When we talk about good quality power supplies, the first names that come to mind are Corsair, be quiet!, SeaSonic, etc. But really, there are dozens and dozens of manufacturers that also have good quality products, although their name sounds like China to us… excuse the redundancy. And GameMax is one of them, we are not going to deny it.
Impressive technical specifications, but…
If you take a look at the GameMax power supply catalog you can see that they have dozens of different models distributed in several families, with sources in SFX and even TFX format, which is barely visible, to models for PC gaming (because of the RGB colors, you already know) passing through sources designed for mining, with high power and a large number of PCIe connectors for rigs with a lot of graphics.
The fact is that many of these power supply families, such as the GX Rampage whose header image we show you just above these lines, have quite impressive technical specifications: PCIe 5.0, ATX 3.1, 12VHPWR power connectors, 105ºC Japanese capacitors, Fully modular, up to 1250W of power and 80Plus Gold and Platinum certifications. Of course, on paper they seem like undoubtedly high-end sources, right?
As for the price, let’s say they are average: for example, a “simple” 750-watt 80 Plus Gold source costs around 100 euros on Amazon, but obviously the more advanced and powerful models have much higher prices. In other words, GameMax sells its power supplies at a price range that matches that of more famous manufacturers such as Corsair or SeaSonic.
Are GameMax sources reliable?
But of course, you already know that one thing is what the manufacturer puts on paper and what they try to make it appear by putting money in marketing, and another thing is reality. Unfortunately, we cannot give you our first-hand opinion because we have not had the opportunity to test any components from this manufacturer, but we have been able to do a fairly exhaustive investigation to find out everything possible about its components and quality.
To begin with, within the 80 Plus certification entity they have some certified models, but only some very specific ones, and also quite separated in time. To give you an idea, for Europe only 7 fountain models have been certified between 2018 and 2021, all of them entry-level fountains (80 Plus Bronze or even White) and since 2021… nothing at all. This gives us to understand that they are using the 80 Plus certification without having actually certified your devices.
It is possible that since 2021 they have changed their name internally and no longer certify their sources under the GameMax name, but we have tried filtering by power or model number of the sources in their catalog and we have not found anything, so we seriously doubt it . Curiously, in the White Paper of their sources they include a section stating that they are certified by 80 Plus… be careful, that they are certified, not that they meet the specification, which it could be.
We continue investigating. GameMax uses capacitors from the Japanese company Nichiconcertified for 105ºC. They are not Rubycon, Sanyon, Panasonic or Hitachi, but it is true that it is a manufacturer considered Tier 1, so on that side, good.
Taking a closer look at the interior that the manufacturer itself shows on the product page, we can see a distribution that, personally and after having analyzed hundreds of power supplies in the years that I have been working here, does not sound familiar to me at all. It’s certainly not made by SeaSonic, SunFlower or any of the usual OEM manufacturers, that much I can tell you.
The interior seems quite well organized and clean, yes, but of course you can’t trust a promotional image that the manufacturer itself puts on its website.
Honestly and to finish, GameMax seems like a manufacturer that looks very good on paper, but we don’t think it’s too reliable… looking at the information we have, we personally wouldn’t classify it as Tier 1, at most it would be Tier 2. Maybe we are wrong, but we would have to be able to analyze some of its sources to be able to speak with certainty. In any case, you should know that it is a brand that, although it looks good, we would not recommend for a high-performance PC. At least in our opinion.