What makes psus bad?

ulookuglynoob · February 5

my budget is 65 dollars. I cant afford a more expensive psu. is this good enough for the price?

VIVO-US · February 5

I can at least say that cheap PSUs aren't as bad now as they used to be, but you still have to watch out and go for the reputable brands. A few years back the market was flooded with what JonnyGuru called "gutless wonders", which were $15 to $30 PSUs with all sorts of high wattage and power delivery claims that could only handle half of what they were rated for, and would then (quite literally) blow up if you tried to go over. I once disassembled one of these (Diablotek 400-something watt) after it had died and inspected each of the components, and found that the primary power components themselves were only rated for up to about 200W. On top of that, all safety circuits such as overload and surge protection and others that are REALLY important had been left out and replaced by jumper wires! Without these protections, failure can send a power surge through the system and cause damage to every component in the PC.

$65 will get you a decent PSU. It certainly won't be anything top of the line, but as long as it has decent professional reviews, comes from a reputable brand and your peak system wattage is maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of the rated PSU wattage, you'll be fine.