The 'Hiper-Explosive' Club

Your calculations might say different but others have said anything above gold doesn't outweigh the cost unless you can get it at a bargain price.
 
I'll bear that in mind :thumbsup:

Btw I did get my maths wrong on one part in my earlier post, re the 3mths/yr GPU load, that was actually a calculation for a whole year of 100% GPU load! I've corrected it now.

Using Pastymuncher's Aerocool 7 Platinum 650w PSU for £86 as the test subject, with a 230v 20% load eff. of 92%, 50% load eff. of 94%, a 115w load (18%) for 9mths/yr. That's about 125w wall draw, an additional 3w saved vs the gold rated one, saving £2.65/yr. 217w load (33%) 3mths/yr, so estimating an eff. of 93%. That's about 233w wall draw, an additional 5w saved vs the gold rated PSU, saving £1.47/yr.
So a Platinum 650w PSU would save me an additional £4.12/yr, not stellar of course :p. An all in power cost saving vs my old TX650 of £20.93/yr, so at £86 that PSU would pay itself back in about 4yrs 1mth yrs. Pretty good :).

Although I would like to stick to Corsair, the only one I've looked at (so far), the RM550x (gold rated) is ~£110!
That would take ~6yrs 6mths to pay itself back [edit] figure corrected, quite a lot longer, still well within the expected lifetime though (it has a 10yr warrantee! :cool:) But I need to get it cheaper really.
 
Last edited:
Wow, that's a lot of maths!

That's a long time to recoup costs, I wouldn't even consider it for something I use an hour a day on. How many years would that take?!
 
Yea, 6 1/2 yrs is quite a while, but I would use the PSU for at least 10yrs, the Corsair TX650 I'm using now is 11yrs old, which btw I found out today is a little under it's MTBF of ~11.4 yrs! lol.
Wouldn't be worth it for a 1hr day machine, I'm not going to attempt the maths on that :p (besides you haven't mentioned it's typical wall power draw ;)).

I am wondering whether to hold fire on getting an RM550x atm though due to current prices (I choose it over the Bitfenix PSU because the RM550x has a 3yr longer warrantee, and a longer life rated slightly larger fan), the Corsair unit is not widely available right now, with stock (allegedly) due in at many places over the next few weeks or so, which makes me think the few places that do have it atm are the more expensive places.
 
Last edited:
I've noticed how much hardware is difficult/expensive to source at the moment. It's a nightmare.

Same problem with CPUs and certain GPUs.
 
If you can wait, wait until the restrictions ease off so supply can catch up with demand. Prices should come back down and you should get a better deal.
 
Assimilator1 said:
Hmm, interesting, I didn't know that. Not too surprising I suppose, I wonder if the situation is getting worse or improving?......
Click to expand...

Getting worse unfortunately. We have been recommending psu's on here that have then sold out quickly, within hours!! Now it's hard to recommend one that is of good quality but also value for money as every time one sells out we have to move to the next one up the price range and currently we are looking at psu's of 550w with a decent warranty costing £105 and over. That's a hell of a lot of money for a 550w psu!! I would suggest to anybody looking for a psu or any other component to shop around now more than ever as other retailers may have stock that OCUK doesn't.

Don't tie yourself to just Corsair. You may or may not know this but Corsair doesn't make a single psu. They use OEM's such as CWT and Great Wall to build their units. Corsair has also had some bloody awful psu's over the years and continue to do so with the likes of the awful CV and VS series psu's. There are plenty of other brands as good as Corsairs decent units or even better. Seasonic, Superflower and EVGA all have top quality psu's in their ranges with long warranties. There's also the budget options such as Bitfenix that have decent warranties of 5 years. Some of Silverstone's psu's are very good but usually have pathetic 3 year warranties. BeQuiet also has some decent psu's but are generally overpriced and have shorter warranties (only 5 years on their top end psu costing around £300!!) and aren't worth considering.

My Project 7 650w was one of the very special prices that make a higher efficiency psu worthwhile like I was trying to explain to you. At £86 it was a fantastic price for a quality fully modular Platinum rated 650w psu and a big saving on the normal price of around £120. It's deals like that that you should be looking for. One thing I would advise is that to get a psu of as good quality as your original TX you should be looking at decent Gold rated ones. Corsairs original psu's were exceptional and very of high quality being mostly built by Seasonic and punched way above their weight. Once they got established they cheaped out on their OEM's and ditched Seasonic for mainly CWT and quality dropped massively while prices shot up. Quality has at least caught up with the majority of their ranges now and the likes of CWT and Great Wall are building some very high quality psu's for Corsair. The reason I said to get the equivalent quality of your original Seasonic built TX you would be looking at a Gold rated psu is that Bronze rated psu's from any brand these days are mostly budget psu's built down to a price and for the most part have cheap internal components that are just good enough to do the job. Your TX (and other Seasonic built early Corsair units) was overspecced when it came to internals so to go the equivalent quality you should look at Gold rated psu's. The higher the rating the better the internal components should be although as I said before there are exceptions.
 
Yea roger that Pastymuncher, re PSU quality, hence I was looking at the Corsair RM550x & the Bitfenix 550w one you mentioned ;).
I hope the price situation improves soon! Btw, you said 'we have been recommending....', whose 'we'?
The RM550x is a gold rated PSU using CWT gear.
The main reasons I decided on the RM550x, is because it has a 10yr warrantee vs a 7yr one for the Bitfenix, also the Corsair unit has a longer life rated fan, as I mentioned earlier ;) (additionally the Corsair unit is generally a bit quieter, although that's a minor point for me). Oh & it comes out well in tests too :) (not that I could find many of the 550w version, just THG & Hardwareinsights!).
Although I am reading about the Phanteks Amp series 550w atm, know anything about them?

Djai
One of OcUKs rivals is selling the RM550x for £111 including delivery. But I want to wait until my usual eseller stocks them to see if they'll do them cheaper. Fingers crossed!
 
Last edited:
Assimilator1 said:
Yea roger that Pastymuncher, re PSU quality, hence I was looking at the Corsair RM550x & the Bitfenix 550w one you mentioned ;).
I hope the price situation improves soon! Btw, you said 'we have been recommending....', whose 'we'?
The RM550x is a gold rated PSU using CWT gear.
The main reasons I decided on the RM550x is it because it has a 10yr warrantee vs a 7yr one for the Bitfenix, also the Corsair unit has a longer life rated fan, as I mentioned earlier ;) (additionally the Corsair unit is generally a bit quieter, although that's a minor point for me). Oh & it comes out well in tests too :) (not that I could find many of the 550w version, just THG & Hardwareinsights!).
Although I am reading about the Phanteks Amp series 550w atm, know anything about them?

Djai
One of OcUKs rivals is selling the RM550x for £111 including delivery. But I want to wait until my usual eseller stocks them to see if they'll do them cheaper. Fingers crossed!
Click to expand...
Good luck, keep me posted. I like camelcamelcamel to give me a better idea on price trends.
 
Not impressed with THGs review of the Phanteks, going to stick with the Corsair unit I think.
An online high street retailer supposedly has them for £88 for collection, but when I put in my postcode it says their are none available nearby!:rolleyes:
Not heard of camel before.
 
At the end of the day, we can only advise. If you do your own research and come to the conclusion that you want a Corsair PSU, that's your choice and prerogative. I know in the past I have felt strongly about something that goes against the advice of others but if I had listened to them, I would have been unhappy. Sure enough, if you got a different PSU and had a problem, you would probably feel really cheesed off that you didn't go with what you thought was right in the first place.

If you end up with a Corsair PSU that sucks (despite your own research) then it shouldn't be a problem anyway based on the warranty.
 
These are all decent units with warranties between 5 and 7 years.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
​

You can add the Antec Earthwatts EA550G Pro to that list.

These are excellent with warranties of 7-10 years.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
​

You can add these to the list as well:- Superflower Leadex Gold II/III 550w, EVGA G2/G3 550w, Corsair RM550x (when it's less than £100).

Anything over £100 is way too much for a 550w psu considering that you can get top quality 650w and 750w psu's in the £97-110 range. Personally I think that 550w psu's are the worst price/performance psu's at the moment.
 
Re price, yea I was thinking along similar lines, hence not buying the RM550x at £111.
I have started looking at 650w, although really it's overkill, but I guess as long as the ~115w load & up is equal or better than the 550w versions then that'll be fine. It's never easy is it!?

One other one I stumbled across today, but couldn't find any decent reviews(!) is the Seasonic prime ultra 550, AnandTech reviewed the 650 [edit, Prime Titanium, not Ultra Plat versions] & up models (as have others) and raved about them, but nowt about the 550w. Although the lowest price I found for it was £115, again rather high. The 650w one (prime or ultra) seems to be silly money, even if it's available.

[edit]Forgot to say, thanks for the list :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom