Is it worth buying cheap power supplies?

[iKingRPG]

I just saw Corsair's video with Linus about power supplies but I always get bronze rated. Is that bad?

[r2724r16]

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency, not quality.

 

What specific PSU do you have?

[iKingRPG]

Just now, r2724r16 said:

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency, not quality.

I know but he showed a burning power supply he said it burns if you actually draw full watts.

[Oshino Shinobu]

80+ rating doesn't really mean anything in terms of quality. You can have fantastic quality 80+ Bronze units and shoddy 80+ Gold units. It's just a measure of efficiency. 

 

It's worth going for a good quality power supply. A lot are coming with 10 year warranties now. 

[r2724r16]

1 minute ago, iKingRPG said:

I know but he showed a burning power supply he said it burns if you actually draw full watts.

A bad PSU can take out your whole system, even if your system doesn't draw more than the rated continuous wattage. 

[LukeSavenije]

6 minutes ago, iKingRPG said:

I know but he showed a burning power supply he said it burns if you actually draw full watts.

Look into the tier list. anything tier 3+ is my recommendation for any budget

[Brennan Price]

Never cheap out on the power supply, even if a power supply says it's Bronze through Gold rated, that means nothing unless the efficiency of the power supply unit is good as well. 

 

This has been discussed on the forum before and I would recommend looking at the link below, you'll find tiers from 1 to 7, Tiers 1 to 3 are the best if you can get hold of them. These three tiers will last the longest and will often have a greater warranty too. 

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/631048-psu-tier-list-updated/

 

Personally, I use a Tier 2 EVGA 750W GQ, I moved to this from a Tier 6 power supply and I can honestly tell the difference, plus I've gained a bunch of extra cool power saving and temperature saving features too. 

[seon123]

7 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

if a power supply says it's Bronze through Gold rated, that means nothing unless the efficiency of the power supply unit is good as well. 

The 80+ rating is literally just the efficiency. That's the only thing it does say anything about (disregarding the bait and switch thing). 

And there's more to a PSU than just the efficiency, you know... 

9 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

I've gained a bunch of extra cool power saving and temperature saving features too. 

What kind of temperature saving features?

[Brennan Price]

1 minute ago, seon123 said:

The 80+ rating is literally just the efficiency. That's the only thing it does say anything about (disregarding the bait and switch thing). 

And there's more to a PSU than just the efficiency, you know... 

What kind of temperature saving features?

Yeah, I understand that there is more to a power supply unit than just the efficiency, but it helps to have a greater efficiency than a greater rating. For example, there are some Silver rated PSU's that are in tier 2 or 3 lists whilst there are also gold rated PSU's in the tier 6 list, therefore showing much worse efficiency compared to the silver rated PSU. 

 

Also, my PSU saves some thermals as it will only turn its fan on when there is a high load, therefore not kicking out extra heat into the rest of my build. 

[seon123]

5 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Yeah, I understand that there is more to a power supply unit than just the efficiency, but it helps to have a greater efficiency than a greater rating. For example, there are some Silver rated PSU's that are in tier 2 or 3 lists whilst there are also gold rated PSU's in the tier 6 list, therefore showing much worse efficiency compared to the silver rated PSU. 

 

Also, my PSU saves some thermals as it will only turn its fan on when there is a high load, therefore not kicking out extra heat into the rest of my build. 

The efficiency doesn't matter for most people, as it doesn't generate much heat. 

Which Gold rated PSUs are in tier 6? The tier list doesn't take into account efficiency, just the electrical performance. So a lower tier doesn't mean lower efficiency. Just worse performance (in general). 

 

What do you even mean by "saves some thermals"? That makes no sense at all. Higher temperatures (and therefore lower efficiency) means it saves thermals? What? 

The PSU exhaust the heat through the back. It doesn't pump any heat into the system. If anything, not exhausting heat from the system would mean it's worse for the thermals. 

[Brennan Price]

12 minutes ago, seon123 said:

The efficiency doesn't matter for most people, as it doesn't generate much heat. 

Which Gold rated PSUs are in tier 6? The tier list doesn't take into account efficiency, just the electrical performance. So a lower tier doesn't mean lower efficiency. Just worse performance (in general). 

 

What do you even mean by "saves some thermals"? That makes no sense at all. Higher temperatures (and therefore lower efficiency) means it saves thermals? What? 

The PSU exhaust the heat through the back. It doesn't pump any heat into the system. If anything, not exhausting heat from the system would mean it's worse for the thermals. 

Take for example some of ThermalTake's tough power and smart series PSU's, they say they're 80+ gold but are rated between tier 5 and 6. Silverstones Strider essentials and strider plus's rated 80+ Gold aren't exactly knights in shining armour either, these are just to mention a few. I'd like to add that for most people, the performance of a PSU is what is considered the efficiency of it. 

 

Also, I'm talking about the rest of the components in the system, not the PSU itself when it comes to thermals, however, I am talking about a very specific case when I talk about thermals for myself, not about other people. 

[OrionFOTL]

54 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

there are also gold rated PSU's in the tier 6 list, therefore showing much worse efficiency compared to the silver rated PSU.  

Um... can you give one example of a gold rated PSU with "much worse efficiency compared to the silver rated PSU"?

16 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

I'd like to add that for most people, the performance of a PSU is what is considered the efficiency of it. 

And these exact people are wrong, just like if you'd say "for most people, number of gigabytes on a GPU is considered its performance".

[Brennan Price]

3 hours ago, OrionFOTL said:

Um... can you give one example of a gold rated PSU with "much worse efficiency compared to the silver rated PSU"?

And these exact people are wrong, just like if you'd say "for most people, number of gigabytes on a GPU is considered its performance".

Nah I'm generally saying it doesn't just follow suit like that's an end-all solution to choosing a better PSU, there are multiple methods and you seem to be picking up on the fact that I like to be thorough. 

 

Also if ya really want examples, go see some other stuff such as BeQuiet pure power 80+ Silver or even EVGA's 750W BQ that is only bronze rated, those guys are in Tier 3 yet are similarly priced to the Gold-rated counterparts I mentioned earlier in tiers 5 and 6. 

[17030644]

6 hours ago, iKingRPG said:

I just saw Corsair's video with Linus about power supplies but I always get bronze rated. Is that bad?

It's not good nor bad.

 

because bronze really doesn't say much about the other aspects of the PSU  like safety, reliability, features, etc.

 

80+ bronze is just an efficiency rating (and not a very good one btw, that's why ETA certificates exist)

[seon123]

1 hour ago, Brennan_Price said:

Nah I'm generally saying it doesn't just follow suit like that's an end-all solution to choosing a better PSU, there are multiple methods and you seem to be picking up on the fact that I like to be thorough. 

 

Also if ya really want examples, go see some other stuff such as BeQuiet pure power 80+ Silver or even EVGA's 750W BQ that is only bronze rated, those guys are in Tier 3 yet are similarly priced to the Gold-rated counterparts I mentioned earlier in tiers 5 and 6. 

Why are your using a list that disregards efficiency to "prove" that some PSUs are more efficient than their 80+ rating would indicate? The PSU tier list doesn't care for efficiency. A Titanium rated PSU can be super efficient, but if it performs poorly, it'll be in a lower tier. 

You are not being thorough, you're just showing that the Dunning-Kruger effect is real. 

 

The Thermaltake Toughpower Gold are different to the Toughpower. They're also in a different tier. So much for being thorough. 

 

And the "Pure Power 80+ Silver" isn't a PSU. Again, very thorough of you. Assuming you're referring to the Pure Power 10 ≥400W, you're still wrong. 

Here is the report on the Pure Power 10 500W: 

https://clearesult5.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PLS/EQ5C0gYbR0VAu9K95VheWMIBN9EAxjKEfQdh157mWPuExw

And here is the report on the Strider Essential 500W:

https://clearesult5.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PLS/Ecqrj5GjdSVNoEa7MDYMAEMBciqVG2iPU9UzboQnB9w-gQ

 

Here we see the efficiency at 10%, 20%, 50% and 100% load: 

Pure Power 10 500W: 84,47%; 88,72%; 89,73%; 85,58%

Strider Essential 500W: 86,31%; 89,76%; 90,41%; 87,62%

 

As you can see, you're completely wrong, as the lower tiered, 80+ Gold rated, Strider Essential is more efficient than the higher tiered, 80+ Silver rated, Pure Power 10. Feel free to get a feel of how wrong you are by checking all of the 80+ reports. 

https://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSupplies.aspx

5 hours ago, Brennan_Price said:

I'd like to add that for most people, the performance of a PSU is what is considered the efficiency of it. 

For most people, the performance of a gaming PC is how much RAM it has, or which CPU it has. What actually matters, though, isn't that. 

Same for PSUs. The performance is what matters when talking about the performance. 

[17030644]

2 hours ago, seon123 said:

The performance is what matters when talking about the performance. 

 

Did you mean electrical performance? or else the statement is redundant

[seon123]

38 minutes ago, 17030644 said:

Did you mean electrical performance? or else the statement is redundant

That was the point. Pointing out the obvious. 

[17030644]

13 hours ago, seon123 said:

That was the point. Pointing out the obvious. 

oh, I got it

[Stefan Payne]

On 11/10/2018 at 5:26 PM, iKingRPG said:

I just saw Corsair's video with Linus about power supplies but I always get bronze rated. Is that bad?

Yes, because cheap PSU can kill your computer and reduce the lifetime of the things you use...

thus a high quality PSU can extend the life of components.

 

 

And in some cases it can even cause trouble like reboots, random freezes and other shit...