Power Supply Information

CHOOSING AND UNDERSTANDING A POWER SUPPLY UNIT

The power supply unit in today’s modern computer assumes a role probably more critical than any other single component in your system even when compared to the CPU and motherboard. Therefore, there are multiple factors that must be evaluated prior to selecting your next power supply or PSU (short for Power Supply Unit). A committee of TSF Hardware Team members including Blackduck30, Doby, linderman, UncleMacro, and Tumbleweed36 have evaluated and compiled data to assist you in understanding how to pick a reliable power supply for your computer.

Today’s PSU market is extremely competitive and replete with information that can mislead home computer builders that have not been fully educated on PSU criteria. We tend to look for wattage ratings as a sign of a good PSU, and that is where we begin to make a mistake in the process of purchasing or choosing wisely.

When we have spent most of our budget on a dream motherboard, blazing fast CPU, fastest video card, several gigs of ram, huge Sata hard drives, and a couple of DVD & Cd-rom drives thrown in, we begin to total the cost of our “dream” machine. Suddenly, we realize with shipping costs the unit is either over budget or close enough that we have to be careful what else we buy to finish the unit.

Then, we remember that we still have not purchased a PSU. We go through the shopping list and “bingo” there is a nice pretty 500-watt PSU with a pretty blue flashing light in the fan for $34.00 including shipping, and it fits our old case and our budget! We just sold “ourselves” and did not even realize that we need more information to make a wise selection. We just know that this baby has enough watts to do the job.

A PSU that is not suitable for a specific computer does have the capability to bring a system crashing to its knees. An underpowered PSU may cause heat buildup, automatic shutdowns, BSOD’s, system overheating, and a lack of power that may cause expensive top shelf Cpu’s, motherboards, hard drives and ram to burn up. You can lose not only expensive components, but related time loss in a work environment may cost you hundreds of dollars in lost time. Therefore, it might become necessary to increase your budget somewhat or even compromise on the CPU or Video Card cost to make sure you have an adequate PSU to power your unit.

We will present written summaries of information and links with graphics to assist you with selecting an appropriate PSU for your computer. While we think it is important to read and reference all this material, use this guide to select what is appropriate to your needs and understanding of the following topics:

Performance Variables of PSU Testing, Efficiency, Compatibility, and Reliability

PSU rating & testing

System heat and the effects on the PSU

Fans in the power supply

Efficiency rating of the PSU

The role of Power Factor Correction ( PFC)

Case and power supply combination units

Proprietary PSU units

Compatibility issues for ATX power supplies and motherboards

The motherboard main power cables

The 12V CPU power cables

The aux power cable

Where's most of the load? 3.3/5 volts or 12 volts?

Obscure considerations

Analysis and Application of PSU Data

Identifying your power supply

Determining wattage and amperage requirements for my selected machine

Recommended Power Supply Calculator

Summary and Reasoning for our TSF Power Supply Recommendations

Recommended brand names and models in listed categories

Additional Recommended Brand Name

Closing Statement

TOPIC DISCUSSION AREA

Performance Variables of PSU Testing, Efficiency, Compatibility, and Reliability

PSU rating & testing

There are numerous unscrupulous PSU makers in the market that know they can make a larger profit with cheap prices and poor quality merchandise than they can from building and selling high quality units. Therefore, the PSU manufacturer’s who want to sell a higher quantity of power supplies without the quality that is needed to meet the demands of today’s computers, tend to use a testing procedure that is misleading. This is done to make their supplies appear to be of a high quality than they actually are when manufactured.

System heat and the effects on the PSU

Most PSU’s are tested at 25 degrees Celsius, which is unrealistic. There is no PSU running in any computer environment that will be “living” in a 25 degrees Celsius environment. The realistic inside temperature of most computers is higher than room temperature and when fully loaded can sometimes get as high as 50C". That temperature increases under high stress computing like gaming.

The sad truth is very few PSU’s really produce the wa

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