Tiers

Howdo.
Been looking at PSUs around the £50-£70 range, 600/700w to power my games pc.
(just got a vega 56, want 4 * 8pin pcie in case I crossfire down the line (when second hand gpu prices drop in the future))
On various forums I see people mention Tier 1 / 2 etc..., but different sites have different lists and also some say the tiering is nonsense anyway.
What do the experts on here think?
Just go off reviews and comments, or pay attention to what linustechtips and tomshardware list as tiers?
The PSUs I am looking at are all from scan, in particular...

700w silverstone strider
700w coolermaster masterwatt lite
650w antec neoECO
620w seasonic m12II evo
620w seasonic s12II

I am not too bothered about modular, but also is there much of a noticeable difference in running costs of bronze silver gold?

Not asking for a recommendation as such (though feel free), more a general feeling of how best to make my mind up.

Thanks.

I've not heard of tiering before, but I guess it is just a way of grouping PSU's into well reviewed, not so well reviewed, and avoid type categories. You could just use review score instead.

As for how to make up your mind, first do an honest assessment of how much power your PC is likely to demand *from the PSU* (not wall). Spec peak power for the highest possible use you can think of, but then look at the reviews and efficiency ratings to determine the efficiency at realistic most on power usage levels for the PSU you're looking at.

Most gaming rigs these days use not much more than 200W while playing games, so you want the peak power supply efficiency as close to this figure as possible, which for most PSUs is around 50-60% load, so you'd aim for a 400-450W supply for best efficiency. If you go for a higher watt rating then you need to check what the efficiencies are at lower load ratings, which is where the difference between bronze and something like platinum comes in, as platinum supplies will be more efficient at the low loads you'll be using.

So in short, if you're going for a vastly over-spec'd PSU like 600-700W, check what the efficiencies are like down in the low load levels around 30% load - which might mean going for a platinum supply over a bronze.

Crossfire and SLI are dying, hardly any DX12 titles support mGPU, second hand AMD GPU prices are unlikely to drop as long at bitcoin stays high.

If you crossfire, buy a bigger PSU if and when you need it.

Use a PSU calculator on one of the OEM websites to get their estimate of what you need. Then think about your budget.

When I checked the Seasonic website it told me I need a minimum 320w psu if I were to have budget system based on Ryzen 3 with nvidia 1050(not overclocked) but recommended a 520w sII bronze Seasonic. My system has a 330w seasonic SII already, in theory I could use that.

Just get a reputable company.

If you want PSU reviews, then http://www.jonnyguru.com/ is the place to go.

And pay attention to Johnny Lucky (http://www.johnnylucky.org/power-sup...endations.html)...especially his lemon list (http://www.johnnylucky.org/power-sup...emon-list.html).

Buy whatever's cheap and on offer, save your money to spend on something you'll notice.

(no, I'm not advocating a £15 '700W' psu. It has to be something that's had a review and shown to operate within the ATX standard at it's claimed values).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EndlessWaves

Buy whatever's cheap and on offer, save your money to spend on something you'll notice.

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That tends to be my approach - find one of the cheapest PSUs from a reputable manufacturer with the capacity and connectors you require. I don't usually get the absolute cheapest branded one as you can often get more power/better efficiency etc for not much more outlay, but I'm perfectly happy using <£40 budget PSUs. For example https://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w...bronze-atx-psu on sale for £29.99 will be perfectly fine for the majority of builds - obviously if you're heavily overclocking etc it's worth spending more though. I've had many a disagreement with CAT-THE-FIFTH about it, but imho as long as it's from a reputable make it shouldn't kill your components, eat your pets or burn your house down.