potential stupid question: what's the purpose of FULLY modular PSUs?

[DeadnightWarrior]

Hi,

 

I was scratching my head about fully modular power supplies Vs. semi modular ones.

 

This might seem like a very stupid question and maybe it is, so bear with me!

 

Anyways: no matter what kind of computer you're building, you HAVE to use the 24 pin on your motherboard and you HAVE to use the 4 / 8 pin for your CPU. 

So, what's the purpose of having "FULLY" modular PSUs if two of those modular cables will have to be connected, no matter what? Wouldn't it make more sense to have them hardwired ( -> semi modular, then!)?

Yeah, someone could be unlucky and have one of those connector fail on them but I don't know if it's a very common thing...

Just my 2 cents!

 

[tkitch]

full modular can be swapped out to have cables that theme your build.  

 

purely functionally?  No benefit.  But if you want Green & Blue cables?  You won't find that in Semi-Modular builds.

[LauriHimself]

3 minutes ago, DeadnightWarrior said:

what's the purpose of having "FULLY" modular PSUs

• the ability to use custom (apperance and lenght) cables
• cables from fully psus ususally look nicer and are easier to manage
• replacing broken cables

those are the reasons that come to mind right away imo

 

[DeadnightWarrior]

7 minutes ago, tkitch said:

full modular can be swapped out to have cables that theme your build.

 

2 minutes ago, LauriHimself said:

• the ability to use custom (apperance and lenght) cables

 

I thought about this as the only real reason. Still, aren't there custom "extensions" available? I never bothered with this kind of aesthetics so I'm really no expert about it...

[LauriHimself]

Just now, DeadnightWarrior said:

aren't there custom "extensions"

there are, but if you have ever tried to nicely manage twice the ammount of cables, and i have, you'll quickly forget about them ^^

[tkitch]

Yes, extensions are a thing, but then you're nearly doubling the amount of wire in the box.

 

And if you're building a compact rig?  That much wire gets hard to hide.

 

[SupaKomputa]

If you have vanilla PC setup like you plug everything, modular cables are no use.

It's good for a mini itx build where you want to scrap excessive cables.

The modular port is just adding another point of failure / resistance if you ask me.

33 minutes ago, LauriHimself said:

replacing broken cables

make sense, but i've seen broken modular ports more often than broken cables.

[Leot1995]

I prettymuch bought a fully modular PSU because of the cable management space in the back of my tower . I plugged in the 24 pin . CPU cable . 1 sata power cable and the 2 GPU cables . The rest aren't plugged in and my cables barely fit well enough without having to push on the side panel ... I think that's the only real practical reason they exist though . You can get custom cables made for it but then again you dont need a modular psu for that . You can buy sleeved cable extensions. An example prettymuch would be a fancy 24 pin cable that plugs into the standard 24 pin cable and then into your motherboard ... like tricking you into thinking your cables are custom 

[Dovacube]

Well compared to semi modular psus there isn't any real reason to rather get a modular one if you're fine with the factory color of your cables, as lauri said full modularity gives you the opportunity to get new cables in case the old ones become faultly at some point but that's really all