How to pick a Power Supply Unit that matches your hardware

[Nodarkthings]

Article: How to pick a Power Supply Unit that matches your hardware

Is there a compatibility problem with some connectors?
I'm reading at Gigabyte's website that some Motherboard have "1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector" and others "1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector"!!!
Isn't the power supplies compatible with every current motherboard?
Thanks for clearing up things.

 

[thelostswede]

Article: How to pick a Power Supply Unit that matches your hardware

Is there a compatibility problem with some connectors?
I'm reading at Gigabyte's website that some Motherboard have "1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector" and others "1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector"!!!
Isn't the power supplies compatible with every current motherboard?
Thanks for clearing up things.

No, not at all. The 4-pin connector came before the 8-pin connector all all current PSU's tend to have a "split" connector that allows for either 4 or 8-pins to be used, or alternatively they have one 4 and one 8-pin connector. Usually lower-end boards have the 4-pin connector, as you shouldn't need more power than this to the board, although for whatever reason Gigabyte has updated most of their 7-series boards (revision 1.1) to an 8-pin connector.

 

[Nodarkthings]

Article: How to pick a Power Supply Unit that matches your hardware

Thanks! I worship you!

 

[LazyBoy]

I never knew that PSU are so important and are of different types and would never come to knew without this post so thanks for sharing. Thanks to everybody who commented here they add more to my knowledge about PSU. Gr8 post thelostswede keep up the good work.

 

[goodguess]

Thanks for your work and for putting things straight. I have not seen such a good summary on PSUs for a long time.
Especially your considerations about maybe 1500W overkill PSUs are very helpful.

 

[pwagner]

In my (limited) experience trying to find a quiet power supply, I go for units that have a 120mm variable speed fan. I have a 400W unit that rarely draws more than 50W from the wall, so the fan is turning very slowly and so is very quiet.

I had to do a bit of twisting and stretching to get the 3 hard drives plugged into the power supply. A power supply with a more versatile set of connections would have been better. I bought a connector that converts the old style power cable to 2 of the SATA ones, but wound up not needing it after all.

 

[cmjones70]

Hello, at this point I feel like I may be beating a dead horse but, here I go anyway. When I came across this thread I was looking for suggestions for highly efficient, low power PSUs.

I come from the audio design /manufacturing industry. Clean, efficient, accurate power supplies are the most important thing to any audio circuit - (not just amplifiers.) I give my credentials only so that my point isn't misinterpreted as a bias toward or against any brand nor is it construed as an attack on PunkNugget. Others have accurately pointed out his flawed explanations or interpretations of a PSU manufacturer. I do think he was attempting to convey what I believe was the most important statement in this whole thread... And that point is that nearly all PSUs in this category are at their highest efficiency when their load is at 50% of rated power. So, I guess if you were running three GPUs and a power hungry over clocked system you might actually need 600W - and by extension a 1,200W supply. I however, am running stock speeds for the most part and on board HD4000 graphics so I realistically only need 150W and by extension a 300W supply.

So, this leads me to my question. Has anyone seen any well built 80+ (gold or better) ?? It seems that no manufacturers put any interest in the power supplies that we really need. I'm actually searching for an OEM that was design for this purpose.

Many thanks to everyone at Tonymacx86 - this is a great forum for enthusiasts full of very knowledgeable ppl. To PunknNugget, I am not flaming you or calling out.

 

[MacMan]

Article: How to pick a Power Supply Unit that matches your hardware

Look at Seasonic PSUs, they are available under their own name or are sold on an OEM basis to people like Corsair.

The best site I have found on PSU reviews is http://www.hardwaresecrets.com. They do the most complete review on the hardware design and do real world load testing.

 

[krautzman]

Article: How to pick a Power Supply Unit that matches your hardware

I would add a little more comment to the discussion here. It is true that for the vast majority of users and home system builders , anything above 700watts in a psu is going to be overkill and you won't gain any 'real' value or performance / efficiency out of larger psu's .
The reason I state 700watts and not 500watts ( as is still more than acceptable for most users needs ) is that PSU's have become quite pricey pieces of hardware over the years in building a pc ( as oppossed to the old days of $25 covering the costs there ) and I tend to suggest to most people to build in a little future proofing in their purchases / system building. If you look back only say 5 years ago the amount of power required to run a pc has grown quite a bit since then.

Now motherboard manufacturers are building in 'smart charging' and fast charging ports into their USB designs to recharge today's smart phones and gps etc units , drawing more power from the psu than ever before. I see no reason to expect things to change in this respect in the near future.

Just my 2 cents.
Cheers Kman

 

[djhax04]

wow this really helps! great post