Is a high priced psu really necessary?

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

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Just wondering.

I'm an occasional gamer.

A couple of years ago I fitted an 8800gt gfx card to my pc. I thought I'd best get a 600w psu for good measure. So I bought and fitted El Cheapo 600w psu for about £20.

Never had a problem, that I am aware, was psu related.

Yes, I'm certain that more expensive psu will have better load regulation, ripple etc but seeing as how I haven't noticed any probs with my existing psu, is it worth buying a "better" psu when I upgrade to sandybridge 2500k ddr3 and mobo, gtx460?

Thanks.
 
Yes
You will find this to be a unanimous answer, a 4/500W quality one is better than a 6/700W El Cheapo as you put it

As a minimum one of these

Antec High Current Gamer 400W Power Supply £48.99
OCZ StealthXStream 2 500W Power Supply £45.99
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £44.99

By running an El Cheapo, if you stress your system, there is a very real chance the PSU could go bang at any moment, if/when this happens it can take other things with it, such as mobo/cpu/gfx card, which is much more expensive in the long run
 
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Baldbloke said:
is it worth buying a "better" psu when I upgrade to sandybridge 2500k ddr3 and mobo, gtx460?
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Very much so. The problem with cheap generic Power supplies is that they can often take out other hardware when they decide to fail. A decent PSU won't do this and is one of the most important components in your system so don't scrimp when it comes to buying a PSU ;)
 
Well 600w is overkill for the 8800GT so it shouldn't cause any load on the PSU anyway. Personally I buy well reviewed components not necessarily expensive ones, although it does often turn out that way! My philosophy has always been why take the risk? As a PSU can take other components with it, is it really worth the risk? A cheap PSU is a false economy in my opinion.
 
95thrifles said:
Yes
You will find this to be a unanimous answer, a 500W quality one is better than a 6/700W el cheapo as you put it
Click to expand...
+1

Of course it will be worth it.
An 8800GT graphics card is not exactally power hungry in the first place, you would only find out how bad that £20 psu is when stressing it, which i wouldnt advise as it will more than likely take out some other hardware with it.
So with your sugested upgrade, i would get at least something like THIS if you want to do the job right.
 
yes, when you inevitably start spending hundreds on quality parts, that 20 pound psu becomes a very real threat to your system, paying 50-75 for a quality brand name supply makes a lot of sense when you think that if it fails it could end up taking your entire system with it ;)
 
Wow. 6 replies in such a short time. Thanks folks.

Advice noted. Not a debatable point then. It appears a straight cut answer. I will upgrade the psu.

Thanks again.
 
Baldbloke said:
Just wondering.

I'm an occasional gamer.

.
Click to expand...

You may occasionally smell smoke and/or see the pc shut down randomly with the 2500k setup. Your el cheapo 600w is probably an overrated mediocre 250-350w psu with poor voltage regulation/ripple and no protection against anything, when it goes bang one day it might take everything hooked up to it. Only reason you're not seeing issues is that the psu is probably not seeing any real load with your current setup. Why skimp on the psu? Its like powering a brand new car with 2 year old low grade petrol you got at 20p a gallon :p
 
Had 2 mates who I've put systems together for in the last few years who have both refused to shell out for anything other than the cheapest PSU they could get away with, despite my warnings.

First one lost nearly every component when it blew - GX card, cpu, ram and m/board; second one lost the m/board a few days ago after a couple of years without trouble before the PSU went bang.

Just not worth it, end of.
 
Another +1 for a quality PSU. My m8 must have went through about 4 cheap PSU in 18 months and this was only on a AMD XP2400+ chip as he was stressing the system by duing encoding and leaving it on 24/7. He was lucky he never blew any components though only a modem PCI card.

I had a Be Quiet 550w psu which went earlier this year on my I5 system and it survived well and it seem to rather than just go bang, it must have had some protection as it would always try to power the system for a sec or 2 then shut down whereas normally the PSU is completely dead or that is my experience of the cheap PSU anyway.

I replaced it with a antec truepower 650 £70 ish from OCUK and the system is rock solid to be honest and the voltages never hardly move under load tested with a multi meter when I first had it to ensure that nothing else was causing the power problems like the mobo.
 
Ive seen this kinda thing happen in cheaper PSUs a couple of times:

6.jpg

2.jpg
 
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