Is Platinum worth the extra price for a home build?

[arrkaye]

Does the extra efficiency matter?

[pastymuncher]

It's only something like 2% extra efficiency over Gold rated so no not really. Saying that, I wouldn't go less than gold rated either. As a rough guide, the higher the rating, the better quality internals are used. Gold rated units are only a small price premium over bronze rated units as well. Platinum and Titanium ratings tend to be a big price premium over gold rated units but it depends on the manufacturer really.

[Jhs]

Pastymuncher is right, diminishing returns tend to kick in in terms of price to performance ratio past gold rating.

If you're looking for a recommendation though the new Corsair RMX units have been reviewed to a borderline platinum standard despite being gold rated (&priced).

"On the efficiency side of things, this unit actually passed Platinum in the cold tests and almost did it again in the hot tests"

Have a look for the Corsair RM1000X review on johnnyguru (I'm new so can't give the URL yet ).

[jeromesm3]

I would go for the platinum rating. Im currently using a Corsair AX1200 powering aging SLI GTX 580's and its been great so far! Just make sure you purchase a reputable brand like Seasonic, Corsair, EVGA, etc.

[Doubtful]

Doubt it will make a difference, used to use a bronze corsair psu, upgraded to a gold one, haven't noticed any change.

[TheNoseKnows]

The price difference can be quite significant. I was at first interested in a Seasonic Platinum Series 760W PSU, but "settled" for an EVGA Supenova G2 750W (the G stands for gold). The latter was almost 33% cheaper than the former and performed just as well. Remember that the ratings do not represent quality, but power efficiency in terms of power drawn from the wall. Both are excellent PSUs, but the Platinum's greater efficiency would take years to pay off, if ever, depending on the workload (6 hours a day? 12? 24?).

[mrgreen009]

I too bought in to the whole efficiency thing - 2% is 2%, and hardly makes a difference to something like £100 a year of electricity bills, as opposed to a £40 premium on more efficient PSUs.

HOWEVER, the efficiency is usually a sign of reliability - they usually use high quality parts, and 7 year warranties on some PSUs, you don't see that on cheaper ones - although my 3 year old bronze 500w PSU is still going strong which I gave to a friend.

[nexusmaniac]

I would personally say...
That if you can afford a higher end PSU, go for it. At the end of the day it's the heart of your system Providing all the blood (power) to your components
A higher efficiency = higher quality (94% of the time) I wouldn't say go out and replace your gold PSU with a Titanium one by any means, but going for bronze and saving £20? I'd jump to platinum

[christreleaven]

For the extra 2% efficiency, the price can go up quit a bit... I'm happy with gold.

[chumpydiggity]

As mentioned, the quality of components tend go up with the efficiency rating. You also need to consider the wattage of your PSU (higher the wattage, the better returns a plat will make). Your PSU will outlive most of your other components and is also one of the most important components that a lot of people neglect. Taking all of this into account, I'd personally go plat if the price premium isn't too high.

[Zico]

I picked up an Antec 1300W psu (HCP-1300 Platinum) for my upgrade last year. It's overkill for what I have in my system at the moment but will give me room to expand later on (SLI) and hopefully last me to my next upgrade. I got it for a really good price so I was happy to have more than I needed at half price .

[TeePee]

Assume a 500W power supply, with a 2% efficiency improvement. That means at full load (Which is unrealistic) it uses 10W less. Over a year of continuous uptime (8760 hours), that represents 87.6Kwh of extra power used. I'm seeing a UK average of 9.1p/kwh, making a yearly saving of about 8GBP. Over the lifetime of the component, in this scenario, it might be worth while.

However, a more realistic scenario has a load of 200W (people dramatically overspec power supplies), for six hours a day, giving a yearly saving of about 79p.

[ik9000]

This old thread again? Well as teepee helpfully lays out it is generally not worth the extra expense. All things being equal platinum is better, but not at any price! I've yet to see a machine that genuinely needed a 1000w supply. Don't pay for something you don't need. perversely you can end up paying twice. once for the premium on a large supply. twice on the increased inefficiency if it is run in a low % load vs rated power. less than 20% usually the efficiency drops markedly.

A 1300w supply 20%=270w not unrealistic for a system at low usage never mind idle to run well below that power draw.

[Zico]

My HCP-1300 Platinum cost me £110 (new un-used but opened box). Totalling up my load wattage (http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator) I would be looking at a 750W psu with little to no room for expansion (SLI etc.) in the future. Antec's Gold offerings at this level are around £120 and Platinum £150.

[watercooled]

Power supply calculator also tend to massively overestimate power draw. If your system specs are correct on your profile, even 750W is more than enough.

Aside from heavily overclocked and/or multi-GPU systems, I don't see that many where even 600W isn't overkill.

WRT idle draw, which is important in terms of efficiency because that's where most desktops will spend the vast majority of their time, modern systems even with discrete GPUs are often below 50W, and that figure just keeps getting lower.

[Zico]

System spec was not as per my profile (since updated).