PSU comparrison and recommendation

[iranu]

although I ain't budging on my £20.

That's not a wise position to take.

so the tagan would be good if it weren't so much

I'm surprised you can get that model 480W tagan for £25, but if you can that is the one to go for in your list without a shadow of a doubt. What's an extra 5 or 10 quid?

I've used Tagan PSUs for a number of builds and on the one time I did have a failure it didn't take anything with it. Spending another £10 or so will protect your rig if/when the PSU dies. It's false economy to spend £400+ on a PC then put a cheap PSU in that when it dies destroys your rig and takes your data with it.

[Saracen]

We each have to buy what we can afford and justify, but I'm another advocate of not cheaping-out on PSUs. What's more, you can't rely on a spec-sheet because there are so many ways that a PSU can be made to appear to be as good as another, on paper. Cheap PSUs will nearly always have cheap fans, so a cheap sleeve bearing will fail earlier than, for instance, a decent ball-race, and if it does, you'll have an overheating, and possibly dead PSU. Cheap components may fail earlier than decent quality ones, capacitors dry out and fail to startup, voltage stability will be poor, efficiency low and and not across anything like as wide a load range, and so on.

Personally, I wouldn't put a £20 PSU anywhere near one of my PCs .... but it's a decision we all have to take. Most people can find the extra £20 or so when it comes to a graphics card that they really want, but a PSU ... ? Personally, I think a decent PSU is the best value you can get in a PC.

[ken_kenli]

are u sure u r getting those low quality psu? i used cm real power 520w b4 it done the job beautifuly it has 3 12v rails and gives out 520w continuously which provides a more stable power to the vga, HDD and opticasl... so dont save s few quid on those cheap psu. im only using real power since then