Wow 12 years with my Corsair HX 620w PSU...

Superficial

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Bought in 2007 - I hadn't even realised that I had been using it that long and it's been running perfectly.

Q. But is it still a good idea to carry on with it?

Q. Are there newer features that should make me consider buying a new one in 2019?

Here's the review in 2006:

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Cases-and-Cooling/Corsair-HX620W-Modular-Power-Supply-Review

Running on the rig in Sig..on an I7 920 @3.66 GHz and a Radeon 7970GHz edition (@1050/1300) - so sucking a fair amount of power.

Essentially I'm asking because, clearly, it's coming up to time for an upgrade and I don't want to be caught out with the power requirements for a new system.

Thing is, from what I'm seeing, power draws a far lower than they were when I built my system in 2010 (used the PSU from previous build).

Would be grateful for any opinions

Cheers,
 

Rroff

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I tend to replace mine when they get to around 10 years old ish - though less of an issue than it used to be the capacitors typically used in a power supply tend to have a lifespan of around 10-11 years at the kind of temperatures they'd experience in a PSU (assuming the PC is running a reasonable number of hours per day - lighter use will extend that).

That said I've got older PSUs that are still going strong 20-25+ years on hah and others that have failed after just 5 years.
 

EsaT

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Still year short of Seasonic M12 I bought in summer 2006 and which was in use by neighbour until week ago.
(replaced by another former PSU of mine)

Efficienciency has improved good amount.
By todays standards that HX620 wastes lots of power at low loads:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-5-Seasonic-idle.png
As you can see PSU's losses can increase power draw of PC by nearly 50% at idle.
Also during gaming it produces more extra heat:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-6-Seasonic-load.png

And those graphs lack newer 80+ Platinum and 80+ Titanium efficiencies.
80+ Titanium would be wasting only about 15W at 300W load at least on European mains voltage.
Though it has notable luxury extra in price.

Also DC-DC designs have lot better voltage regulation.
Especially Seasonic has been having some crazy tight voltage regulations for few years.


If you don't have that much budget this Antec is pretty much steal for high performance 80+ Gold.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=antec+HCG+gold
Highly doubtful you can often find that good prices.

Seasonic Focus Plus Platinum is likely the cheapest quality 80+ Platinum:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=seasonic+focus+platinum

80+ Titanium again has that luxury pricing.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=seasonic+titanium
 

Superficial

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EsaT said:
Still year short of Seasonic M12 I bought in summer 2006 and which was in use by neighbour until week ago.
(replaced by another former PSU of mine)

Efficienciency has improved good amount.
By todays standards that HX620 wastes lots of power at low loads:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-5-Seasonic-idle.png
As you can see PSU's losses can increase power draw of PC by nearly 50% at idle.
Also during gaming it produces more extra heat:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-6-Seasonic-load.png

And those graphs lack newer 80+ Platinum and 80+ Titanium efficiencies.
80+ Titanium would be wasting only about 15W at 300W load at least on European mains voltage.
Though it has notable luxury extra in price.

Also DC-DC designs have lot better voltage regulation.
Especially Seasonic has been having some crazy tight voltage regulations for few years.


If you don't have that much budget this Antec is pretty much steal for high performance 80+ Gold.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=antec+HCG+gold
Highly doubtful you can often find that good prices.

Seasonic Focus Plus Platinum is likely the cheapest quality 80+ Platinum:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=seasonic+focus+platinum

80+ Titanium again has that luxury pricing.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=seasonic+titanium
Click to expand...

Such a great reply. Many thanks - pretty much just what I was hoping to get from this thread.

Essentially I am not worried about max wattage but all that wasted electricity is worrying.

Cheers,
 

McPhee

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Why?

It's worth considering these efficiencies with a bit of perspective. The first graph suggests recent PSUs are 20W more efficient at best. The second, 35W. Say 30W average saving for a mixed workload. On a domestic electricity tariff, if you used the PC for an average 5 hours a day, you'd save about 16p a week on your electricity bill by changing PSU. It would take close to nine years for the Antec PSU to pay for itself...
 
Last edited:

Superficial

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satchef1 said:
Why?

It's worth considering these efficiencies with a bit of perspective. The first graph suggests recent PSUs are 20W more efficient at best. The second, 35W. Say 30W average saving for a mixed workload. On a domestic electricity tariff, if you used the PC for an average 5 hours a day, you'd save about 16p a week on your electricity bill by changing PSU. It would take close to nine years for the Antec PSU to pay for itself...
Click to expand...

Because he answered a good number of the queries I laid out in the OP both directly (regarding any new features that may be advantageous) and indirectly (by paying no mind to power requirements after I made clear I thought should not be a major concern bearing in mind my current power hungry setup).

FYI I'm not going to change my PSU due to efficiencies but I think you're under selling them a bit - he made clear that those graphs don't account platinum standards but more important is how lower heat, over time, ensures the components last longer and degrade less over time.

Long story short: New PSU's are better but not by enough to convince me to buy a new PSU for a few nice to haves.
 

McPhee

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I meant "why is that wasted electricity worrying?" rather than "why is it a good post?". I agree, it's an excellent post.
 

Sasahara

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I suspect the OPs rig on idle is closer to 100 W than 20 W so the super low power usage probably isn't relevant in this case. So the power wasted difference will still be worse at that level, but not such a stark % difference.

As for age, 12 years is a long time, but it does depend how much you use it. That would be impressive if it was 24/7, but not if it was 4 hours or less a day on average. :)

My current work PC, also an i7 920, had a Corsair 650W HX that started to fail a few months ago. That had approx 9h hour usage every working day since Oct 2009. So 9.5 Years x 2250 hours a year = 21,375 hours. It probably was a bit more as there was a substitutional amount of times it was left on over night, so maybe over 25k hours.
 

mattyfez

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I only binned off my HX620 as the fan got loud and it was dusty inside. I Tried to replace the fan but then thought it was too much of a botch so i bought another corsair.

If the fans running quiet and it doenst look too dusty inside, I'd be tempted to keep using it.
 

Raiden85

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At 12yrs old personally I would replace it with something newer just for peace of mind. I had a Corsair ax860i that I had for a long time at just over 7yrs and it ran 24/7 for all that time through quite a few builds, even powering 2 way SLI setups from multiple generations right up until the 2080 Ti's.

The PSU never let me down in all that time but I thought it would be time to replace it considering I wanted to go with an Asus Strix 3090 OC and 5950x, while it could have probably powered it ok it was time to retire it. Ended up going with Corsair again but with the AX1600i, completely overkill for my usage but it should hopefully last me for many years to come. And being more power than I need the PSU fan 95% of the time never even spins up :)
 

robj20

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I think my XFX 850w is at least 12 years as well, it will probably get replaced on my next build so maybe in another couple of years.
 
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