Good day!
So I was arguing to this one chap about why do you need a good PSU. He was telling that plenty of computers run on low quality, cheap PSUs and don't run into any problems. He even said that the fan on the PSU is for cooling the system, which is obiously incorrect. Can someone just drop the bomb and shoot a good argument to why you need a good PSU. Please put as many points into why is the quality PSU better than the low quality junk.
Waiting for those arguments
Honestly, you don't *need* a good quality PSU. However, I personally never cut corners when it comes to PSUs. It's more of a safety thing. Plus the better quality ones will tend to last longer. Some cheap power supplies are fine, another one of the same make and model could catch on fire and burn your house down. IMHO, you're buying peace of mind when you spend that extra coin on a quality power supply. Don't have to worry about it frying your computer, dieing in a few months, or catching on fire. Even if it does - then you're backed with a great warranty policy.
Thanks for the feedback! Indeed when you're spending an extra coin you do get a better product in the end.
Guy 1 spends $35... RMAs it 5 times til he gets one that works. Ends up blowing up after warranty is up.
Guy 2 spends $35... Perfectly fine for years
Guy 3 spends $50...Perfectly fine for years
Never know what you're going to get with cheapos, I'll spend the extra couple dollars for quality so I'm not spending it on Advil to get rid of my headache later.
With a higher quality PSU you will usually get higher efficiency. This means that if you have a high energy cost you may ultimately save energy. They also tend to have lower levels of fluctuation in their wattage output. Too big a fluctuation may result in under powering and overpowering components, potentially damaging them. The higher quality psus tend to be safer aswell, in terms of likliness to catch on fire. I'm sure that if an electrician were to look in a low quality psu they would have an aneurysm as well.
Why You Need a Good PSU, by Brennan Riddell.
Welcome all; I recommend you take a seat, because this is going to be one rough fucking ride.
What does your heart do? It pumps blood, right? What happens when your heart stops beating. You die. Your PSU is your computers heart. Would you skimp out on heart surgery, and go for the cheap, discount, back-alley surgeon, or a legitimate surgeon from a certified hospital? The actual doctor, at the actual hospital, right? Of course. You don't want to die! You don't want your computer to die, either.
A shoddy PSU is easy to find out. When you are buying a PSU, look up the OEM. I can't stress tis enough; brands are completely fucking useless. Anyone can put a sticker and a shell on something; what matters is the product, and to know the product itself, you need to know the OEM. Companies like Enermax and Seasonic are their own OEM, but EVGA, Corsair, and such do not make their own PSUs; they essentiall are a reseller, a 3rd wheel of the PSU industry. It is fine to get a Corsair or EVGA, but you can't say "Oh, get EVGA; they make great products!" when companies and brands are not how you rate a product. Look up the OEM.
Now you know who is actually making the PSUs you want to buy, right? Well, let's get right into it, then. After you know who is making your PSU, such as CWT, a common OEM, then you can start looking at other characteristics. First of all, throwing money into a huge wattage PSU is pointless. Getting an oversized PSU can, and will, adversely affect your efficiency. If you have a 1600W 80+ Platinum PSU, and your rig consumes 400W at full load, then you are going to get along the lines of 80+ Bronze efficiency. Not what you paid for. Don't waste your money; get a PSU that is the right size for your system. 550W max for any single CPU and GPU, even a 3970X and Titan. That is more than enough wattage for overclocking and then some.
Having enough wattage doesn't matter if you don't have enough amps. Wattage is just the voltage times the amperage. 120V * 5 amps is 600W, but 12V * 50 amps is the same thing. As long as you have more than 40 amps, or so, on the 12V rail, you are great for most any GPU. If you want more than 1 GPU, you should look into a 60+ amperage on the 12V rail. Other than that, you shouldn't worry too much about wattage.
Speaking of rails, what are those little bitches anyway? When hearing about PSUs, you always hear about these little things called rails. The 3V rail, 5V rail, 12V rail, single rail PSUs, multi-rail PSUs and such. A rail is simply a circuit, or group, that regulates the voltage going out, monitored by another circuit that does a pretty good job if you have a nice PSU. You don't need lots of 12V rails, despite what you may read. PSUs for modern systems can run on a single 12V rail perfectly fine, and provide enough juice for 90% of rigs out there. However, if your computer is actually using more than 1000W, which is the 1%, having multiple 12V rails will make the voltage regulation more stable at those high loads. Cheap PSU manufacturers may throw in all of these labels, such as "4 12V rails for super overclocking" when each individual rail is rather weak. Same thing for motherboard VRMs; the number of power phases, and for PSUs, 12V rails, doesn't really matter; it's the quality of the power phases, and rails, that matters.
Efficiency, despite what many people think, has no effect on the actual delivery of the power. It is just how well the PSU converts the AC from the wall to DC, that your hardware operates on. The higher the efficiency, the less money you will spend on power, because you have to pull out less from the wall to convert into the same amount of DC. I only use 80+ Gold PSUs, or 80+ Platinum (there are also 2 80+ Titianium PSUs now available), because I have the money to spend on them, but in all reality, the price difference is minimal in the end if you have an appropriately sized PSU. The generalization that higher quality PSUs are always higher efficiency should be completely disregarded. Good PSUs are just good PSUs; efficiency is irrelevant in the quality, just like brands.
Now, ripple is also an important factor in low-quality PSUs that really distinguishes the good and the bad. Ripple is the micro-fluctuation of voltage delivery. All PSUs have ripple, but you want as low as you can get, without having a low qualitf bottleneck somewhere else in the PSU. There are ATX specs for a makimum ripple, but at that high of a ripple, either you're powering your system with a lighter, or a tin can. The higher the ripple, the more voltage is being delivered than you tell it to, but for a tiny amount of time, only thousands of times per second. Try to keep the ripple below 60mV, if you can; I personally wouldn't power my system with a PSU taht ripples over 60mV, but that is because I am all about extremely precise overclocks and undervolts. Cheap, low-end PSUs are generally going to have a higher ripple than others, which can potentially damage your components, especially your CPU and GPU, which have a pretty low tolerance for voltage. RAM, not so much, but with a bad enough PSU, you could fry everything.
Not only could the ripple take out a system slowly, but you could have a "blow-out," where the caps in the PSU discharge, and in doing so, violently surge voltage throughout the system, and most likely fry everything. That's not good. Not good at all. Saving $50 on your PSU could cost you $1000 or more, easily.
Now, I don't want to tell you to spend more money on PSUs than you have to. A lot of people go off of brands, and throw more money into a higher wattage, without knowing what they're getting. That is the wrong fucking way to buy PSUs! Don't do it! Get an appropriately sized PSU, at an efficiency that you can afford, with a low ripple, plenty of connectors for what you need. Modularity is also irrelevant; if you are going to be cable sleeving, get a fully modular PSU, but be prepared for the general price increase. Otherwise, semi-modularity or non-modularity is for aesthitics, and in some cases (literally, your computer case), airflow. Cheaping out on a PSU is, like I said earlier, getting discount heart surgery. It's a danger to your computer, and your wallet. Spend the time to research what you're buying, and only buy what you need.
WHAT? hahaha--
I can't stress tis enough; brands are completely fucking useless. Anyone can put a sticker and a shell on something; what matters is the product, and to know the product itself, you need to know the OEM. Companies like Enermax and Seasonic are their own OEM, but EVGA, Corsair, and such do not make their own PSUs; they essentiall are a reseller, a 3rd wheel of the PSU industry. It is fine to get a Corsair or EVGA, but you can't say "Oh, get EVGA; they make great products!" when companies and brands are not how you rate a product.
I disagree... strongly. Brands aren't useless. Just because they don't manufacture the product, doesn't mean that they don't have strict quality control. You think Corsair or EVGA is going to slap their name on a crappy product? Think again, that is bad rep. I've never owned, or even seen for that matter, a Corsair PSU that wasn't exactly what I was expecting to get or better.
Everything else I completely agree with, well spoken.
Any company ran release a bad product; Corsair Builder series PSUs, for example, are awful, and so are the first line of EVGA G PSUs (V2 is much better). QC can be as good as you want, but if you are picking the best individuals of a low-end product, you still have a low-end product, just a shining example of one.
I think brand matter when it comes down to warranty. Not much else.
You think Corsair or EVGA is going to slap their name on a crappy product?
Why not. Thermaltake do that, why Corsair or EVGA cannot?
Almost all good brands have some mediocre or even poor products. Consumers don't often notice bad quality on their own. His point is perfectly valid, check tests for any PSU you are going to buy regardless of the brand. Brands don't guarantee quality.
Man, i think i learned something . Cool
Back when i was 12, I built a gaming pc utilizing the psu from my old p4 system. I am assuming I had psu discharge, I started my pc and only the psu fan turned on. Took a volt meter and found out the ram, cpu, and gpu where fried. It's like buying a sports car and putting dirty fuel in it, it's not going to run right.