A Guide For New PSU Shoppers
See What KitGuru Is Shopping For
While PSUs could arguably be the most boring component to shop for when speccing out a new build but it is one of the most important. As many have discovered, trying to run high quality components with a PSU that delivers questionably stable power leads to any number of intermittent issues. It’s not just a question of enough wattage, you need a PSU that has solid rails that do not droop below ATX specifications.
To help those trying to find a decent PSU, this guide from KitGuru is a good place to start. They discuss the different types of cabling and some rough guides on just how high the wattage on your PSU needs to be. They also describe what the maximum ripple from the PSU should be for each of the wattages your PSU provides and the slightly tighter range that they look for.
They conclude with several different PSU recommendations at a variety of total wattages, if you just want to skip to the end.
One of the biggest mistakes that a relatively inexperienced system builder will make is to place all the component focus on the most powerful processor, motherboard and graphics card while trying to save money on the power supply, often purchasing a no-name brand from China.
More Tech News From Around The Web
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- DeepCool PX1000G Native ATX 3.0 Power Supply Unit Review @ NikKTech
- 1STPLAYER STEAMPUNK 850W @ The FPS Review
- EcoFlow PowerStream 800W Review with Solar Panel, Smart Plug and Delta 2 Max @ Funkyhome
- MSI MAG A850GL 850-watt 80 PLUS Gold ATX 3.0 PSU @ Tweaktown
After saying for most people 650 watts would be enough starting the conversation at 850 watts seems like overkill. AMD makes a number of 65 watt TDP CPUs and anything except out of sight GPUs ($800-$1000) doesn’t work for mainstream gaming. In addition, making it sound like you need Titanium efficiency rating on your CPU really raising the cost of the system. There are many 650-750 watt 80+ Gold power supplies from High Quality vendors that work just fine for a large majority of users. This insane push for Titanium and Platinum rated power supplies as a necessity for a quality system is crazy (just like the market for GPUs is finally approaching sanity.