Hi guys,
I recently upgraded my workstation and I was looking to upgrade the PSU too. My PC is currently powered - literally - by a Thermaltake Thoughpower DPS-G 450W (80+ Gold). I am worried about the delivery capacity of this PSU since my new build is rather power hungry:
Gigabyte AORUS X570 Elite
AMD Ryzen 3800X
4x 8GB DDR4-3200 G.Skill Trident Z RGB
MSI GeForce 980Ti 6GB
1x NVME SSD
2x SATA HDD
I was searching for something reliable and I am really interested in the monitoring features. I only found other Thermaltake and some Corsair PSU’s have such features. Any suggestions?
Have you checked NZXT E series gold rated ones? They are made by Seasonic (using the Focus+ platform with 10 years warranty) and I think they have some sort of connection with the CAM software…
But I’m not 100% sure. Honestly I just run a Seasonic and not bother.
I’ve experiences with Antec, Cooler Master and Seasonic. Out of those three I would not recommend the Cooler Master V650S. It failed for no reason in my system while never being stressed and connected to a pure sine wave UPS. Regarding Antec and Seasonic I had positive experiences.
If you want a good unit that will work in the best efficiency range I’d suggest you a Seasonic Focus Gold+ 750W. No frills, semi-passive capable and not very expensive.
What’s a digital controller in a PSU needed for? I mean even if it allows to switch from multi-rail to single-rail on the 12V it’s not needed unless you’re overclocking professionally. And even in that case it’s not meaningful anymore since PSUs are very advanced.
I don’t know which particular psu’s have monitoring features out of my head,
likely Corsair has a few.
But i suppose it will generally work in windows only.
I would just pick up a 750W psu from a reputable brand.
I recommend anything that’s made by any of the reputable brands that is not “group regulated”. Short version they are not good at regulating specific outputs (5v, 12v) when one or the other has a high load and the other does not. That being said there are plenty of good units and ironically a lot of them are actually the same back end manufacturers. (Superflower,FSP).
IMHO Johny Guru is still the master source for things pc power supply related and does fantastic write-ups on each one he reviews. So if you find one you like check to see if there’s a review on it over there.
Seasoning is what I use and I tend to go overkill on PSUs. Basically with super high efficiency you also buy the best possible components. That comes at a price obviously but I’m ok with that. I’m running a platinum 1050W in my 3900X / Vega64 rig.
The only thing with that scenario is…
Going that massively overkill on a psu, does not make it more efficient per see.
But i personally also like to have some headroom left in regards to that.
AFAIK PSU’s usually reach the maximum efficiency around 50% of load capacity. According to my current PSU’s reading on synthetic benchmarks (mprime and Unigine Heaven concurrently) the maximum load is 400-420W (90%). On normal workload the typical load is around 150W (35%). On idle it stays in the 50-to-100W range.
I guess that a 700W PSU should be enough in my specific case.
IMO the efficiency curve is overblown, by the time most people would recoup the cost of a higher wattage unit running at peak efficiency compared to running a lower wattage unit outside of peak would take quite a while. Hell, the official ratings are 87%/90%/87% efficiency at 20%/50%/100% loads.
Using the cost of units on EVGA’s website and assuming $0.20 kWh for electricity it would take ~3500 hours running at 90% efficiency for a 750 watt unit to recoup the extra $10 it cost compared to 650 watt unit running at 87% efficiency. If the 650 watt unit was up to 88% efficiency it would now be ~5300 hours.
Well, in order to spend my money best, your “tangent” is quite on point, I’d say…
I honestly do not really understand the “hype” for hyper-efficient PSU’s either. I mean, the hypothetical savings between a 80+ Gold and a 80+ Titanium do not cover the extra money spent on front. At least for “normal” usage scenarios. That’s also why I did not asked for a specific efficiency. I find more interesting the “smart” features of some PSU’s (digital readings) from which you can understand how the unit is performing.
Those 80 Plus ratings generally don’t mean that much to me.
Its just an indication on how efficient a said unit is at a certain power load.
But other then that, it doesn’t mean that much.
I mean it does not give me any guarantee that a platinum unit,
has a longer life span as a Gold unit or visa versa.
To me the 80+ rating is more of a quick and dirty way to judge quality.
To make a unit with a higher 80+ rating the manufacturer will have to have a more intelligent design with higher quality parts because everything in the chain will have some effect on the efficiency. Garbage parts/design = garbage efficiency. Likewise the parts/design can effect other parts of your system via voltage regulation and ripple and whatnot. Garbage parts/design = dead computer too
Yeah kinda, but still it does not give many guarantee’s.
For most desktop systems a good unit from a reputable brand like Seasonic,
for example is more then fine.
The thing is that now days a Gold rated unit is kinda so closely priced to like a Bronze rated unit.
That generally spending an additional $20,- or so bucks on a Gold rated unit is justifiable.
But a Platinum unit is just not really needed for a desktop system.
They are still significantly more expensive, and for most people it does not really,
has to add anything.
I can imaging that for those scenario’s on which a company has allot of desktop systems,
or servers running.
That they go for the highest rated psu’s, cause yeah in that case power savings can be significant.
But for a home user a Gold unit is more then fine.
Hence even a Bronze one for a reputable brand.
