How temperature affects psu rating

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je1983

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I'm looking at some psu's and someone pointed out to me some of them, like the Corsair CX-500 bronze is rated at 30'c, while others like the VS series are rated at 40'c.

Does it make a difference?


 
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madmatt30
the hcg is a seasonic,modular & you cant really go wrong with it in all honesty.
Id probably take it over both the cx550m & the neo eco 2 although theres nothing wrong with any of those 3 units.
the gx 550 would be the worst by a long stretch.

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yes, massively so, if it is rated for 500W at 30C, it will be rated for less than that at a higher temp. The inside of your case will generally be above 30, so what you think is a 500W supply is only 400W, worse is that this is only evident when it really matters and your PC is pulling a lot of power and generating a lot of heat.

It's a sign of a poor design, but at least they admit it.
 
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Case temps are unimportant if the PSU is bottom mounted with a fan grill in the case bottom.

That said you are obviously better off with a unit rated at 40c over 30c.

Higher temps can lower efficiency somewhat and also degrade the CPU caps at a much faster rate.

In all honesty though the cx & vs are virtually the same component wise so I gave no idea why the vs would be rated 10c higher !!
Personally I'd put the CX as the slightly better quality unit.

If your buying options are limited to these budget corsairs then I would suggest you overspec it by 100w.

Something like a cx600 or vs550 running 400w max of components should still last a long time.
 
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Worse than that they might say 500w, but only with an odd load that will never really happen, or they might say 500 but actually only be OK for 300.
 
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Firstly, I don't really know how much power I need to begin with. I have a new pc, i5-6500, b150m-a, 4hdd's, a pcie wifi card all using my old antec neo eco400w psu from my old pc. I've been meaning to upgrade it for a while now I also plan on adding an ssd sometime soon.

I was looking at the cx500 for it's pricing but if I were to overspec it as you say and get the 550 modular or 600 non modular, maybe I should just go for the antec neo eco 2 ,550w which would be around the same price, which has better caps ans stuff.
 
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Firstly, I don't really know how much power I need to begin with. I have a new pc, i5-6500, b150m-a, 4hdd's, a pcie wifi card all using my old antec neo eco400w psu from my old pc. I've been meaning to upgrade it for a while now I also plan on adding an ssd sometime soon.

I was looking at the cx500 for it's pricing but if I were to overspec it as you say and get the 550 modular or 600 non modular, maybe I should just go for the antec neo eco 2 ,550w which would be around the same price, which has better caps ans stuff.
 
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Are you planning to add a GPU to that build at all ??

As it stands at the minute you aren't even touching 200w mate.

Your main proviso is getting a model with more than 4 sata power connectors .

Both the neo eco & the newer cx550m (which is a decent PSU ) have 6 of these.

 
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So 400w is enough, maybe I could get the neo eco 450w then. One thing I know is need a new psu I've had wifi issues with the last two pc's using this psu, and apart from the four hdd's, it's the only constant in both pc's experiencing so I will try to replace it to see if that changes anything.
 
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With the components you're running (without a GPU) I'dhave no qualms with a corsair cx430 or vs 450 even mate.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the cheap corsairs as such, voltage regulation & ripple are up there with the best of them.

What they don't like is to be continually pushed past 85% usage

That is not going to happen with your components, they'll barely stress any of these units.
 
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The CX PSU's are run with high end systems all the time, and rarely there are problems reported. It's overexaggerated, but poor components do play a part SOMETIMES, temperature isn't always the culprit though.

The CX units (like most KNOWN brand PSU's) have SCP, UVP, OVP, OPP. People act as if you push them it's not only going to burn down your house, but also take out all your PC's components with it, that is before they read and learn how protection work in PSU's...
 
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the CX is a budget PSU for budget systems, i.e. lower powered systems. The low temp rating reflects this. These guys have some technical knowledge of them:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1415677/whats-exactly-the-problem-with-corsairs-cx-psus

JonnyGuru: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=416 for their 750W unit, it's really a 650W in a 750W box. This should never happen, if it says 750 then it should be 750 and be able to operate in the environment that it will naturally exist in.
 
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Thanks. I was just about to add that I will probably not be adding a gpu to this set up. Would you recommend those 430 and 450w even for someone who ran their pc 24/7?


By not pushing it past 85% usage, I assume you are talking about CPU load, or would you be referring to 85% of it's power capacity? From what I read, PSU's are less effective at being efficient using lower loads, but I never really understood if they meant cpu load or what.
Being on 24/7 must have some negative effect for the lower tier models, as well as the fact that temps in my case are well into the high 30's even low 40's based on my placing a digital thermometer directly on the top of the case which reads 32-34c while the ambent temp in the room is between 30-32c right now.


So I guess I'll look into the 450w neo eco 2 and the cx500 non modular for this. I thought I needed more power with my multiple hard drives but if you say 450w is enough for this set up, I'd lean more towards the higher quality 450w than the 500w which might not be as efficient at the temperatures I'm running in my case.
 
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I know systems running cx430s in a business environment for 15-16 hours a day straight that have been going 4 or 5 years now.

People will fill you with horror stories & point you to the tier list with little actual evidence of anything bad happening .

Your hard drives use between 2-6w so you could put 30 drives in a PC before you'd have to think about power draw being of any importance.

Ideally everyone would like a 5 year warranty on their psu but that's something you pay extra for .

As a point of reference I've had one bad cx430 out of maybe 30 or 40.
No harm to the system, dead out of the box ,straight replacement.
The only branded PSU that ive ever seen take out a system was a evga g2 550 (rated as maybe top 3 in the quality stakes) , go figure on that one.
5 year warranty meant very little when it killed $1000 worth of components ,which evga will not cover.
 
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You explicitly stated higher end builds in your previous post, so which is it?

I'd run one all day on a business machine as they would probably top out at 100W.
 
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Which PSU would you say is more popular then? There are less enthusiasts who know what to choose and know who to ask than there are people simply buying PSU's because they need one, and they know from friends and so on that Corsair is a good brand. It makes perfect sense IMO.

They think like this:

1. Need a PSU
2. Look at price
3. Look at wattage
4. Look at brand


Nobody beats Corsair here, they don't only make PSU's. EVGA which IMO is the second at this 'price' are not as well known in the PC hardware community.
 
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^ its not just that - the fact is you'd be hard pushed to find a store (online or physical) that actually doesnt sell corsair CX psu's.
They've been around forever & their market penetration & supply chain is utterly massive.

They've never ultimately been the best PSU's but the fact is (short of the disdain for them on tomshardware) you won't actually find a bad review (barring the 750w which is a different platform & a thoroughly bad unit).
 
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Thanks for all the input. The direct answers to my questions helped and so did the exchanges between you guys about the CX's are most widely available psu's around. I wouldn't mind the regular CX series if my pc wasn't turned on 24/7 and temps in my room constantly around 30c in the summer with case temps reaching the high 30's and low 40's.

The issue with my pc, suspected to be caused by a psu problem has disappeared for a while giving me time not only to look into the problem some more but also recover a a bit from the the recent financial hit of having bought a new pc earlier this month.
Having a bit more to spend allows me to choose from slightly better options, which I've narrowed down to the Antec Neo Eco 2 550w, CX550M which is rated at 40c as stated in your earlier posts, also the Antec 520HCG. The price difference is less than 10usd between the three, around 2usd between the Neo Eco 2 and CX550m. I don't know why I've included the HGC, I know it's older but I think I read some good reviews about it some time ago. There's also a Cooler Master GX550 in the same price range but I'll probably go with the Neo Eco 2 or CX-M which from my research are newer models.
 
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