Gamers and PC enthusiasts alike love power. We constantly strive to upgrade, tweak and overclock our hardware in the hopes of eking out more horsepower. We follow the latest hardware trends and often drool over vendor's roadmaps and the increased power and functionality they will inevitably bring.
Today however we will be looking at a different form of power, essentially the most basic form of power itself. BSN* recently received a tag team duo from
Eaton Power Quality business unit, a
5PX 1500VA UPS (
Uninterruptable Power Supplies) and the shiny new
3S 750VA UPS. Now before you make up your mind that a UPS is a boring product and think that reading this review will be a waste of your time I ask you to approach this with an open mind and you might actually be surprised at the knowledge you take away from this article.
The problem with UPS's is that they are seen as such a commodity that no one gives them a second glance. The reality is that there are many things we take for granted on a daily basis that are immensely important, smoke detectors, air bags and a host of other things that may not be the sexiest components in our life but do indeed provide an invaluable service.
If you consider yourself an avid gamer or power user then a UPS may be one of the most important pieces of equipment that you don't have. Let me paint a picture here. You're an avid gamer or video buff, on your most recent build out you wanted to make sure that you had a top end rig that could handle anything you threw at it with mind numbing speed and efficiency. You researched each component, read reviews and scoured benchmarks until you were certain you got the most bang for your buck and had wisely invested your hard-earned cash.
Perhaps it looks a little something like this:
- High end processor: $500
- High end cooling: $70
- Feature rich Motherboard: $250
- High quality Memory: $150
- Enthusiast class graphics: $500
- Solid State Hard Drive: $200
- Efficient Power Supply: $150
- 1080P Monitor: $250
- Cheap power strip from a big box store: $20
One of these things is not like the other one... I think you can see what I am getting at. You do your research on everything else but when it comes to power protection you grab the cheapest power strip you can find. In a sense you are trusting a glorified extension cord to protect you new high tech baby.
I have to admit I have been guilty of the same thing. I had been running a $12,000 custom rig (with constant hardware updates) for years with a lowly power strip of questionable origin as the only line of defense against a silicon-frying power surge, in hindsight it was a clearly boneheaded move on my part.
The units we received from Eaton showcase two different ends of the spectrum. The 5PX is a large enterprise-ready, rack-mountable UPS that also converts to tower orientation. The 3S is directly aimed at consumers, small businesses, home offices, entertainment centers and the like.
What is a UPS?
In layman's terms a UPS is essentially a box of batteries. At a very basic level it is designed to provide you with some level of power should an AC power loss occur such as a blackout or similar. Also, UPS provides surge arrest functionality which is often much higher than in most of power strips on the market.
© 2009 - 2013 Bright Side Of News*, All rights reserved.
