
has a 24 pin
it's also got two eight pin pcie
connectors
and an eight 8-pin cpu connector which
actually splits into two
separate four pins and so we can see the
differences
already before we even boot up a gaming
pc using either of these power supplies
you're getting pretty much everything
more on a cheaper
and lower rated or should i say
quotation marks
lower rated power supply than you are
with this vp650
now one more thing that is concerning
about this game max power supply
is that there's no documentation of
warranty on the box at all
with the mwe 450 watt they're saying on
the box
three year warranty so there's no
mention of warranty on the original ad
they do say 12 months
which i'm going to tell you guys
straight up if you're only getting 12
month warranty
on your power supplies i'd be very
concerned about the components
that they're putting in them so we've
now got cyberpunk 2077 booted up and our
gpu
is around 100 utilization which is
exactly what we want
and we're going to now monitor the
wall reading here which is what the
whole computer is plugged off of
and we see that this is using up close
to around 440 watts
and it's not essentially cutting out
which is a good thing and i guess
if you're playing any games and your
power supply starts cutting out after a
few minutes
of playing the game i would seriously
just stop everything
and definitely change the power supply
around for something better
and test that out first but we're going
to now test this game
for around a good half an hour just to
make sure it can pass at least the
initial test
of the power supply being able to
deliver solid power
now one thing you'll notice too is when
we did this test originally in another
video
with this whole giveaway pc i'll put the
link
just up here the gold rated power supply
was using around 390 watts
so it is saving you around 50 watts
while you're gaming by going with a
more i guess efficient power supply but
at least this 450 watt power supply
right here
is doing the job also we'll find out
after we play for a little while
[Music]
oh
[Music]
so we now got the vp650 on the test
bench here
and i don't have another molex connector
to hook up
the rgb fans here so we're gonna have to
leave them off for this test
but the mwe over there that passed with
flying colors
it was absolutely fine playing cyberpunk
nothing was out of the ordinary nothing
glitched or there was no hiccups at all
but let's see how this thing
goes with playing cyberpunk for around
half an hour
[Music]
so i just went upstairs to get a tough
team we're going to turn this power
supply off now because
even though it's technically past our
test here coming down the stairs
with my cup of tea i could smell a bad
smell coming from this thing
and if that's the thing if you smell
something weird coming from your
computer
regardless of even if you've got the
best components in there should turn
things off
straight away just to check things out
though another thing about this power
supply is which is concerning
is it's making a pretty
annoying coil wine sound and the power
consumption is now over 500 watts from
the wall
and we're running three less rgb fans in
a controller
than the previous scenario so this thing
here is not
even 70 percent efficiency
so that 80 plus bronze rating you see
there
is absolute lies it's not even real
but let's move over now to a conclusion
with the vp650
so after all these tests we're coming
back now with
a clear verdict and that is that the
power supplies from game max these
vp650s
are not 80 plus bronze and they're not
a true 650 watt power supply to the
point where this thing was losing out
to a 450 watt power supply that is
cheaper
and weighs more and has better cabling
this thing right here was a
big letdown and i'm just surprised at a
few things
the first thing is i'm surprised that
apparently it got these certifications
but
after seeing the 80 plus bronze here i
think that is a fake certification where
they actually never got that
they're just printing it on the label
here which does make it false
advertising at the very least
so this thing should not even be sold on
australian shelves
because it hasn't passed the proper
testing or at least the testing that i'm
doing here
where we can see that our build our rtx
3070 build
was really i mean this build would
probably use around 360 watts true
wattage from the wall
yet this thing's going over 500 watts
when it comes to
actually playing cyberpunk 2077 so if i
had to estimate efficiency
it would be under 70 percent which is
terrible for a few things
the first being you're going to be using
more power than you should
and then the second thing is you're
actually generating more heat in the
power supply
because it's less efficient it's then
going to be dumping that heat within the
power supply itself
then pushing it out the back hence why
this power supply was getting a lot
warmer
than the other two power supplies that
i've tested with this rtx 3070 build
though the thing that bothers me the
most about this vp650 right here
is the fact that they're advertising it
as a 650 watt power supply
when it's not capable of doing anywhere
near that
in terms of its true rating limit now if
you take for instance a guy getting into
pc building
they've seen the guides out there from
guys like me and other tech channels
and they see oh wow it's pretty easy and
straightforward to build your first pc
and don't get me wrong it is but then
they see the guides and then they think
okay i'm going to go out and buy a
650 watt power supply that nvidia have
recommended
i get when i get an rtx 3070
and so they see something like this
which in australia it's sold over 270
just off one listing 270 items and they
think oh this power supply is pretty
good it's
sold a lot of copies and looks like it's
good on the spec sheet
but then they put it in their build and
then after a week their whole system
starts shutting off
and they smell these weird smells coming
out and they're wondering what's going
on with this
first pc that i built and the reason is
is they've been duped
by crap marketing like this right here
vp
650 and 80 plus bronze
and it's anything but that and so what
we saw here today even after playing
after half an hour on cyberpunk
there was weird noises coming out of
this power supply and there was also
a weird smell coming out and this was
only still
using under a true 400 watts for the
whole build
which was very concerning though coming
out of this
i do apologize if i've got a negative
tone in today's video
i'm usually a positive guy here at tech
yeah city and i'm usually bringing that
energy
but after being in the pc building game
for over 20 years
the fact that this stuff still continues
to go on
just really makes me scratch my head
it's not the fact that these companies
sell this crap
it's the fact that 200 over 270 people
have bought this off of one listing
and it just continues to go on this
false advertising and these potential
and i say this i don't say this as a
joke i mean this seriously
these potential fire hazards people are
putting them in their high-end rigs
and if you put this in with an rtx 3070
you are going to have problems sooner or
later
whether it's probably going to be sooner
than later but
the problem is is that if you do have
those problems
it can potentially lead to even worse
things like damaging your equipment
because if something like this goes out
and causes a spike through your whole
system
it could damage your cpu it could damage
your graphics card
causing you even more financial ruin
plus the fact that you could get sick
off of the fumes that are coming out of
this thing when it's being overworked
so ultimately something like this i'd
like to see it being rated at its true
rating and that is i think it's a 350
watt power supply
and i mean sure it's going to probably
be okay for most
gtx 1050 ti's and 1060 builds but even
then
if this thing is costing more than this
right here
for me it's a no-brainer that you should
go with something like this which
actually has a three-year warranty and
is a true 450 watt power supply
so this video right here hopefully it's
served as a good psa and i'm probably
just going to keep making these videos
the more i see this crap because the
more people that get educated
about these terrible power supplies that
are being sold for good money
the better off we're going to be when
people stop using them in general
and the fact that i mean maybe pc
resellers are putting these in builds
too
that does concern me a lot being that
someone unsuspecting who doesn't know
much about pc building
gets a pc with this in it they could be
certainly bound for some more problems
than they could handle another thing is
the game max directly speaking to you
guys
stop doing this you you've got a half
decent reputation at least in the cases
that people are using people use game
max cases here i know them locally and
they say hey the game max cases are okay
they're good value
but this right here is not good value
it's misleading
please stop doing it you guys are better
than this
just stop and with all that aside if you
guys enjoyed today's video
be sure to hit that like button also be
sure to share it around
if someone's in the market for a power
supply and they don't know much about
power supplies this video can hopefully
serve as a good warning
for people buying their first power
supplies and at least reading through
all the
garbage marketing and all the false
advertising that goes on in this
industry
and with that aside i'll catch you guys
in another tech video very soon
just after this question of the day here
which comes from futurisu and they ask
great video and thank you for doing the
giveaway
i use different emails for youtube and
gleam
wonder if that would invalidate my entry
if i get picked
and they're talking about our rtx 3070
giveaway pc which we did in the previous
video i'll put the link up here
but one thing as i do now and i'm going
to keep doing with giveaways
is i'm going to just in the video point
out
how you guys can actually win the
giveaway rather than people just
clicking on the video
entering the giveaway and stuff like
that so with that video if you drop a
comment
what i'm going to do is if you get
picked as the winner i'm then going to
go ask you to reply to your own comment
in that video
to validate that that's you and then you
will be the winner of the rtx 3070
gaming pc so it doesn't matter if you
have a different comment based on your
email that you've entered the giveaway
with
what matters is that you've actually
commented like i said to do in the video
and you don't have to use any code so
that was just something that i did to
throw people off who
didn't watch the content anyway hope
that answers that question
and i'll catch you guys in another tech
video very soon
peace out for now bye
[Music]