Originally posted by sammorris:

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The GameXStream was meant to come with a fan controller, but in the PSUs that were shipped for at least the entire first year it was on sale, they were non-functional. Presumably they've since fixed that issue.
The main issue to watch out for with PSUs is thermal sensitivity, and fan gradient with load. Many PSUs will run fairly quietly and cool by themselves, but as soon as they pick up the smallest amount of ambient case heat start to become noisy, and plenty more PSUs that are very quiet at minimal load suddenly become quite noisy with moderate load.
For example, the corsair CX 400W is 19dB in an anechoic chamber (compare to 11dB for the Nexus units I use) at idle, but in a hot-box setup (i.e. a PC where the PSU is at the top, picking up case heat), it reaches a considerable 26dB by 150W, and a very noisy 32dB at 200W. When running in isolation on the test bench, it's only 19dB at 150W, and 24dB at 200W, so it does make a sizeable difference.

Things have certainly changed in the last few years as far as component reliability goes. OCZ have been bad for memory for quite some time now, and that hasn't changed. G-Skill, who have a good reputation have produced a few bad sticks, and although their average failure rate across the entire range is quite low, the most unreliable individual memory products mostly come from corsair. This isn't obscure high-spec dominator GT stuff, this is commonly bought pairs, like the 8500C5 XMS2 dominators and the 6400C5 XMS2.
The most reliable brand (perhaps surprisingly) is Kingston, with Crucial and Corsair not far behind, but with all these brands' failure rates less than 1 in 70, none of them are really a risky buy. With OCZ's failure rate more than 1 in 15, they're best avoided.
OCZ's PSU's used to be quite poor back in the early days, they improved slightly with the GameXStream but were still relatively mediocre implementations of quite mediocre OEMs (Fortron). They weren't going to go pop like the cheap units, but for the price tag, there was better stuff out there.
Corsair used to be the gold standard for PSUs from the introduction of the excellent HX520/620 units several years ago, up until the end of 2010. Since then, things have gone seriously downhill. The CX Builder series are very cheap, and it shows, they're proving quite unreliable. There have been a fair few problems with the flagship AX units too, despite their excellent credentials.
Worst of all though, previously solid units, the HX620, HX1000, and a quite commonly bought newcomer the TX950, take silver, bronze and gold respectively for the most unreliable power supplies sold in france, with the HX620/TX950 failure rates more than twice any other PSU.

For large mechanical drives, with the exception of the WD2001FASS which is faring quite poorly (1 in 10), the only real risky buy is the Hitachi Deskstar, the least reliable large capacity drive (5-6% for the 1TB, 7% for the 2TB). On the whole WD Green drives score quite well (especially the earlier EADS drives, which are top of each size class for reliability), and by contrast, the WD1001FALS scores very well too (1 in 74).
For 1TB drives, if you stick with WD you can't really go too wrong, and even the Samsung F3 and Seagate LP are reasonably solid buys, just avoid the 7200rpm seagates (especially the 7200.11), the Samsung F1, and anything by Hitachi.
With the exception of the WD20EADS way out in front, none of the 2TB drives score that well, with second place (Ecogreen F3) scoring worse than all bar the Hitachis at 1TB, but the failure rates of the main competitors, barracuda LP, Ecogreen F3 and WD20EARS, are all fairly similar, at 4-5% each. As before, just stay away from hitachi (oh, and the WD2001FASS)

For SSDs, there is simply no contest for reliability. The failure rate for most SSD brands falls between 1 in 46 for Corsair, and 1 in 34 for OCZ. For intel, it's a staggering 1 in 170. Intel know how to make SSDs, it seems.

By comparison, the average failure rate for CPUs? 1 in 550. Why can't all hardware be so reliable? :P

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Quote:

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by Sam
The ideal sort of PSU is one that has a flat idle line for a considerable load before ramping, so you only ever see raised fan speed when the whole system is under heavy load.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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Ooh it's more than 1.5W, it's about 4W on both occasions and no there aren't blue 2TB drives, that I know of.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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Ooh it's more than 1.5W, it's about 4W on both occasions and no there aren't blue 2TB drives, that I know of.
I don't use green drives for power savings. I use them because they're half the price, and less than half the noise!

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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Ooh it's more than 1.5W, it's about 4W on both occasions and no there aren't blue 2TB drives, that I know of.
I don't use green drives for power savings. I use them because they're half the price, and less than half the noise!

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