| ithis said: I don't know what all the fuss is about power supplies. In my 15 years of being around other people's computers, building my own computers, and building computers for others, I never had trouble with the cheap power supplies I used, except for the rare failed ones (cheaply replaced), and only once did I see a massive (i.e. complete) failure of a PC which might have been a power supply thing (but not from a voltage fluctuation since the other computers form the area felt nothing, most likely a MB short circuit as I remember, not mine). |
this is one of the dumber theories in the PC building world (right up there with needing 20 case fans to cool a rig). Power supplies should be at 80% load during max load for maximum efficiency. I got conned into a 600W supply once with one of my PCs which typically only draws like 120W idling because I didn't understand power supplies at the time. I should have had a ~350-400W supply.
So, if you have a PC that truly draws 400W under full load, then yea you need a 500W supply, else you are just losing efficiency especially when it's just idling. If you upgrade often, then just make the PSU part of your upgrade plan and sell the old one as they really don't drop in price (unlike other hardware components)
