Question Best options for new PSU: EVGA or Seasonic, used or new?

[consptheory77]

When I built a Haswell desktop back in 2015, it originally had a Seasonic 450W Bronze. When I upgraded the CPU the next year to an i5 K series, I upgraded the PSU to an EVGA 850W Gold. I bought the EVGA used from ebay, it was a good price ($75) but the desktop did have one tendency after that. I had to keep it on constantly (though I do anyway) because if there was a power surge or I shut it off by accident, I'd have to wait 8 hours or so before I could turn it back on. I tried looking up the problem at the time to see if anyone had a similar problem, but could not find anything, so I just left things as they were because trying to diagnose and fix the problem would take more time and effort than was worth time away from the desktop use. But after accidentally shutting the desktop yesterday morning, it will not come on at all, and after looking up "220-GS-0850" I see my exact problem described on the Anand Tech forums.
So obviously it was the PSU all along.

I'd prefer not to pay more than $75, but I could go as high as $125. $125 gets me a new Seasonic Focus Plus on Amazon, but $75 gets me a used EVGA G2, a used EVGA G3, or a used Seasonic Focus Plus (all 750W). But I don't necessarily have the guarantee of a warranty on a used item.

Any advice on either cheaper options or better models?

 

[PC Tailor]

I would always go new. Firstly you never know how well looked after a used unit was, and yes, you don't usually retain the warranty.

And for $50 difference, I can get 10 years of warranty on a Seasonic FOCUS Gold unit. $50 is nothing for 10 years of guaranteed satisfaction.

These are some other great models at lower prices:
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Newegg) - 7 YEAR WARRANTY
Total: $79.99

Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($95.99 @ SuperBiiz) - 10 YEAR WARRANTY
Total: $95.99

Power Supply: BitFenix Whisper M 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($103.99 @ SuperBiiz) - 7 YEAR WARRANTY
Total: $103.99

Then you have one that is lower quality, but still good enough to worth recommending, and is usually more budget friendly:

Power Supply: Corsair CX (2017) 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($79.89 @ OutletPC) - 5 YEAR WARRANTY
Total: $79.89

Personally I would never buy a used PSU, because of the reason above, a bit of extra cash gives me years of guarantee. And the one component I never play around with, is the PSU.

 

[consptheory77]

I forgot to mention that I loathed having to deal with cables that couldn't be detached, so I prefer fully modular.

Does paying $25 extra for a Platinum seem justifiable? My system is not under heavy load that much, but it is overclocked and kept on 24hrs.

 

[fry178]

If the units are used/open box from places like microcenter, just get their warranty and you can exchange/upgrade, and i never had any problems with coverage after selling my psu to family/friends and they contacted support.
You usually just need proof you actually bought it in form of a receipt, and as long as the serials match up, no ptoblem.

The evga/seasonic/corsair are all pretty decent, but none perfect.
You will see at least one or 2 "issues" on all of them, so go with the cheapest, or with the one "problem" you can live with (e.g. the focus gold is louder than others, when the prime plus (80 gold) isnt.

Platinum or higher only makes sense with high energy cost and/or continued use at high load (can help with voltage/temps etc), but dont always guarantee a "better" unit.
Then again, none of the mentioned brands half probs on their recent plat/titanium units...
I would rather make sure your "max" load to be as close as it can be to reach 50% of its rated output. E.g 600w for a rig pulling 300w.
Get a wattmeter and measure so you can get the right size (+50w as buffer),
that will most likely pay off more, than going plat.

I went for the g+ instead of the g3 (bigger fan and longer warranty), and even that i have a SS plat, i didnt want to spend 20-30% more to virtually get the same thing (some gold units actually would be plat rated, if it wasnt for some slightly out of requirement numbers on lets say stby V iirc).

 

[PC Tailor]

I forgot to mention that I loathed having to deal with cables that couldn't be detached, so I prefer fully modular.

Does paying $25 extra for a Platinum seem justifiable? My system is not under heavy load that much, but it is overclocked and kept on 24hrs.

PCPartPicker Part List

Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($112.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $112.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-31 02:59 EDT-0400

Platinum isn't necessary if under lower loads.
This will probably be even more useful with a hybrid fan as it won't start up until loads increase.

 

[consptheory77]

Now, I tried again this morning, and the desktop turned on - but obviously I have to get a new PSU or the next time the lapse might be more than two days.

I have concerns about the Seasonic Focus, the aforementioned "problem" that Fry178 alludes to existing with any model being in this case 3% complaining about (really) noisy fans and 4% complaining that their components got fried. Given that there are voltage regulators, how does this even happen?

(But I did learn through reading yesterday, it's very important not to be lazy. Always use the modular cables that accompany a given unit; the cables may be pinned differently, even with similar units from the same manufacturer.)

However, since Amazon tends to batch reviews of a family of models all together, I observed that these complaints about the danger to components were only made against the Focus models, not the Prime ones.

 

[consptheory77]

The Johnny Guru review notes that the Focus units have 3% tight voltage regulation "which is considerably looser than the Prime units". Also lacks multi-rail overcurrent protection.

 

[fry178]

i decided to go with the evga g1+.
tick better than thee g3 , got it for a better price, and has longer warranty.
so far, i dont see it being better or worse than my previous platinum SS 760w unit.
its absolute silent,as my rig is inaudible (idle low load), and you cant hear the psu from the outside.

 

[consptheory77]

Well, I see that fry178 has deactivated their account. In any case, an update. I did decide to go with the Seasonic Prime. I went to do the swap out last night, but the unit did not come with an EPS12V cable for the CPU. I used the one from my EVGA, but as noted above, one is not supposed to use cables from one manufacturer's model of PSU for another. I needed to get it up and running, though, I took the risk, and nothing happened, everything is running fine, and I happy with the unit.