PSU Tiers

[testcy]

About PSU Tiers, I used an E Tier for almost a decade with no problems and I have a similar spare of the same age, tested working fine, ready to use. Also, I never had a PSU failed, even unknown brands. I am planning to build a new system and I was thinking about buying an A Tier, but I am just wondering, have I been lucky all these years?

[Shimejii]

14 minutes ago, testcy said:

About PSU Tiers, I used an E Tier for almost a decade with no problems and I have a similar spare of the same age, tested working fine, ready to use. Also, I never had a PSU failed, even unknown brands. I am planning to build a new system and I was thinking about buying an A Tier, but I am just wondering, have I been lucky all these years?

Generally yes, you have been quite lucky. Sometimes you get a really good one, a lot of the time its not so good with the lower PSUs. Ive had a few C tier ones fail from people getting help. As long as you arent overly stressing it, some should  be fine. But if you are putting it under near its max load, yeah its not gonna last long

[y0ur5h4d0w]

4 hours ago, testcy said:

About PSU Tiers, I used an E Tier for almost a decade with no problems and I have a similar spare of the same age, tested working fine, ready to use. Also, I never had a PSU failed, even unknown brands. I am planning to build a new system and I was thinking about buying an A Tier, but I am just wondering, have I been lucky all these years?

A tier or E tier means (at least for my idea) the quality of the components used, not the hypotetical longevity or how good the PSU works, and E tier can work as a charm but it might not deliver the correct current all the time due to bad components, also it might trip for no reasons, break sooner, and everything related to a bad manufacturing and low quality components. 

 

keep in mind that you're probably building a 2000$ computer, would you put all your brand new, expensive computer parts under a low quality PSU that could destroy your components for saving a couple bucks? burning a motherboard is at least 200$ even worse running bad power into the motherboard (which as a motherboard mightwork fine) could break your GPU which is usually the most expensive part of a PC. 

 

NEVER save bucks on a PSU it's the first most important part of the PC which is always stressed by power

[jaslion]

7 hours ago, testcy said:

have I been lucky all these years?

As someone whos had to deal wirh a biiiig sample size. Flat out yes.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

10 hours ago, testcy said:

About PSU Tiers, I used an E Tier for almost a decade with no problems and I have a similar spare of the same age, tested working fine, ready to use. Also, I never had a PSU failed, even unknown brands. I am planning to build a new system and I was thinking about buying an A Tier, but I am just wondering, have I been lucky all these years?

A and B tier are virtually the same irl so sort by lowest price prefferably with 10 year warranty and when you find a couple similarly priced psus that meet this criteria then you can check tiers to compare which is the better buy cause you might aswell get the best for a similar price even though A and B tier are largely just semantics rather than actually being impactful irl

 

For lower tiers units may have issues with gpus that have transients like the 3090 but otherwise may work fine even at the top end depending on the specific gpu just not reccomended cause why the hell are you pairing an a650bn with a 5070ti even if it would work assuming you get a ryzen and not an intel so it fits within powerbudget

 

E and F tier luck of the draw, most should just work fine assuming you run them in an office pc which is where most reside but good luck for a gaming pc, you may run into electrical issues with higher power stuff like i did with cheapo 2$ grey basement box looking psus where the 12v rail went whack with my p5q or plain random shutdowns due to being overloaded and protections kicking in

 

or the thing flat out dies but every psu dies so thats luck of the draw, difference is that you may be able to induce death with units that have no protections if you overload them with high power components which i have not yet seen but probably possible on some units, example being the gigabyte pgm psus

[OddOod]

I've had an A tier PSU die after 18months. I have a friend who used an F tier for 6 years (with issues). It is absolutely luck of the draw. 
 

[testcy]

3 hours ago, OddOod said:

I've had an A tier PSU die after 18months. I have a friend who used an F tier for 6 years (with issues). It is absolutely luck of the draw. 
 

Absolutely luck of the draw an expensive A tier PSU with 10 years warranty?

[OddOod]

On 10/3/2025 at 1:46 PM, testcy said:

Absolutely luck of the draw an expensive A tier PSU with 10 years warranty?

Expensive? Not in my book. But maybe spendy for a low wattage PSU? I just go with SS because the have almost universal pin compatibility.

A tier? Yes. 10yr warranty? Yes. SS Focus GX 650
In defense of SS, I have deployed almost 20 of their PSUs between my home and my friends and this is the only one to have died. Additionally, I hit them with an RMA detailing what happened (sudden power off, no reboot, jumper doesn't cause the fan to spin with or without hybrid mode, different PSU works) and they immediately approved it and offered express RMA.  I took express and they overnighted me a replacement. I never expect perfection from a product, but I *deeply* value good customer service
 

[thrasher_565]

different psus are good at different things like best lower power best hi power best transients spikes. then there ones the can sustane a max load with out triping its protection. some fail there protection. even if you have the same psu but one is 750w and another is 800w they are 2 different psus that share the same name. so well say the 750 is good at  transients spikes well the 800w is good at lower power.

 

psus come and go so dam fast they are yearly and even then i was looking up some top psus and cant find most of them to buy...its a hell of alot of work to test wight an wright up and it be discontinued in moth...as your not going to test all the "new" psus in say a month...

and now that 12pins are depsoable were do you get a replacement cable for a discontinued psu that's a year old... and well thx to the 12pin psu are being updated more then ever even the psu out there are outdated because they dont have pin melting protections...

 

for highter end gpus that have huge spikes should be using a good transients spikes psu but no one tells you that or its not in a manual some were that no one reads. its just you found out after the fact most times... before gpus with 3x 8pin had to be on xxx amount on wat psus so you wont find a 400w psu with 3 8pin but you will on say 800w psu. but there are lower wat psu that have 2x 8pin cables with pigtal to 4x 8pin...but do people know about not using pigtal for say 350w+ gpus...another find out after the fact problem.

Edited October 6, 2025 by thrasher_565