Gigabyte Odin GT 800W PSU

Item: Gigabyte Odin GT 800W PSU
Author: Richard Swinburne

Written by Richard Swinburne

October 15, 2007 | 12:17

Tags: #800w #blue #gt #monitoring #psu #silent #thermal

Companies: #gigabyte

Warranty

Gigabyte PSUs come with a three year warranty that's either return to point of sale or Gigabyte directly in the UK (depending on what the store policy is). Three years is decent and pretty much industry standard like Enermax and Nanopoint for example, but this is not as much as the five years offered by Corsair, PC Power & Cooling and Cooler Master (off the top of my head).

The question is - how often do you upgrade? 800W should be enough to see you into the future as the trend now is not escalating cost of PC ownership like it has been previously, but more in the way of power efficiency. It's only the inevitable additional connector introduction will force upgrading.

We've yet to see the long term viability of a Gigabyte PSU product because the division is so new and remember that this is that this is not a re-branded ODM design, this is Gigabyte made from a 100 percent in-house design. On one hand I'm willing to put faith in the company because of its reputation elsewhere, however it still has unproven reliability in the mass market.

Value

You should find the unit at between £109-£119 in the UK and Dabs and BTShop have the unit for £111 however YoyoTech has it listed for £105 which really is a good price for an 800W unit. The PC Power and Cooling 750W we reviewed recently is around the same price or a touch less, but it obviously depends where you shop and what features you're after. The Enermax Infiniti 720W is still far more expensive at between £120-130 for a lower wattage unit that's also modular. However if you feel the need for a bit more power and you can pick the Seasonic 900W up for just £130.

However none of these offer the software control, thermal probes and fan adapters. Those don't offer a universal appeal but it is certainly a market niche that will add value for some users. Not that many retailers stock the unit yet, but that is due to change this week as volume stock arrives, so shop around because prices may get slight adjustments (although if you are certainly after one - grab one from YoyoTech quickly because apparently they are currently selling them too cheaply!).

Conclusions

Like many other computer products, PSUs are subject to fanboyism and "buying what you know". Corsair broke this mold with its range of PSUs in the last year, but people will still swear by their Seasonics, Tagans, Enermax, etc without even considering other brands. In this way, Gigabyte has an upwards struggle, but it has hit the market with a extremely capable and fully featured unit that should turn some heads. There are a few design quirks that could be revised but for a first model it's excellent - we've seen far worse from industry giants with years of experience.

Gigabyte obviously has its pedigree in motherboards, but its cases and cooling solutions haven't quite permeated the market in the same way. That said though, the manufacturing quality and reliability from all its components is certainly there and there's no reason to think that although the PSU division is young, the ethos shouldn't be any different.

It's not the outright obvious buy that should go to the top of a list, but then again the power supply market is inherently difficult to innovate in and offer something that everyone wants. It should be another strong contender in the upper mainstream range though, for those who still think 1kW supplies are insane purchases, but want the upgrade security of not buying something less than 650/700W. That's not to say a 650/700W shouldn't adequately cope with most of today's systems, but with CrossFire X and tri-SLI on the horizon, along with the possibly GPU physics still rearing its head, who knows what kind the requirements of the future will be.

Final Thoughts

Gigabyte has done a fantastic job with its first power supply - it's extremely quiet, very well made, good looking and it has cool additions like molex quick release plugs, modularity, thermal probes, fan adapters, colour co-ordination (mostly) and software control. I'm genuinely finding it hard to criticise it but my natural gut reaction is "motherboard turned accessory maker - additional business rather than a primary one" which may be true, but it's not to the detriment of the product.

There are certainly a few things that need revisiting, including airflow and connector lengths, but it's nothing particularly serious. My only worry is long term reliability, but there's certainly no outright reason to worry and nothing has been reported so far. Just check what it has suits your needs and stick it on your want list if you're all ticks.