Discussion PSU recommendations and power supply discussion thread - Tom's hardware

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I was perusing amazon and newegg, just checking what was in stock. I came across this Montech Gamma II 550w psu for $66. A no name brand that supposedly had success on the asian market? It states llc resonant primary and dc-dc secondary as well as all 100% japanese caps. From their website, it's missing OTP but has everything else. Besides the no name bit, it doesn't look the worst, definitely not 100% japanese caps from my eyes. They had two internal pictures.
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To me(novice) it looks like a japanese primary cap with some teapo caps on the secondary, maybe.

I'm not looking for a recommendation or anything, was just wondering on the opinion of it.

I'd imagine with decent psu's flying in and out of stock, that some people may see this unit as an option. It doesn't seem to be a fire hazard at least.
 
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Teapo Is Taiwanese, not Japanese. In my opinion they are pretty good, but not amazing.

Looking at the photos I see cwt on a sticker atop a transformer. Maybe that is the oem?

Without proper reviews, impossible to reccomend.
 
maxamillionfeettall said:
Yeah, I worded it poorly.

I saw the cwt mark as well...but they also make poor quality units....but do they have any poor quality llc units?
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I would disagree with cwt being low end, but I have nowhere near the knowledge to argue.

I don't know enough about platforms in order to answer that question.

However, Corsair CX450 has a CWT varient that is LLC resonant with dc-dc. A good unit, but a lower priced unit.
 
Just spotted another PSU lineup from Seasonic. This time A12 series,
specs: https://seasonic.com/a12

Based on the specs, it's another limited availability lineup. Though, it's 80+ White efficiency rating, 3 years of warranty, fully-wired design and sleeve bearing fan doesn't give much hope of it being anything worthwhile for suggesting.

Any word about the A12 series? Since looking the specs, i get a feeling it's another outsourced lineup, just like S12III series is.
 
goldstone77 said:


Well, the process nodes are shrinking offering lower power and higher performance as well. Realistically, how much longer will PSU last in their current state? Technology would have to make a big change from the path(shrinking) that it has followed for half a century now.
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Building my own computers, not for resale, I will always oversize my PSU anyway. Let me elaborate a little bit here though. Just because you are running a 1000 watt PSU doesn't mean that you are pulling that wattage, it just means that it is capable of doing it. So if your rig is pulling 300 watts it will pull that regardless of the PSU size assuming it can handle it. But when it comes to a point of efficiency, assuming a very high end PSU, the larger supply may be more efficient at given loads. This is due to the cooling necessary at different percentages of load to the PSU. A 1000 watt PSU pulling 30% in contrast with a 350 Watt power supply pulling high 90% will be running the same load, but the smaller PSU will be in full active cooling while the larger one is probably not even running its fan. The other, and more important thing, is about voltage stability. As clock frequency continues to rise and voltage levels drop the need for dead clean power has never been more important. The bigger power supply will usually have dedicated rails and bigger caps that will separate and hold things when an overload happens. I have been around more than one undersized junk PSU that when a fan started pulling funny the computer would occasionally crash. For me on any build I will always get the biggest, Titanium + rated PSU I possibly can. I have just had too many problems trying to save a few bucks and building an unstable rig.
 
jasonf2 said:
Building my own computers, not for resale, I will always oversize my PSU anyway. Let me elaborate a little bit here though. Just because you are running a 1000 watt PSU doesn't mean that you are pulling that wattage, it just means that it is capable of doing it. So if your rig is pulling 300 watts it will pull that regardless of the PSU size assuming it can handle it. But when it comes to a point of efficiency, assuming a very high end PSU, the larger supply may be more efficient at given loads. This is due to the cooling necessary at different percentages of load to the PSU. A 1000 watt PSU pulling 30% in contrast with a 350 Watt power supply pulling high 90% will be running the same load, but the smaller PSU will be in full active cooling while the larger one is probably not even running its fan. The other, and more important thing, is about voltage stability. As clock frequency continues to rise and voltage levels drop the need for dead clean power has never been more important. The bigger power supply will usually have dedicated rails and bigger caps that will separate and hold things when an overload happens. I have been around more than one undersized junk PSU that when a fan started pulling funny the computer would occasionally crash. For me on any build I will always get the biggest, Titanium + rated PSU I possibly can. I have just had too many problems trying to save a few bucks and building an unstable rig.
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Sorry but putting the biggest 1000w Titanium PSU in every rig is a massive waste of money.

Seasonic, Corsair, EVGA, and way more, make plenty of PSUs that are excellent quality in the 550w range which can power 90% of system builds out there, efficiently, quietly, and use components that are just as well built as their 1000w models.
 
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Rogue Leader said:
Sorry but putting the biggest 1000w Titanium PSU in every rig is a massive waste of money.

Seasonic, Corsair, EVGA, and way more, make plenty of PSUs that are excellent quality in the 550w range which can power 90% of system builds out there, efficiently, quietly, and use components that are just as well built as their 1000w models.
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I think massive is a little overstated. In an apples to apples comparison that last 300-400 watts is usually $50-$70 more. The big jump is up buying the 80+ to the titanium. I pull my rig pretty hard all of the time (folding at home) and gaining 16% energy efficiency. I run folding at home constantly on my threadripper and for the 500 watts I pull continuously the titanium saves me around $85 a year in electricity over the 80+. I hardly consider that to be a huge waste of money.
 
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jasonf2 said:
I think massive is a little overstated. In an apples to apples comparison that last 300-400 watts is usually $50-$70 more. The big jump is up buying the 80+ to the titanium.
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$50-$70 on an item that costs $100-$150 is a massive jump.

I have a Seasonic Prime Titanium 750 which was $149 at the time. The 1000w version was $230 (at the time, now its impossible to get). Yeah I went way overkill but I'm also running a Vega 64 LC which needs something that can absorb very large transient spikes. The equivalent 750w Focus Gold PSU which is still good was only about $120. When the wattage spikes towards 1000 the price really spikes. Most however people are not running the GPU that I am running, any of the high end Nvidia GPUs for example don't have such power requirements, nor does anything current from AMD.

My other system with a 2080 Super and a 3700x runs a 600w PSU, barely pulls over 400w, and the PSU is not even breaking a sweat. I don't hear the fan on it at all.

You just don't need to throw a ton of wattage at any system to guarantee safety, there is plenty in the lower wattage range, and not necessarily Titanium, that can do the job more than safely and quietly.
 
Rogue Leader said:
$50-$70 on an item that costs $100-$150 is a massive jump.

I have a Seasonic Prime Titanium 750 which was $149 at the time. The 1000w version was $230 (at the time, now its impossible to get). Yeah I went way overkill but I'm also running a Vega 64 LC which needs something that can absorb very large transient spikes. The equivalent 750w Focus Gold PSU which is still good was only about $120. When the wattage spikes towards 1000 the price really spikes. Most however people are not running the GPU that I am running, any of the high end Nvidia GPUs for example don't have such power requirements, nor does anything current from AMD.

My other system with a 2080 Super and a 3700x runs a 600w PSU, barely pulls over 400w, and the PSU is not even breaking a sweat. I don't hear the fan on it at all.

You just don't need to throw a ton of wattage at any system to guarantee safety, there is plenty in the lower wattage range, and not necessarily Titanium, that can do the job more than safely and quietly.
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As a point of percentage I concede. As part of a $2000+ (In my case closer to 4000) build I don't really worry too much about my power supply costing even a hundred dollars more to maintain stability and headroom for unknown future power pull. If I were building for sale that is a totally different conversation.
 
jasonf2 said:
As a point of percentage I concede. As part of a $2000+ (In my case closer to 4000) build I don't really worry too much about my power supply costing even a hundred dollars more to maintain stability and headroom for unknown future power pull. If I were building for sale that is a totally different conversation.
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We will have to agree to disagree. Don't get me wrong, you NEED to not cheap out on a PSU on all builds. But theres spending the right amount on a good one, and there is lighting money on fire.
 
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jasonf2 said:
I think massive is a little overstated.
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No, it's not. If anything, it's UNDERstated. I like to see unit choice have some headroom as well, but choosing a 1000w unit for a system that only needs 750w or less (And already HAS headroom with such a model) is simply unnecessarily overkill, expensive and likely DOESN'T save any money on your electric bill, but contributes to it instead.

That being said, I'd definitely prefer to see a user get a unit that's appropriate to their usage, but if they are going to lean one way or the other then a little TOO big is a certainly a lot more acceptable than a little too small.
 
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I like to point out most people barely hit 300w. And that's only when gaming. An i5 or 3600 with a 2060, 580, etc will be around 300W. Most gaming rigs are this. And i would argue most of the time you won't even be gaming. Streaming, surging, etc that rig will only be pulling 100w or so. Even with a 750W psu, you'll be using less than half of the output. And when streaming you'll be using less then 20% which is where 80+ starts. Oversizing the psu might seem like a good idea, but it can mathematically fail.
 
When it comes to PC hardware, ANY product with "Lite" in the name or description should be avoided by rote.

I don't think I've EVER seen a positive review for any power supply "lite" version. Or any other "lite" version of hardware for that matter. Lite generally equals "CRAP".
 
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