Ryzen 2700x + Radeon R9 380 - keep old psu or buy new one?

[spectatorx]

Recently i upgraded my pc and now it has ryzen 2700x bundled with r9 380. I'm wondering if i should replace psu or keep old one. My current psu is ocz zs550 which is 5-6 years old bronze rated psu. New psu i take into consideration is seasonic focus plus 650W platinum (SSR-650PX).

 

[4K8KW10]

If you don't have any problems, don't do it...

 

[AmateurExpert]

Agreed - if there's nothing inadequate about the old unit, just keep using it. They're not perishable goods with an inherent expiry date*.

I don't know the rest of your system's components, but if you're using it for typical home uses (gaming, browsing, office work) then it is likely that your old PSU has enough capacity.

Was there anything in particular that was bothering you about the existing PSU?

[Edit] There is perhaps a minor case for buying a new PSU even if the old one is OK: if you rely on your PC for critical work and cannot tolerate the downtime if the PSU develops a fault, and you have no spare PSU, then you might justify buying a new one to keep the old one as a spare; however, in this situation you'd also consider having an entire spare machine for redundancy, not just the PSU.

*Certain types of capacitors do age over time but should be good for well over ten years unless you're constantly running the PSU well over 40 degC. Power surges will degrade the suppression varistors over time, but this depends on number/severity of surges rather than a strict age.

 

[spectatorx]

If you don't have any problems, don't do it...

I see i'm not the only one using 2700(x) with r9 380

...

There are three main reasons why i consider switch over to other psu: age of my current one, maybe its components are a bit wear off. Also cpu was just a part of incremental upgrade and i'm going to upgrade gpu as well at some point and new graphics card may require more power than r9 380. Last, very important reason is power efficiency, jumping from bronze to platinum should make huge change. I do not see any problems with efficiency of current psu but if it can be improved then why not.

About workload, things i do on pc are web browsing, gaming, watching movies and web development, so entertainment plus work utilization. Nothing extremely critical and something with what i can in the worst case switch to laptop for few days when psu would fail.

 

[AmateurExpert]

Last, very important reason is power efficiency, jumping from bronze to platinum should make huge change. I do not see any problems with efficiency of current psu but if it can be improved then why not.

Bronze to platinum is a modest change unless you run your machine 24/7 at high loads, but if you want to do your bit for the planet, then fair enough.

If you run the machine a lot and have fairly pricey electricity (granted - prices always seem to go up!) then it can be justified, but it'll still take years to pay off (based on my own calculations when I looked at this myself earlier this year).

 

[ExoMale]

depends if the 12v rating of 456w is enough as the r9 300 cards are like 190w onward depending on the model chosen, the processor is like 105w, so just round it off to 300 for both of those then add one whatever else, mean some can have a high spec and draw between 350w-400w, after the years of it who knows the quality,OCZ wasnt always known for high quality in some aspect.


but as above, if it does fine then just stick with it.