Today we're looking at some inexpensive ATX power supplies with a low output power. In most cases there is no need for a 1KW power supply when 350W to 450W units with an adequate cable configuration will do just fine. This is why we will review a few PSUs from manufacturers throughout the world which come up to these requirements. We have four units manufactured by FSP, three from HEC, one by Enermax, one ATNG, one CWT and one LongYi.

The following review is one more look at seeing if you really get what you pay for—or if you can get high quality without breaking the bank. For this roundup we have 11 power supplies with different prices and power ratings. Will the most expensive unit deliver the best results? Read on to find it out. As usual we will look at the voltage regulation and quality, noise levels, and check out the internal design.

Ostensibly, Corsair's Carbide line of enclosures are their budget cases; the Obsidian and Graphite lines both start where the beefy Carbide 500R leaves off. Corsair's least expensive entry is the one we have on hand today, the Carbide 300R. Yet like a certain fruit-flavored company we know, they seem unwilling to part with many of the amenities that make their cases such a joy to assemble and work with, and the result is a Carbide that's caught between two worlds.

The Carbide 300R attempts to bring many of the things we've come to know and love and expect from Corsair cases down to a hopefully more palatable $79 price tag. While that's not in the "true budget" arena we've seen companies like Bitfenix and Antec stake out, it's definitely more affordable than most and may hit a sweet spot for users who don't want to spend too much on a case but want something of slightly higher quality. Read on to see how the 300R fares.

We've had a remarkably heavy backlog of cases in house in desperate need of review over the past couple of months, and one of the standouts has been BitFenix's Shinobi XL. We were generally pretty pleased with the original Shinobi when we first reviewed it. Seventy bucks for a solid budget enclosure with great styling was a killer deal, and the enclosure itself has a lot of room to grow for the budding enthusiast. As it turns out, the Shinobi has been a pretty big hit for BitFenix. Big enough, in fact, that they decided it needed to go...bigger.

And so it did. BitFenix released the Shinobi XL earlier this year, but reviews for it have been fairly scarce and even a little bit dismissive in some cases. We have an opportunity here to rectify that and determine if the newer, larger Shinobi lives up to the legacy of its little brother, or if BitFenix has lost some of the magic in enlarging their budget design. Read on for our impressions and testing results.

Marking our fifth venture into Lian Li territory in recent years, the PC-A55 enclosure we have on hand is another unique, slightly-off-the-wall design from a company we've come to expect this kind of thinking from. After all, at Computex they were showing off a case with 26 3.5" bays and another one that looks like a small train. It's not unreasonable to expect some unique cases from Lian Li, and the PC-A55 is definitely one.

What Lian Li has attempted to achieve with the PC-A55 is essentially to make a full ATX enclosure as small as humanly possible while still being easy to build and service. In some ways they've definitely achieved this, but a lot of sacrifices had to be made to get the PC-A55 to where it is and unfortunately, we're not sure they were worth it.

In Win sent us their newest model GreenMe rated at 650W. Billed as an eco-friendly alternative to the common PSUs, In Win boasts about the reduced energy costs associated with the high efficiency design. Given the eco emphasis, we'll examine how the PSU does in those areas along with the usual tests. Is this green power supply a good option for the environmentally conscious users? Read on to find out!

The GreenME like any decent modern power supply also carries an 80 Plus certification, this time for the Bronze level. That means the PSU should run at 82% efficiency with a load of 20%, reaching 85% efficiency or more at a load of 50%, and still maintain 82% efficiency at the maximum 650W rated load.

The mini-ITX form factor is starting to pick up steam these days, and with good reason. Micro-ATX boards are already capable of essentially hitting feature parity with full ATX boards, including multi-GPU support, while many mini-ITX boards include almost all the bells and whistles an end user could need. With the right board it's just not that hard to build a powerful gaming system in a fraction of the space it used to require.

There's also been a slow trickle of new mini-ITX enclosures designed to support that kind of hardware, but even these enclosures have had their limits unless you were willing to spend through the nose on a Lian Li case. That changes today with the BitFenix Prodigy, a $79, full-frills mini-ITX enclosure designed for maximum performance in minimum space. If you're looking to build a powerful mini-ITX system with a single graphics card, this may very well be the case you've been waiting for.

One of the first cases we reviewed back when we initially established our case testing methodology last year was SilverStone's FT03, a very unique Micro-ATX design guaranteed to be both an eye catcher and a solid performer. It lived up to both of those claims. DigitalStorm even proved the FT03 was capable of handling a tremendous amount of power when they outfitted one with an overclocked i7-2600K and a pair of GeForce GTX 580s. The FT03 was successful enough that it was only a matter of time until SilverStone experimented with it a bit.

Today we have the results of that experiment. The FT03 Mini is the FT03 condensed further still, swapping out Micro-ATX for Mini-ITX and requiring an SFX form factor power supply in the process. Users who didn't care for the look of the FT03 aren't going to find anything new here, but people who dug on the FT03 are bound to find a lot to like.

We have already reviewed quite a few PC Power & Cooling products on AnandTech, but this time we will be looking at their first series with modular cables and a white case. In contrast to older PSUs PC Power & Cooling delivered, this one provides a 120mm fan for cooling as well. The new Silencer MK III models are available in 400, 500 and 600W only. This is a good news for everybody who is interested in small power supplies as they deliver more than enough power for any common PC with one graphics card.

PC Power & Cooling uses Japanese capacitors, one powerful +12V output, a ball bearing fan from ADDA , and a partially modular cable management. With 80 Plus Bronze certification, the Silencer MK III seems to be an average product, but Seasonic is the company behind these products—and they're definitely a good choice. What about the internal design and components? On the following pages we will see if they meet one's expectations.

Corsair has had an excellent run as a case designer, showing growth with each new enclosure by adding some features, subtracting other ones, moving things around, and generally continuing to experiment. The Obsidian and Carbide lines in particular have shown healthy progress, but today Corsair launches a fourth line under their popular Vengeance gaming brand: the Vengeance C70.

While the exteriors of the Obsidian and to a lesser extent Carbide cases have all been fairly austere, the Vengeance C70's target is pretty clear: they're going after gamers. Thus far, products in the Vengeance market have generally been of high quality and haven't been particularly ostentatious, but the C70's external design is an unusual step for Corsair. Is the C70 as a whole part of Corsair's continued evolution as a case designer, or is this their first major misstep along the way?

Aluminum has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance in the notebook industry, spearheaded largely by Apple and now Intel's ultrabook initiative, but as a construction material for desktop enclosures it's largely been a specialty item. Most manufacturers use it in isolated places, usually as an accent, with entire cases built out of it becoming largely the purview of Lian Li...and not too many others.

Cubitek, on the other hand, has seen fit to employ it for an entire new line of cases under the "ICE Series". Five enclosures all using an almost entirely aluminum chassis and finish, ranging from the Mini-ITX "Mini ICE" all the way up to the grandaddy of them all and the enclosure that we have in for review today: the "HPTX ICE." The Cubitek HPTX ICE is as big as it gets and is able to support the biggest motherboards on the market, every spec from Mini-ITX all the way up to EATX and HPTX, and it has a supersized price tag to boot. But is it worth it?

The last time we reviewed one of SilverStone's Grandia enclosures, it was the GD04, and it was a review that launched the first major revamp of how we test cases. Since then SilverStone has kept the Grandia series relatively staid, but at CES they were showing off the new GD07 and GD08, and today we have the GD07 in house.

SilverStone has turned the GD07 into an enclosure designed to cram as much computer into as small a space as possible within reason, and the horizontal orientation seems to make it ideal for use as a media center enclosure. However, inside it also has a tremendous amount of storage capacity that suggests it could also be used as a media server. The GD04 was a fine case once you tweaked it and added a fan controller; is the GD07 ideal on the first go?

Today we will review a Codegen PSU. This product is not available in the US as they sell it in some European countries only, but it's still a nice representative of the low-end product range. In fact the P-Case 460W is a part of the Q3335-A2 bundle. They sell it with a good looking case for office use. With less than 30 EUR (about 40 USD; 04-27-2012) it appears to be a good offer, but we will see if they meet one's expectations.

Q3335-A2 bundle

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 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.

FSP is one of the largest manufacturers for OEM power supplies and adapters. Now they're launching a new fanless series, the "Aurum Xilenser", for users that want absolute silence. We have the AU-500FL on our test bench today. Like the previous Aurum offerings, the new generation is 80 Plus Gold certified. As for the fanless part, you'll want to be careful if you try for a complete silent (i.e. fanless) PC—it's one thing to have a fanless PSU when there are case and CPU fans to compensate, but entirely fanless systems will need some big heatsinks and an open chassis if you want reasonable performance.

The casing for the AU-500FL has more ventilation holes than we're used to seeing, with arrow-shaped perforations on every available spot! Besides the bottom (where a large fan might normally sit) and the back (to exhaust heat from your system), FSP has holes on the front and sides of the casing. Even the top (not shown, and assuming a top-mounted PSU; otherwise this is the "bottom") has a few extra holes to help with cooling. With no fan, there's obviously a need to remove heat and the extra ventilation should help in that regard.