is an active or passice pfc power supply worth the extra$$$

[eddie200112]

i been lookin to buy a new psu for my new system it will have 3 sata hdd's athlon 63 3800+ 1 sli 7800gt and 2 dvd roms so is getting a psu with pfc active or passive worth it or should i just get one of the cheaper ones without it

 

[jokersgrin]

i been lookin to buy a new psu for my new system it will have 3 sata hdd's athlon 63 3800+ 1 sli 7800gt and 2 dvd roms so is getting a psu with pfc active or passive worth it or should i just get one of the cheaper ones without it

Get one with the Active PFC. It filters out the noise in the power to your componets! I recommed getting a Batt back up as well.

 

[Fox_granit]

Spend the money and get the active. It will help you out in the long run. And Jokersgrin is right, the battery backup is a good idea.

 

[bill_bright]

Any PFC is better than none - and if you live in Europe, PS supplies are require to have some form of correction. Here's a good little reference.

Also, Fox and JG are right about battery backup - but most likely NOT for the reason you think. Backup power, in the event of a power outage, is merely the icing on the cake.

A good UPS is an active device - it is constantly providing regulated power. Besides the advantage of giving you a few minutes to close all apps and power down "gracefully" (most allow for auto-shutdown when batteries run low) during a power failure, the active circuits that regulate the power all the time provide your power supply clean stable power. This, in turn, is easier on all the regulation and switching circuits in the PS and the motherboard. Finally, power sags occur all the time. These sags, or brown outs, are easily and instantaneously compensation for by an UPS. A surge protector provides no protection under those circumstances.

Surge protectors are passive devices (they only react), and are not much more than a fancy (and expensive) extension cord - and they lose their effectiveness over time as they do their thing - which is every time the refrigerator kicks on!

If you have an LCD monitor, you can easily power your PC, the monitor, and ALL your home network gear, with a 1000VA UPS - for under $130USD - cheap when you consider all the damage in equipment and DATA that a single "event" can do.

Just make sure somewhere in the product description it says "Automatic Voltage Regulation" - or something similar.