As Nexus recommend the Value 430 for HTPC’s and Media Centre PC’s I will be installing it into my Media Centre PC, specifications are as follows:

Installation was as easy as you would expect and only took a few minutes. It was simply a case of unplugging my current power supply, unscrewing it from the case and reversing the procedure with the Nexus Value 430.

The extra few millimetres saved on the Nexus Value 430 did make the task somewhat easier as being used in a media case space is somewhat at a premium. As you can see from the picture it’s not a massive difference but as the saying goes, every little helps.

To test the psu I will measure all voltages using a digital voltmeter, as the readings from Abits uGuru can’t really be taken as much more than a guide, also it only shows a single 12v readout and this psu has quad 12v rails. For this reason I will take 12v readings from the drives connector, the 8way ATX connector on the motherboard, the main motherboard power connector and the graphics card power connector, as I assume this is how they are split, this IS only a guesstimate as to how the 12v rails are split though.

The 5v and 3.3v readings will be taken from the main motherboard connector. Readings will be taken with the pc at idle and at load. For the load readings I will be running Orthos dual prime to put maximum load on the cpu and 3d06 to put maximum load on the graphics card, burn a cd and run a virus check, I feel this will give the maximum load this pc can put on the power supply. To begin with I will take some reading with the system just idling / running the usual background tasks.

The power rails measured as follows: -

As you can see it seems it requires a much heftier pc than the one I used in this test to make a significant dent in any of the rails on the Nexus Value 430. The biggest deviation was a mere 0.06v on one of the 12v rails, which equates to approx 0.5% which is very impressive. All rails were very close to their rated voltage again within less than 0.2v.

Next Page – Conclusion