Power supplys, generic vs name brand

[Andeh13]

Mate of mine is speccing out a new PC for himself with a £750 budget but he is adamant on getting a generic extra value 550W PSU from ebuyer for £20. Experience & reading up on hexus iv gathered that this is a bad idea, and that its worth spending a bit money on a decent name branded PSU. Am i right in thinking that he is better off getting a decent name branded PSU, or would he be alright in getting the extra value(but same wattage) one from ebuyer?

cheers guys.

[staffsMike]

single most important part of a PC and i'd imagine everyone who posts here would say the same thing.

Cheap PSU's have a tendancy to blow up and take the rest of your components with it.

Best PSU in the 500w bracket is the Corsair 520w HX Whisper. Its super quiet (silent), amazing quality (seasonic) and it's modular which makes cabling that bit easier.

Corsair also do a "budget" 450w VX which isn't modular but it's also essentially silent and great quality.

If he skimps.. be it on his head if his whole pc becomes a paper weight.

£750 is a fair amount for a decent PC anyway.

[jackvdbuk]

cheap ones explode, take all your components with you, catch fire, dont supply enough power...

brand name ones actually do supply the rated wattage, usually have good amperage on the rails, have a vast array of connectors, quality components and a high effiency.

its up to the person wether he thinks risking £750 worth of stuff by not spend an extra 40-50 quid on a '£9.99 800W quality PSU'

[s3ds]

a cheep PSU is as risky as going to a warze site in IE6 with an unpatched windows, no firewall and no virus software............well not quite but is it worth the risk ?
it stands to reason if its cheap it uses cheap parts and when those parts go what else in the case will go with it ?
Its like buying a BMW and putting a Lada engine in it
better to be safe than sorry i have in the past used cheap PSU some even lasted past a year


edit: - in the time it took me to compose this there were two replys ! if ya not fast ya last

[Blitzen]

single most important part of a PC and i'd imagine everyone who posts here would say the same thing.

Cheap PSU's have a tendancy to blow up and take the rest of your components with it.

Best PSU in the 500w bracket is the Corsair 520w HX Whisper. Its super quiet (silent), amazing quality (seasonic) and it's modular which makes cabling that bit easier.

Corsair also do a "budget" 450w VX which isn't modular but it's also essentially silent and great quality.

If he skimps.. be it on his head if his whole pc becomes a paper weight.

£750 is a fair amount for a decent PC anyway.

YOur first sentence i 100% agree with.

The second part regarding Corsair doesnt take into account the price.
The better 500W PSU vs Price is the Fortron Blue Storm.
Rock solid and very well made.

[staffsMike]

deffinatly my opinion on the corsair.. but i think it's fantastic, well worth it's price.

I should say these days I must have silence and this does just that

[Blitzen]

deffinatly my opinion on the corsair.. but i think it's fantastic, well worth it's price.

I should say these days I must have silence and this does just that

Most do now tbh.
Enrmax, Antec, Fortrons.....much the sameness nowadays.

[Mithrandir]

Definitely, worth investing money in a good reliable brand when it comes to PSUs. Not only are inefficient but can also kill the entire system or take down parts whenthings goe wrong.
Well you have warned your friend and I guess if he wants to use a generic one. He can learn the hard way when one blows and take his £750 worth of components

[UseItNow]

HX520 - Whisper quiet, hardly breaking a sweat on my machine.

Spec: E6750, Gigabyte P35C-DS3R, Ballistix 667 (2x1Gb), ATI 2600XT, Couple of Hard drives and optical drives.

There are other cheaper good branded PSU's out there as the FSP Blue Storm, described above.
Plus its luck, good luck.

[staffsMike]

"silent" isn't always silent! though

my OCZ is "silent" but my corsair is silent! lol

[jbloggs]

it has been suggested that 10% of the overall budget of the hardware inside a PC Case should be spent on the PSU, so for a budget of £750....around £75 should go on a quality PSU...and you won't do much better than something from the Corsair range....

[Blitzen]

"silent" isn't always silent! though

my OCZ is "silent" but my corsair is silent! lol

How do you know??
I can guarantee you card is loud enough to drown out any sound if its there anyway.

[staffsMike]

I've run both in my silent pc.. wasn't silent with the OCZ..

[arthurleung]

To be honest, if you buy a cheap PSU with 70% efficiency (assuming it works fine, which probably isn't), compared to a "Branded" with 85%~90% efficiency, after a year or two you are not gonna be any better off using a cheap PSU because it cost a lot more in terms of electricity. 0.3kWh * 0.2 * 8Hours * 365 = 175kWh of extra power usage.

[UltraMagnus]

hmm...

personally I would go for a brand named one, you can get decent white box ones but it is a big gamble.

there can be a big difference in the quality of construction between power supplies, thickness of PCB plating, quality of the capacitors, do the power transistors have good enough heat sinks. all it takes is one electrolytic cap to short and you could have mains voltage flowing into all your components.... not a good thing

[excalibur2]

brand name ones actually do supply the rated wattage, usually have good amperage on the rails, have a vast array of connectors, quality components and a high effiency.

Hey My spare Q-tech is a brand name, so it's alright then..........................erm do you want to re-phrase your sentence.