News - Corsair wants to know: what features do you look for in a PSU?

[HEXUS]

Everyone who's anyone is making power supplies these days, but Corsair wants to know which features are most important to you?

Read more.

[Fraz]

What I want from a PSU:
- Good reviews
- History of making PSUs with good reviews

They are the only differentiators that count really.

[format]

Silence, stability

[Tarinder]

Noise
Warranty
Price
Features

In that order.

[FoxdieUK]

Fundamentally price, but also import are efficiency and reliability.

I’d rather buy 2 Tesco-value PSU’s for £30 over 3 years, than a single £90 PSU

Being modular is also an advantage.

Warranty, "Green effect" and noise do not interest me, seeing as most other components tend to be much more audiable in my experience.

[TAKTAK]

stability
noise
price
features

et voila, my list is complete

edit: i'd never noticed hexus vids on corsairs main page before :O

[Lee H]

Fundamentally price, but also import are efficiency and reliability.

I’d rather buy 2 Tesco-value PSU’s for £30 over 3 years, than a single £90 PSU

Being modular is also an advantage.

I wouldn't at all, that's just false economy really.

The PSU is the most IMPORTANT part of the PC, this powers ALL the other parts within the PC and as such scrimping on this can cause all sorts of stability issues to arise in the future.

I would rather pay 60-70 pounds for a decent stable PSU that lasts for 5+ years than pay 40 pounds for a PSU to last 3 years and die just out of warranty (This has happened - recently) but before it dies it causes all sorts of weird and wonderful blue screens to appear and take up many hours.

Why bother to spend 5-600 pounds on QUALITY components to put a £30 PSU in and ruin it all? It just doesn't make sense.

[kalniel]

No option for saying my next PSU would also be <500W

Fed up with PSU manufacturers peddling us wattage we don't need.

[TAKTAK]

I’d rather buy 2 Tesco-value PSU’s for &#163;30 over 3 years, than a single &#163;90 PSU.

ouch

i take it your the kind of person that buys EZCools and QTecs?

you don't pay for the brand name (in most cases) you pay for the quality and security that if the PSU does fail, then it is less likely to kill your whole PC...

[0iD]

Stability
Efficiencey
Reliability

[moogle]

Price
Efficiency
Stability
Features
Noise
Warranty

To be able to put a fan filter on the intake fan without voiding the warranty (Maybe make a 2nd chamber where the fan still blocks access to the PSU but you get access to it's top so you can put a filter on), or put a filter on yourselves.

Not in any particular order just all what I'd want.

I think thats my list done

[sawyen]

Stability
Performance
Efficiency..

Most of all.. really, risk control..

If manufacturer's can ensure that even if their PSU pop in 5-6 years time... some sort of protection for the inline components so they wont go to dead man's land with it would be good..

The last PSU I got, took out my motherboard and GPU as well...

[staffsMike]

What I look for is a corsair 450W HX that doesn't cost &#163;25 more than it rightly should.

Otherwise, it's perfect for 95&#37; single GPU setups.

[Whiternoise]

Efficiency
Noise
Reliability
Power Output
Price

Power is quite low on my list because i've learnt that it's pretty stupid to go and splurge on a 700W behemoth when you just don't need it. It's frankly wasteful in this day and age unless you're runnning tri-sli! Price again isn't much object, a good PSU will last for a good many builds - ideally it'll last until it stops being able to provide all the plugs you need!

I've got an enermax on various people's, including Mike's recommendations (although an HX was an option, this one was cheaper) and i think it's great. Clean looking, good connections, and it's 425w - more than enough for me.

[moogle]

Power is quite low on my list because i've learnt that it's pretty stupid to go and splurge on a 700W behemoth when you just don't need it. It's frankly wasteful in this day and age unless you're runnning tri-sli!

It would be low on the list if those lower powered PSU's could keep their efficiencies up like the higher Power PSU's. For example lets say a PC uses 250w or so. That's probably on the downhill part of the efficiency curve for the 450w PSU's etc so as the PC goes under load the efficiency keeps decreasing (not below 80% though). Whereas the 700w - 500w PSU's, on their efficiency curve the idle and load would hit near the top efficiencies on the PSU's, which have higher efficiencies as well. If they did make a semi-low wattage PSU which didn't reach it's limits as it gets loaded then I'd buy it too. But then it'd cost as much as a higher powered PSU

It'd be worth it I suppose if you didn't use the PC much too.

[Whiternoise]

Well i think what i'm going to do is get one of those socket watt meter thingies to see just how much i'm actually using. Given what i've got in there at the moment, and i think it's a perfectly reasonable rig - runs far cry 2 on max with very little lag - it's not really using that much power. I'd expect 300W absolute maximum.

And buggerit no it's an Enermax, not a coolermaster

From reviews it seems to be hitting around 85&#37; average efficiency which i don't think is too bad.