PSU Check...

[Admetos]

If your working from home you wan't a PSU thats silent for desktop use, so you need something that's at least gold rated.

I would just hit the button on either a Seasonic Gold or Platinum PSU, and have the PSU guaranteed for 7 to 10 years, they are expensive so you need to search for discounts on them, I buy Seasonic PSU's in advance when discounted then just store them until I need them. BTW I have no connection to Seasonic I just like their PSU's!

I have a Seasonic X650 from 2009, I work from home also, that PSU has interstellar miles on it. I did a calculation once on the cost of electric and what the X650 saved over a typical bronze PSU, and the X650 saved more than it's original cost to purchase.

Having a bit of a rant now. I think that most PSU's sold have planned obsolescence in them, the reason I say this is I own Pioneer Hi-Fi amplifiers Japan hand built almost 30 years old yet the PSU's inside them all still work. So if Pioneer could make PSU's in amplifiers in the 80/90's that are still working today, then why can't the same quality be on most computer PSU's.

 

[GinG]

OK something has come up and the funds I had available are no longer there...

Would the following therefore be a good upgrade for me to stop getting the fps drops in BF1 whilst playing 1080:

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LED 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Case: Fractal Design - Core 2300 ATX Mid Tower Case
Total: £440.65

I would just keep the PSU and 980 for now and with a bit of luck I could possibly upgrade the 980 and psu in another month or so?

 

[ubersonic]

not exactly a power saving pc either

My point was that if he is replacing most of his components and the new setup is going to be sucking up to 100w less than the old one then the reduced consumption will more than offset capacitor aging, so all these calls for getting a new PSU simply for the sake of getting one are a tad unwarranted as he's going to be in a better PSU situation post upgrade anyway.

 

[ExoMale]

My point was that if he is replacing most of his components and the new setup is going to be sucking up to 100w less than the old one then the reduced consumption will more than offset capacitor aging, so all these calls for getting a new PSU simply for the sake of getting one are a tad unwarranted as he's going to be in a better PSU situation post upgrade anyway.

Point is the CX range with the green label is not know for its reliability, I know this and only ever had the odd ones, they better than the VS range, but I’ve had those for fairly cheap builds under 300 quid, if I had 600 onwards to spend on new gear I would change the power supply for piece of mind, no point shelling all that money out for a cheap power supply to mess it all up from failing, not for long durations anyways. If an OP can afford a better psu in the budget they should get it as they wouldn’t improve the rest other for how much a psu will cost.

 

[GinG]

I am quite sceptical about the PSU arguments mine...in around 20 years I have never had a PC fail on me regardless on the make.

Appreciate the recommendations in here, but due to a slight change in the funds available I will be keeping my current PSU for now.

Just need to know if I am making the right call with the spec posted in #22 mainly for a system (excluding gpu upgrade) which would easily see out 5 years.

 

[David Bisset]

For reliability I've only a small sample size but so far PSUs account for 5 of the 7 failures I've had to fix in systems I've built, 4 of them at about the 5 year mark. That's out of about 20 built machines (I guess others failed, but late enough in their lives they never even told me)

If it's working fine you may be grand, but felt it was worth pointing out that they do fail. That said, of those 5 only two broke other bits when they died, and one of those was my case power on switch so an easy fix... Only one went pop properly, so that's 19 out of 20 systems where it didn't turn out to be a big worry

Edit: mostly older machines tho, only three are since Intel went to the 'core i' naming so lots of old kit. Still, 2 of the 5 psu's were in those 3.