Discussion PSU tier list discussion thread

[jonnyguru]

I was talking about the V2 the whole time. I didn't even notice the V1 in the list because I glazed over the multiple rail section.

I don't know why I bother. I mean, I can make a complete garbage PSU that will blow up in under a year, but if the ripple is low it's tier A?

And what do you mean about GW consistency? With every production run, we get what's called a CPK report that takes the Chroma reports from a few hundred units off the line and those are looked over for any inconsistencies. If there were actual inconsistencies, I'd know about it. I think the inconsistencies are in the reviewer's test equipment and methodology.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I don't know why I bother. I mean, I can make a complete garbage PSU that will blow up in under a year, but if the ripple is low it's tier A?

This is EXACTLY what I just posted, basically, right before you posted this. If ripple scores are all that is needed to get a unit onto tier A, then the whole list is a wash and is useless. Worse than that actually, because it's also dangerous, misleading and deceptive as well.

 

[USAFRet]

Personally, I think it should be 3 Levels:

1. Use without reservation, without issue. Wattage appropriate, of course.
2. Use for a low power system. Office, iGPU, etc.
3. Investigate the details of your fire insurance .

Agree or disagree, that's my opinion.

 

[jonnyguru]

This is EXACTLY what I just posted, basically, right before you posted this. If ripple scores are all that is needed to get a unit onto tier A, then the whole list is a wash and is useless. Worse than that actually, because it's also dangerous, misleading and deceptive as well.

I mean.. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. I not only have tear downs, but I run every sample on the Chroma. It's just like I do a PSU review for every product except for writing a review would be a conflict of interest. Yet I can say, "this is good" and "this is bad" and why and it just doesn't matter because there's no review published to show it.

 

[Juular]

that is isn't going to be getting that same result if it is retested in six months to a year after being hammered for a while.

The problem with this is that these claims are not quantifiable, or at least no one have tested this AFAIK. I understand that very much like with relying on single review per lineup for the purposes of tiering a whole lineup there might be problems asising from underrated components choice but i just don't see a way to incorporate that into the methodology

If there were actual inconstancies, I'd know about it. I think the inconsistencies are in the reviewer's test equipment and methodology.

I don't know that the target for ripple on it but we have 53mV ripple on 750W SKU review, then 27mV on 650W one and then back to 42mV at 550W one, looks pretty inconsistent to me. Two last ones also have identical production date part of the LOT code so they're supposedly the same batch ?

I mean, I can make a complete garbage PSU that will blow up in under a year, but if the ripple is low it's tier A?

The other way around, ripple isn't the only thing to PSUs obviously, but if it's a good PSU overall but still has higher ripple than most units supposedly on it's level then sorry but it's not. Now we don't have a hard data on how important ripple actually is but as far as i can tell the general consensus is that somewhere lower than 50mV it ceases to matter much therefore that were our setting point for high-end stuff. But i'm open to feedback from you obviously, we haven't really asked anyone about this yet, it's just IIRC that both Aris and Jeremy have their preferences somewhere around this number too.
Now back to low ripple garbage unit, of course if there would be some known problems with some units blowing up, failing frequently - we'll detier it as soon as we'll have such feedback. But i reiterate for another time, it's not that easy to see just from components breakdown if some particular design is good or bad, there needs to be a testing and reviews and users feedback is the closest thing we have to that.
But sure, i think it would be reasonable to incorporate your feedback GPX at least, we'll discuss that internally.

Personally, I think it should be 3 Levels

So what are criteria you would place for a units to be in level 1 ? We need something quantifiable, not just "it's Seasonic Prime - it's good". Very much like with reviews on any other hardware, PSUs aren't much different. If hard data shows that something should be good - there still may be QC and reliability issues, look at Enermax AIOs for example, they've performed very good on GN reviews, and yet, what a disaster they proven to be reliability wise. If we'll have such bad feedback on some PSUs that seem to perform good in reviews then we'll reflect that in the list no questions, and we already did, look at Seasonic Focus, EVGA G3 and a whole bunch of other units out there that ended up detiered to lower tiers or put in low priority subtier due to issues of various magnitude.
Basically, what you're proposing here we already have, level 1 are tier A gold units, they're all well reviewed, have good performance and we're confident in them. Level 2 is like anything else in tiers A, B, C and some select units from tier D but there are various levels to budget units and thus we don't just put them in one big pile. Level 3 are pretty everything else from tiers D and E.

It's just like I do a PSU review for every product except for writing a review would be a conflict of interest.

Exactly ... like, it would be foolish still to ignore your data but with we can't just work with these random claims. Or rather we can, but we need more of them to paint the whole picture, and well, it needs to be public, which i guess isn't possible anyway.
Edit: Or at the very least we could probably use that data under NDA you / Corsair should be willing to share something in the first place. So we could confidently say 'it's bad' based on hard data without sharing that data per se.

 

[USAFRet]

So what are criteria you would place for a units to be in level 1 ?

I Do Not Know.
I am not a PSU expert, nor have ever claimed to be.
But basically....Will this actually work for a hot rod system? Y/N?

I'm just looking at this from a usability aspect.
Tier 2.A.i, Grey denotes one thing.
Tier 2.A.i, Orange denotes a different thing.

Nonsense.

The minutiae we get into here is lost on the vast majority of people who need some actual advice.
And often, used to browbeat others over the head.
In another forum I own and run, I seriously had to pull back from multiple levels of "rules", etc.
Over the years, more and more rules (levels?) were instituted.
There was no way to encapsulate every possible instance in the rules and definitions. Users were using those holes to berate others for a misstep.

So I pulled it back to just a very few basic rules.

Just like here, there is no way to encapsulate all the myriad differences of power supplies.
If you have 100 of them, you would end up with 100 "tiers".


Again, this was/is simply my opinion. Use it, ignore it....whatever.

 

[USAFRet]

Addendum:
If the above makes me look like a person who does not know and can't be bothered about specific differences, and is a non-geek....you couldn't be more wrong.

I'm looking at this list and functionality from the viewpoint of 'the person out there'.
The one who REALLY needs the info, in a non-confusing way.

 

[Juular]

Just like here, there is no way to encapsulate all the myriad differences of power supplies.
If you have 100 of them, you would end up with 100 "tiers".

Yeah, i get ya, but what this tier list is supposed to be in the first place is merely a ballpark guide to people who don't know about PSUs a thing to choose them on their own, and asking random people out there for advice doesn't work well more often than not too. Any additional information is good in this scenario, and we're providing it. Of course we're trying to make it more definitive but realistically we'll never get to this point.

 

[USAFRet]

As said above...my opinion. Take it or leave it, as desired.
This is YOUR thing. Run with it.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Two versions of tier list. One for noobs or those who don't want to "know all that stuff about the power supply, just whether it's good or not and isn't going to blow up on me" and one for those who "need every detail because they like it like that".

Post the simpler version, with five tiers, very good, good, mediocre, not so good and WTF is the matter with you people, at the top of the page with the more advanced version down below it for those that want more meat and potatoes on their plate.

Again, just another idea. Not saying you should or must do it that way, just a thought.

Fact is, 90% of the people who go looking for a tier list want a quick, easily understood list of "buy this" and "don't buy this", plus "buy this only if you're really in a pinch". They are not looking for "this unit had 54mv ripple and uses Rubycon capacitors plus some flavor of very high end mosfet. They're looking for "if you buy this, it won't be a mistake because it's great", or "this is a pretty good unit, not the best, but really good", or "this is garbage and you would be wise to stay away from it".

The other ten percent, either already know how to find out whether a unit is good or not and what exactly "good" constitutes for a given power supply, or will be willing to scroll down the page or visit a separate link to get that information. If there is a way to do both, on one list, so much the better.

 

[Karadjgne]

I voted for kiss. No sub tiers. Just keep listings by Vendor, it's far easier to spot irregularities. For instance, a 3 color system, black is good, gray is ok, orange/red is not good. But thats me. I find it easier if running through a vendor of there's just 1 place to look, and see which models are worthy and which aren't. There's enough similarities with some models that it's easy to make assumptions, without looking further.

But like UR said, it's your thing.

 

[Juular]

Fact is, 90% of the people who go looking for a tier list want a quick, easily understood list of "buy this" and "don't buy this", plus "buy this only if you're really in a pinch

I don't see how this contradicts to this tier list, we just have more levels of 'buy' and 'don't buy this' as it's not as simple as putting all the PSUs out there in just two bins. As for more advanced version, what exactly do you want to see there we already don't have here or on the spreadsheet ?

 

[Darkbreeze]

I don't see how this contradicts to this tier list, we just have more levels of 'buy' and 'don't buy this' as it's not as simple as putting all the PSUs out there in just two bins. As for more advanced version, what exactly do you want to see there we already don't have here or on the spreadsheet ?

Nothing. What you have now IS the more advanced version.

 

[Juular]

Nothing. What you have now IS the more advanced version.

Okay, so you actually want to see less advanced version, like simple one ? What criteria you propose for buy and don't buy 'tiers' then ? Like, buy Seasonic Prime and don't buy Corsair VS ? There are hundreds of PSUs out there, it all depends on the price and availability, 'don't buy' in one region would be 'buy' in another, we try to maintain balance between complexity and enough information to tell people at a glance that one PSU is better than the other. We've merged A+ and S units into tier A under multirail subtier, merged tiers C and D recently to make it simpler, and yet added gold color and gray/low-priority to better tell what are differences between units in the tier. Added notes also to tell people what's wrong with some units they see there at a glance without the need to go to spreadsheet. If you wish, i actually treat this tier list as simple version, because more advanced version is when people do their own research or at least go lurk the spreadsheet a bit to see the methodology, refer to the reviews of units they plan to buy etc. I just don't see for now how to make it even more simple without sacrificing important details.

I voted for kiss. No sub tiers. Just keep listings by Vendor, it's far easier to spot irregularities. For instance, a 3 color system, black is good, gray is ok, orange/red is not good.

Well, that's one way to make it simpler ... I'll try to make a visual example of this to see if it would work well.

 

[Vic 40]

Yeah, i get ya, but what this tier list is supposed to be in the first place is merely a ballpark guide to people who don't know about PSUs a thing to choose them on their own

From what i get is this list primarely for people who want to go and buy a psu new, there are alot of old series in there that you shouldn't be able to buy or just can't anymore. Wouldn't it be wise to take those out and declutter this list?

 

[Juular]

From what i get is this list primarely for people who want to go and buy a psu new, there are alot of old series in there that you shouldn't be able to buy or just can't anymore. Wouldn't it be wise to take those out and declutter this list?

Yeah, we basically have sort backup of tier list in the spreadsheet in the form of 'Units index' sheet with recently added 'Tier' column, when we'll fill it out completely we could then remove very old units from the tier list itself. We just need more people for that as despite we already have some, everyone is lazy (including me) and we don't go anywhere 😀

 

[Darkbreeze]

IDK. There are often a lot of people in regions where very old units are what they have available. Plus, people tend to bring out new old stock in situations like the current one where there is little availability on something. I think old units remaining in the list is a good idea. This is something we used to argue with Dottorent about too, taking older units out of the list and then people would come out of the woodwork asking why X model power supply wasn't listed.

 

[Juular]

Yeah, that's why i still want to keep them in the spreadsheet as a reference and purge some really old stuff from the list itself but that's for when we'll actually fill out the spreadsheet in the first place.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'd say it might make sense to have one tier list, which is kept current and only lists units which are still being sold in major markets, and then another one you could link to on the page somewhere that is never purged of units but just gets newer ones added to it as they are released and tiered. That way you can simply refer somebody straight to the other list if they are looking for a model you've purged from the primary list, and they don't have to go poring over a spreadsheet trying to figure out where does this belong on there IF it was still on there.

It also wouldn't require any extra work on your part EXCEPT for adding the newer models to the list, which you have to do anyhow so really it doesn't add any additional work other than putting it up somewhere or creating a separate thread for it.

 

[Juular]

it doesn't add any additional work other than putting it up somewhere or creating a separate thread for it.

And moving stuff around and updating one more thread for changes. I think spreadsheet solution is easier and in fact more flexible, if you're looking for some really old stuff then you most likely look only for one specific model, you just open the spreadsheet, look for this unit placed under the brand which are sorted alphabetically and look at the tier column.

 

[Rogue Leader]

And moving stuff around and updating one more thread for changes. I think spreadsheet solution is easier and in fact more flexible, if you're looking for some really old stuff then you most likely look only for one specific model, you just open the spreadsheet, look for this unit placed under the brand which are sorted alphabetically and look at the tier column.

I agree with this regarding old units. I think the amount of people who will be looking them up is low, and just an alphabetical list would be fine. Its not like you're cross comparing multiple old units. That said due to emerging markets still marking some older stuff as new we would need to figure out a good cutoff point. Since this is a worldwide list....

 

[Karadjgne]

2 lists. US/EU and Indo/Asia. Those are the 2 real markets, and what's good and available in US/EU markets is rarely in the Indo/Asia market, which is still selling green/orange print CX/VS units, S12-II, RedDragon etc.

 

[Juular]

2 lists. US/EU and Indo/Asia. Those are the 2 real markets, and what's good and available in US/EU markets is rarely in the Indo/Asia market, which is still selling green/orange print CX/VS units, S12-II, RedDragon etc.

To put it simply, we don't have resources to maintain two versions of the tier list. Putting everything in the spreadsheet first and cutting units that aren't available at all even in the farthest corners of the world is one thing, but making an another tier list version would double the work.

 

[King_V]

I agree with this regarding old units. I think the amount of people who will be looking them up is low, and just an alphabetical list would be fine. Its not like you're cross comparing multiple old units. That said due to emerging markets still marking some older stuff as new we would need to figure out a good cutoff point. Since this is a worldwide list....

I'm not sure - I seem to stumble across more questions than I'd expect that ask about a PSU that, when I try to look up some info, have reviews from, say 2012 or earlier. I'm just one guy, though, and NOT a PSU expert at all.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I'm not sure - I seem to stumble across more questions than I'd expect that ask about a PSU that, when I try to look up some info, have reviews from, say 2012 or earlier. I'm just one guy, though, and NOT a PSU expert at all.

But i'd say they aren't cross comparing that unit with more 2012 vintage units. There are some PSUs that were designed that long ago (S12II for example) that are still "current", but I don't think its enough to let everything sit there cluttering the list... over time.