Mioracle
2013-11-06, 12:15
Another great reason why you should invest 20$ extra on your new power supply:
Analyzing power use 80 plus bronze vs platinum (http://www.anandtech.com/show/7474/analyzing-power-use-80-plus-bronze-vs-platinum)
It came up recently during a discussion about recommendation of new hardware and I after working selling/repairing PC Hardware for 10+ years I can't stress enough the worth of a solid PSU which is often overlooked or neglected when buying a mid -> high end gaming system.
Re-post of my experience:
" Then just as Burning says, the difference between a normal PSU from any random brand and a great one that has Gold/Platinum certification usually is night and day regarding possible efficiency, coil whine, number+length and quality of cables and most important warranty. Even if the store that bought/sold cheaper PSU:s should file for bankruptcy a known and quality brand will still give you 5 year of warranty if you send them the quality PSU you bought directly.
The PSU is the heart of your computer, people tend to go for cheap one's since a "pricey" one doesnt give and easily measured performance benefit. But if you buy a good one, you will never have to replace it for years to come... when people experience problems with their PC such as intermittent shut downs, crashes etc. the PSU is often the last place a normal person will look since most folks don't have an extra PSU laying around and instead fiddles with every other part for days until returning the PC to the store. Around 25% of the times we repair a PC we replace the PSU and then everythings good again. (If you have a cheaper one that is).
2nd hand value is much better on a gold/platinum standard and with 90%+ efficency you can drive any graphics card you'd like + when overclocking you need the extra boost. A CMX would many times just shut down if pushed a bit.
Most importantly, IF you want to add an extra graphics card to run SLI/Crossfire a Gold/Platinum standard PSU will deliver enough power even with a 550W to drive 2 cards and have an overclocked CPU which means you don't have to replace the PSU if you want a 2nd GPU. (midrange cards ofc.)
You can normally judge the quality of a PSU by lifting it, if it's pretty light... <1.5kg then it's fairly certain that only cheap components and heatsinks were used and you dont have any juice on the rails 12V <40A.
But putting high end GPU/CPU:s in a PC and doing overclocking, even mildly, one should consider the ampere/voltage/efficency carefully. "
Analyzing power use 80 plus bronze vs platinum (http://www.anandtech.com/show/7474/analyzing-power-use-80-plus-bronze-vs-platinum)
It came up recently during a discussion about recommendation of new hardware and I after working selling/repairing PC Hardware for 10+ years I can't stress enough the worth of a solid PSU which is often overlooked or neglected when buying a mid -> high end gaming system.
Re-post of my experience:
" Then just as Burning says, the difference between a normal PSU from any random brand and a great one that has Gold/Platinum certification usually is night and day regarding possible efficiency, coil whine, number+length and quality of cables and most important warranty. Even if the store that bought/sold cheaper PSU:s should file for bankruptcy a known and quality brand will still give you 5 year of warranty if you send them the quality PSU you bought directly.
The PSU is the heart of your computer, people tend to go for cheap one's since a "pricey" one doesnt give and easily measured performance benefit. But if you buy a good one, you will never have to replace it for years to come... when people experience problems with their PC such as intermittent shut downs, crashes etc. the PSU is often the last place a normal person will look since most folks don't have an extra PSU laying around and instead fiddles with every other part for days until returning the PC to the store. Around 25% of the times we repair a PC we replace the PSU and then everythings good again. (If you have a cheaper one that is).
2nd hand value is much better on a gold/platinum standard and with 90%+ efficency you can drive any graphics card you'd like + when overclocking you need the extra boost. A CMX would many times just shut down if pushed a bit.
Most importantly, IF you want to add an extra graphics card to run SLI/Crossfire a Gold/Platinum standard PSU will deliver enough power even with a 550W to drive 2 cards and have an overclocked CPU which means you don't have to replace the PSU if you want a 2nd GPU. (midrange cards ofc.)
You can normally judge the quality of a PSU by lifting it, if it's pretty light... <1.5kg then it's fairly certain that only cheap components and heatsinks were used and you dont have any juice on the rails 12V <40A.
But putting high end GPU/CPU:s in a PC and doing overclocking, even mildly, one should consider the ampere/voltage/efficency carefully. "