wizardofid
Epic Member
I have taken a keen interest in power supply's, I am personally no expert on the subject.But I have read a few 100 reviews and understand the costs cutting that has been employed by certain companies and OEM's and really the effect it has on your computer components, and what to look for, when buying your next PSU.
More importantly get the right PSU for your needs.As a good psu for overclocking, should have no ripple or little ripple, have enough headroom to take into account what you are overclocking, good efficiency, very often these units fail efficiency tests on low loads, you will never get a 100% efficient electronic device, as there is always wattage lost to heat, both through the PSU components and PSU wiring, modular has a slight impact on wattage lost due to the extra contacts, some modular designs have incorporated gold plated contacts, for better efficiency.
Be warned however using gold plated contacts on Motherboards that doesn't have gold plated contacts, doesn't improve efficiency both sides of the contacts needs to be gold plated or you are wasting your time and money, and you best look else where.
Beware of cheat psu's stating they can do a 1000watt, they are often overrated, and either spectacularly fall short or spectacularly fail.Even some psu's falls within a few watts short, of their rated wattage, it's often not per say the psu that has been overrated but rather, heat that comes into play which will give you a few watts short of the rated wattage, and this is perfectly normal.
Most good psu's now days employ cable sleeving, If they don't it's a good indication of cost reduction, it's not bad, it just a indication that the reduced costs in manufacturing the unit and you should be alert and check out other indications that it might be of poor build quality.
Often these PSU's are super light, however weight of a psu, can no longer point out the cheap ones.A good psu however still shouldn't float away when you turn it on.
The finishing on a PSU is also good way to see, if they done any cost reduction, often some of these psu, have been painted and often you can see that no effort was put into it.
The cables on the psu, also shows cost reduction...the thicker the gauge of the cables the better, often psu's use 18 gauge wires on every thing and shouldn't even consider a psu like that, cables, like Sata and 4 pin molex a min of 18, Pcie min of 20 and the eps 12volt also 18-20 and the power cable a min of 22.
Any less than that you are asking for trouble, couple of thin wires, with a 1000watt PSU, and you have a meltdown, and a potential fire hazard and a bonus kill of taking your hardware components with it, that is if the psu even can supply that much.
A good psu will also have nice thick and long enough heat-sinks to deal with heat problems, any thing other than that, consider looking else where.PSU also have operating efficiency tests of at least 40 degrees, some are honest about degradation after tested temperatures some lie through their teeth and some just completely avoids the subject altogether.
Quality PSU's will always have a min of 3 years warranty, that is pretty much how long a psu should be able to run the rated wattage before you see some degradation of what it can supply, capacitor aging is generally around 10% a year.1 year warranty on PSU skip it, just forget it and move on.The longer the warranty the better the build quality, will be in general
No cheap power supply will ever have warranties longer than a year, but then again Murphy's law has proven me wrong any thing is possible.But good luck with these warranties, then, lets see if they honor them, or if they even still in business by that time.
Have a look a product certification, modular cabling has for example, being patented by another company, if a psu manufacture bought the licensing for the patent to use it on it's product you should have a label on either the packing or the psu which indicates this, a manufacture will not fake certain certifications or patents, as that is a open door to be sued into bankruptcy.
There is a UL certification number, that is another thing often these cheapies do, put a label like that on it, but they they are not even on the database.So watch out for that.Also note that some PSU's may pass European and Asian certifications, but fail US certification
Also any PSU that still has a -5volt listed is using a old ATX design, and you should avoid like a plague, it was intended for systems pre eps 12volt motherboards and older, There are still older spec psu's out there, specific for these older systems, not all are bad, but they are not to be run with new tech.
Read reviews of PSU's before buying a unit, don't bother with reviews of people just reviewing the psu, by plopping it into a case with hardware.That isn't a review, an actual review of psu is some one that have proper testing equipment, and that can dissemble a psu, and tell you exactly what is wrong with it. Johnnyguru reviews a lot of psu's that you will be able to find locally.
I made the mistake of listening to some one else when buying a psu, and I regret that now.Which is why I refuse to listen to people recommending psu's and decided not to listen to them any more, and rather do research my self and check out johnnyguru if he has happened to review a psu that I might like.
A good PSU, always have low ripple, can apply as much heat as the psu can handle, can actually supply the rated wattage.
Not lets get to the fun part of choosing your PSU.
What exactly are you planning on running 3570K, 2500K, Matx board,with sli or CF support, 4 sticks of ram, 2 HDD's DVDrom and a 5870 and 5 case fans. How much do you need ?
500watt, 600watt, 700watt. ?
Most systems can do it on a 500watt, without much problems, for a relative short period, 6 months, maybe a year, psu doesn't fail, it just not able to supply the required wattage any more, due to capacitor aging, it's normal it happens to all psu's. The trick is to give your self some headroom to work with to lengthen the use of a PSU.PSU will last much longer at 60% -70% at load then a psu that uses 60% -70% when the system is idling.Some people upgrade often enough that it does effect them, for me and every else that only upgrades every few years, it's a much better to get a stronger PSU, with in reason.There is no need to buy 1000watt psu.
Overclocking is also another major PSU buzz kill, OCing by default is going to need extra overhead, adjusting the voltage of things, drastically increases the required wattage, that is when you start considering a decent 850watt to 1000watt psu.
What PSU does one get.?
Corsair, Coolermaster, thermaltake, seasonic,XFX, Antec, silverstone. ?
Only brands you should consider are corsair, (Coolermaster, only the highend one gold/or more rated +)thermaltake is a bit of a dog every now and then the make some thing good.
Corsair, TX and HX for overclocking/high end system GS for standard mid range systems, CX for small media center pc's, AXi series is just insanely good but pricy, if you can afford it, get that over the TX or HX series.
Antec, sliverstone, seasonic, XFX have lower end models as well which might not serve your purposes.
Beware of XFX, every now and then they bring out a model that might have some smallish ripple issues, nothing major, and is green across all fronts, 12volt could be tighter.
Coolermaster, some times they get it right some times they don't, their psu's are good enough for general purposes, and may suffer from rippling as well, but generally reliable enough to consider on a tight budget, but this should be the last resort PSU.
Silverstone, is actually a really good brand, and slightly lesser known psu, but makes the best 1.5kw psu around, at 100% load the 12volt is only 1% off its standard idle reading, 1% is stupidly good for a 1.5kw PSU.
Before I continue, Some brands make use of OEM manufactures, Some make use of seasonic, to just to make it clear even though it is made by seasonic it is not a seasonic design, seasonic actual keep the best for them selfs, so albeit saying that psu is made by seasonic, it really it's any where near a true seasonic.
Even if gigabyte brand is seen as quality, or coolmaster, they make use of crappy OEM manufactures, and some are made by different factories in different regions, so you might find, gigabyte might be using 2 even 3 different OEM's to make a odin for example.
Which is why you should never trust any thing other than the few top brands, doesn't matter how cheap they are, if you love your hardware, you will have to buy a decent PSU, a PSU with a bad enough ripple, at the limits of it's specs, is good enough to kill or damage hardware, no questions asked, no refunds.
Seasonic is best PSU to get locally, However there are even better brands, than seasonic, if you can get your hands on a zippy or delta or Kingwin, PC Power & Cooling, Super Flower(They finally got their act together and have a 80+ certification perhaps not as good as seasonic, but I will consider it better than corsair), to name a few, they are truly the best of the best.Now probably will get a lot of hate mail about the last sentence, the fanboys know what they can do with that anger they want to vent, but do a little research and you will be shocked to find that seasonic is not number one.
To avoid
Huntkey, good, but can be unreliable.
Gigabyte Odin's. Don't ever consider it, simply too unreliable.
In my system, I use a corsair Gs700 V2 80+ bronze , I don't overclock, and is prefect for my system as it is single rail, which is perfect for running a couple of fans daisy chained, without having to worry about load balancing.It has almost no ripple, and stable as can be, it isn't however suited of heavy overclocking, which fine, and I have enough overhead, so this mid range beast will last me a good few years.
Then I have to add a disclaimer, before getting attacked from all corners, I am no expert on the subject, I have just written about things I know about and what to look for.There could be parts of this thread which might not be 100% accurate, and it's definitely rough around the edges, I will add or fix the post as needed, so take it with a pinch of salt, and take it as some one that is trying to be helpful.
I definitely want start getting into inner workings of a PSU, like best capacitors, good design layouts, silent vs heat, efficiency at idle and loads...single rail vs multi rail.
I hate PSU calculators they about as useful as sand in a desert, it doesn't tell you any thing other than how big your PSU must be, at least it's a start. bar wattage the most important part is how much amps can it spit out, there is an average how much a 600watt PSU can supply for example.It says 600watt, what it doesn't say how much amps will you require, will a dual rail do the job or will a single rail be better suited. It some times means having to get a bigger PSU.
So ignore the calculators, and work out the amperage your self it is really really really really simple. Divide the wattage by 12, So if at load your GPU uses 236watts you will require 19.66 amps that excludes HDD that uses about 3 amps on the 12volt rail and 0.5amps on the 5volt rail, fans use any thing from 0.15 to 0.4amps, ram module lets stick with 4gig DDR1333 uses about 1.3amps, now cpu range, lets stick with a 2500K which uses about 95watts 7.91 amps, motherboards are tricky lets say to be save about 150watts 12.5amps could be more or less pending the board.
Now lets have a look at my system
CPU 2500K 95watts = 7.91 amps
*Gigabyte motherboard 150watts = 12.5amps
XFX5870 188watts = 15.66amps
7 x 120mm fans 33.6watts = 2.8amps
2 HDD's 72watts = 6amps
DVDrom 18watts = 1.5amps
2 x 4gig Ddr1333 31watts = 2.6amps
At full load I require a psu of 587.6watts and a 12 volt amperage of 48.0amps.I have a 700watt at 58amps I have enough overhead even at full load, and spare at 10% capacitor aging I will lose roughly 70watts, this is not set in stone, but lets take it to the extreme. I will be able to run the system with no problems for at least 2 years, since I use my system daily, 70watts seems fair.If I do have problems the good news, there is a years warranty left.
*note
How much does a motherboard really use, is just a guesstimate, it will differ from platform to platform and from AMD to intel.
More importantly get the right PSU for your needs.As a good psu for overclocking, should have no ripple or little ripple, have enough headroom to take into account what you are overclocking, good efficiency, very often these units fail efficiency tests on low loads, you will never get a 100% efficient electronic device, as there is always wattage lost to heat, both through the PSU components and PSU wiring, modular has a slight impact on wattage lost due to the extra contacts, some modular designs have incorporated gold plated contacts, for better efficiency.
Be warned however using gold plated contacts on Motherboards that doesn't have gold plated contacts, doesn't improve efficiency both sides of the contacts needs to be gold plated or you are wasting your time and money, and you best look else where.
Beware of cheat psu's stating they can do a 1000watt, they are often overrated, and either spectacularly fall short or spectacularly fail.Even some psu's falls within a few watts short, of their rated wattage, it's often not per say the psu that has been overrated but rather, heat that comes into play which will give you a few watts short of the rated wattage, and this is perfectly normal.
Most good psu's now days employ cable sleeving, If they don't it's a good indication of cost reduction, it's not bad, it just a indication that the reduced costs in manufacturing the unit and you should be alert and check out other indications that it might be of poor build quality.
Often these PSU's are super light, however weight of a psu, can no longer point out the cheap ones.A good psu however still shouldn't float away when you turn it on.
The finishing on a PSU is also good way to see, if they done any cost reduction, often some of these psu, have been painted and often you can see that no effort was put into it.
The cables on the psu, also shows cost reduction...the thicker the gauge of the cables the better, often psu's use 18 gauge wires on every thing and shouldn't even consider a psu like that, cables, like Sata and 4 pin molex a min of 18, Pcie min of 20 and the eps 12volt also 18-20 and the power cable a min of 22.
Any less than that you are asking for trouble, couple of thin wires, with a 1000watt PSU, and you have a meltdown, and a potential fire hazard and a bonus kill of taking your hardware components with it, that is if the psu even can supply that much.
A good psu will also have nice thick and long enough heat-sinks to deal with heat problems, any thing other than that, consider looking else where.PSU also have operating efficiency tests of at least 40 degrees, some are honest about degradation after tested temperatures some lie through their teeth and some just completely avoids the subject altogether.
Quality PSU's will always have a min of 3 years warranty, that is pretty much how long a psu should be able to run the rated wattage before you see some degradation of what it can supply, capacitor aging is generally around 10% a year.1 year warranty on PSU skip it, just forget it and move on.The longer the warranty the better the build quality, will be in general
No cheap power supply will ever have warranties longer than a year, but then again Murphy's law has proven me wrong any thing is possible.But good luck with these warranties, then, lets see if they honor them, or if they even still in business by that time.
Have a look a product certification, modular cabling has for example, being patented by another company, if a psu manufacture bought the licensing for the patent to use it on it's product you should have a label on either the packing or the psu which indicates this, a manufacture will not fake certain certifications or patents, as that is a open door to be sued into bankruptcy.
There is a UL certification number, that is another thing often these cheapies do, put a label like that on it, but they they are not even on the database.So watch out for that.Also note that some PSU's may pass European and Asian certifications, but fail US certification
Also any PSU that still has a -5volt listed is using a old ATX design, and you should avoid like a plague, it was intended for systems pre eps 12volt motherboards and older, There are still older spec psu's out there, specific for these older systems, not all are bad, but they are not to be run with new tech.
Read reviews of PSU's before buying a unit, don't bother with reviews of people just reviewing the psu, by plopping it into a case with hardware.That isn't a review, an actual review of psu is some one that have proper testing equipment, and that can dissemble a psu, and tell you exactly what is wrong with it. Johnnyguru reviews a lot of psu's that you will be able to find locally.
I made the mistake of listening to some one else when buying a psu, and I regret that now.Which is why I refuse to listen to people recommending psu's and decided not to listen to them any more, and rather do research my self and check out johnnyguru if he has happened to review a psu that I might like.
A good PSU, always have low ripple, can apply as much heat as the psu can handle, can actually supply the rated wattage.
Not lets get to the fun part of choosing your PSU.
What exactly are you planning on running 3570K, 2500K, Matx board,with sli or CF support, 4 sticks of ram, 2 HDD's DVDrom and a 5870 and 5 case fans. How much do you need ?
500watt, 600watt, 700watt. ?
Most systems can do it on a 500watt, without much problems, for a relative short period, 6 months, maybe a year, psu doesn't fail, it just not able to supply the required wattage any more, due to capacitor aging, it's normal it happens to all psu's. The trick is to give your self some headroom to work with to lengthen the use of a PSU.PSU will last much longer at 60% -70% at load then a psu that uses 60% -70% when the system is idling.Some people upgrade often enough that it does effect them, for me and every else that only upgrades every few years, it's a much better to get a stronger PSU, with in reason.There is no need to buy 1000watt psu.
Overclocking is also another major PSU buzz kill, OCing by default is going to need extra overhead, adjusting the voltage of things, drastically increases the required wattage, that is when you start considering a decent 850watt to 1000watt psu.
What PSU does one get.?
Corsair, Coolermaster, thermaltake, seasonic,XFX, Antec, silverstone. ?
Only brands you should consider are corsair, (Coolermaster, only the highend one gold/or more rated +)thermaltake is a bit of a dog every now and then the make some thing good.
Corsair, TX and HX for overclocking/high end system GS for standard mid range systems, CX for small media center pc's, AXi series is just insanely good but pricy, if you can afford it, get that over the TX or HX series.
Antec, sliverstone, seasonic, XFX have lower end models as well which might not serve your purposes.
Beware of XFX, every now and then they bring out a model that might have some smallish ripple issues, nothing major, and is green across all fronts, 12volt could be tighter.
Coolermaster, some times they get it right some times they don't, their psu's are good enough for general purposes, and may suffer from rippling as well, but generally reliable enough to consider on a tight budget, but this should be the last resort PSU.
Silverstone, is actually a really good brand, and slightly lesser known psu, but makes the best 1.5kw psu around, at 100% load the 12volt is only 1% off its standard idle reading, 1% is stupidly good for a 1.5kw PSU.
Before I continue, Some brands make use of OEM manufactures, Some make use of seasonic, to just to make it clear even though it is made by seasonic it is not a seasonic design, seasonic actual keep the best for them selfs, so albeit saying that psu is made by seasonic, it really it's any where near a true seasonic.
Even if gigabyte brand is seen as quality, or coolmaster, they make use of crappy OEM manufactures, and some are made by different factories in different regions, so you might find, gigabyte might be using 2 even 3 different OEM's to make a odin for example.
Which is why you should never trust any thing other than the few top brands, doesn't matter how cheap they are, if you love your hardware, you will have to buy a decent PSU, a PSU with a bad enough ripple, at the limits of it's specs, is good enough to kill or damage hardware, no questions asked, no refunds.
Seasonic is best PSU to get locally, However there are even better brands, than seasonic, if you can get your hands on a zippy or delta or Kingwin, PC Power & Cooling, Super Flower(They finally got their act together and have a 80+ certification perhaps not as good as seasonic, but I will consider it better than corsair), to name a few, they are truly the best of the best.Now probably will get a lot of hate mail about the last sentence, the fanboys know what they can do with that anger they want to vent, but do a little research and you will be shocked to find that seasonic is not number one.
To avoid
Huntkey, good, but can be unreliable.
Gigabyte Odin's. Don't ever consider it, simply too unreliable.
In my system, I use a corsair Gs700 V2 80+ bronze , I don't overclock, and is prefect for my system as it is single rail, which is perfect for running a couple of fans daisy chained, without having to worry about load balancing.It has almost no ripple, and stable as can be, it isn't however suited of heavy overclocking, which fine, and I have enough overhead, so this mid range beast will last me a good few years.
Then I have to add a disclaimer, before getting attacked from all corners, I am no expert on the subject, I have just written about things I know about and what to look for.There could be parts of this thread which might not be 100% accurate, and it's definitely rough around the edges, I will add or fix the post as needed, so take it with a pinch of salt, and take it as some one that is trying to be helpful.
I definitely want start getting into inner workings of a PSU, like best capacitors, good design layouts, silent vs heat, efficiency at idle and loads...single rail vs multi rail.
I hate PSU calculators they about as useful as sand in a desert, it doesn't tell you any thing other than how big your PSU must be, at least it's a start. bar wattage the most important part is how much amps can it spit out, there is an average how much a 600watt PSU can supply for example.It says 600watt, what it doesn't say how much amps will you require, will a dual rail do the job or will a single rail be better suited. It some times means having to get a bigger PSU.
So ignore the calculators, and work out the amperage your self it is really really really really simple. Divide the wattage by 12, So if at load your GPU uses 236watts you will require 19.66 amps that excludes HDD that uses about 3 amps on the 12volt rail and 0.5amps on the 5volt rail, fans use any thing from 0.15 to 0.4amps, ram module lets stick with 4gig DDR1333 uses about 1.3amps, now cpu range, lets stick with a 2500K which uses about 95watts 7.91 amps, motherboards are tricky lets say to be save about 150watts 12.5amps could be more or less pending the board.
Now lets have a look at my system
CPU 2500K 95watts = 7.91 amps
*Gigabyte motherboard 150watts = 12.5amps
XFX5870 188watts = 15.66amps
7 x 120mm fans 33.6watts = 2.8amps
2 HDD's 72watts = 6amps
DVDrom 18watts = 1.5amps
2 x 4gig Ddr1333 31watts = 2.6amps
At full load I require a psu of 587.6watts and a 12 volt amperage of 48.0amps.I have a 700watt at 58amps I have enough overhead even at full load, and spare at 10% capacitor aging I will lose roughly 70watts, this is not set in stone, but lets take it to the extreme. I will be able to run the system with no problems for at least 2 years, since I use my system daily, 70watts seems fair.If I do have problems the good news, there is a years warranty left.
*note
How much does a motherboard really use, is just a guesstimate, it will differ from platform to platform and from AMD to intel.
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