80+ Gold or Bronze?

[Nonscrub]

Ok so the PSU @SR-71 Blackbird suggested is a 80+ bronze which my friend told me can overheat and melt my computer. Is that not an issue or should I go for gold?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

That's a lie 80 plus is just an efficiency rating.

 

[Nonscrub]

That's a lie 80 plus is just an efficiency rating.

Yeah I had a hunch my friend was trolling when i asked him about the i5 he said, "Stay away from intel, go for the 9590."

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

9590 is super unstable.

Power hungry , hard to cool.

 

[the_crippler]

What he said above. That being said, if you can afford the gold model, go for that, as it is theoretically the better, more efficient one...if you can't, go with the Bronze. If it has an issue melting down, it'd be in reviews...but even if you look at the reviews and find a lot of problems, that has nothing to do with the bronze/gold rating.

 

[Brunostako]

Your friend maybe was drugged.

Some 80+ Bronze PSU are not good quality enough, but others are very good quality. They don't have to be 80+ gold or platinum to be very good.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I would never suggest a dangerous PSU , I'm here to help.

 

[jeffredo]

Efficiency ratings aren't nearly as important as the quality of the power supply unit. They are some very solid Bronze rated and some terrible Gold rated. All depends in the manufacturer. Tom's PSU tier list is a good starting point and reviews from sources like JonnyGuru.com are helpful as well.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Even if you got a Tier 3 unit its most likely going to be perfectly fine as long as you aren't pushing it to its limits all the time.

 

[turbopixel]

Higher efficiency means needs higher build quality to achieve that efficiency. This maybe not entirel true, just a first look. There shouldn't be any Platinum rated units (step higher than Gold) which is bad. There are some known psu makers like Super Flower or Seasonic, which are making the best units. They also are making them for other builders like EVGA, which are branded and sold as an EVGA unit in example. EVGA itself uses different makers for different price and quality classes. Use that Tier list linked above. I could recommend you specific unit, but searching and linking with smartphone sucks.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Ok so the PSU @SR-71 Blackbird suggested is a 80+ bronze which my friend told me can overheat and melt my computer. Is that not an issue or should I go for gold?

he's a bonehead .... your friend, not SR-71.

The "metal" rating of a PSU does not reflect on quality, usefulness, performance or anything else other than how much electricity you will use to run it.

80 Plus Bronze is 85% efficient at 50% load
80 Plus Silver is 88% efficient at 50% load
80 Plus Gold is 90% efficient at 50% load
80 Plus Platinum is 92% efficient at 50% load
80 Plus Titanium is 94% efficient at 50% load

Picking Gold over Bronze might save you enough money power every couple of months to buy a cup of coffee, but not at Starbucks

Yes, it is certainly true that to achieve the highest efficiencies you need better quality parts but there are plenty of cheap parts that can pass a Gold rating. Similarly, a part that is less efficient, doesn't men it isn't high quality.

 

[Nonscrub]

Funny thing is my friend runs his own computer building buisness and he's rich off it

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Just goes to show you knowing what you are doing and making money are unrelated

Do him a favor and point him here:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story5&reid=185

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus