So would you say the ELITE caps are a bit dubious then? Even though rated to over 100c? Have you seen anything bad about them or just that they are Chinese/Taiwanese?
Most of the reports on caps (and often opinions on repair sites) come from fairly far back, with their origins the capacitor plague.
From what I know of the current state of caps, you don't HAVE to buy Japanese anymore, some of the more prominent brands like Teapo are fairly well trusted if the caps come from known good lines.
There's still a strong suspicion that they are less heat tolerant than better caps, but that's maybe less of an issue with modern PSUs that have hefty fans and much higher efficiency / lower heat loss.
I'd assume that the above is still the case, since PSUs that use these brands and have long warranties tend to have aggressive fan profiles and no passive mode. Though, that's also just a factor of price, so hard to know if there's correlation or causation.
Personally, I like my PSUs to last as long as possible and don't want to buy one with a potential pre-baked liability, so for the sake of the small cost difference I won't bother with 2nd tier PSUs that use second/third tier caps. I'd also be concerned that if they don't specify the type of caps they use, the reviewed models might fit better brands like Teapo, but what will they be using 2-3 years down the line? These kind of models (i.e. cost-conscious, below A-tier) are often the ones that get the stealth downgrades.
I'm not sure my system can draw much more than 700w even with massive 500w spikes on the 5080, but I'm no expert.
The reason I mentioned the capacity is just because regardless of the efficiency a higher power draw makes more heat to dissipate and that puts more pressure on the components inside the PSU and the cooling design (heatsinks, fan, airflow).
if the psu build is crap it's crap. Good caps ain't gonna save it, protection measures would.
Yeah, that's true, there's more than just the caps, but cost conscious PSUs tend to use lower tier parts elsewhere too. That said, a well-designed/engineered PSU can mitigate the impact of using lesser parts and that should help it last for the longer-term.
If that's true though makes me wonder why say Corsair, Be Quiet etc would give a 10 year warranty if using second rate parts.
Well, one factor would be competition (a PSU that has half the warranty of your competitors isn't easy to market), but yeah, I'd guess they're fairly confident about the parts being used and if not, they know how much the RMAs are going to cost them. I'd wager a lot of PSUs are going into PCs that barely get used, are run heavily under spec, or get replaced way before the warranty expires.
Would you say the MSI MPG A1000g or Phanteks AMP GH1000 are worth an extra £60/£70 over the Be Quiet
From the platform reviews I can find, the Phanteks AMP GH and the Be Quiet are probably similar on the performance/build quality front, so no, I wouldn't pay extra for it.
The MPG A-G is a top tier unit which is currently on offer, so in theory I'd say that's the better buy and likely to be more reliable parts wise (i.e. they're unlikely to fit junk in it). There's a review of the newest revision
here. That said, it did fail LTT's test suite, so QC is perhaps not what it could/should be.
and using a 3rd party 12v2x6 cable on the Phanteks/MSI wouldn't bother you?
It is hard to know what/who to trust with these cables, I'm not sure we can really trust any of them. Seasonic do a 90 degree 12v-2x6 cable and I'd trust that, I'd probably trust Be Quiet's bundled one too. Beyond that? Ugh.
I built a rig in a crazy wall mounted Thermaltake case with the corsair hx-i for someone once, was a very overbearing in size but that software sure was fun. Every system builder should have one of those puppies!
Yeah, I'd like to play with one of those too, would be cool to see all the PSU's readings in real time. Though, I'd probably look at it for a few days and then never open the app again, so eh
I think the newest Thor (Asus) has a LED display on the side that shows the power draw. That'd be fun too, but I'm not paying £400 for one!
