@Ziv Zulander Anand is the literal definition of a sellout. Anandtech has slipped to the point where they are now doing paid reviews. Brian Klug was fantastic, the best writer at that time on Anandtech.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, PCWorld, for bringing in an expert to talk about A VERY IMPORTANT component of a PC. And no, I am NOT being sarcastic!
Agreed, the question asked are great too. Most interviewers never delve into any detailed questions or anything worthwhile. Very interesting discussion over all.
garbage yes. but then again some people (friend of mine in this particular case) run VS with a FX series processor with a 1070 and never bothering to clean their rig. i've had a good laugh dissing the people who built the pc, dissing him and his rig
I have an AX860 and it's fantastic. That being said seasonic titanium models are the pinnacle in my opinion. Most normal people should just focus on getting a gold rated unit from any reputable brand - emphasis on "reputable".
Yeah i have a Seasonic titanium but most of the time i find myself recommending gold rated PSUs from either Seasonic, EVGA, Corsair to my friends. There's just so much quality and value with the 10 year warranty they all provide. A quality 550W-650W is enough for pretty much any gaming PC norwadays
The Seasonic Prime Titanium is absolutely not the pinnacle. That's not about opinion, that's fact. The AX1600i is objectively the best PSU by any measure, except for things like watts/litre. By your suggestion, the EVGA G1/NEX 80+ Gold would be a good buy. It's absolutely not. It's based on the Aurum, and it's very low end, group regulated and absolute hot garbage.
@@MrSeon123 Your being pedantic. In one extremely niche segment with the insane wattage.... Corsair win. But every other segment Seasonic rule the roost. That's a fact! Also its not impossible to buy a lemon from a reputable brand, but it's unusual so I stand by my advice.
@@Buffinator1988 No matter how much power your PC draw, the AX1600i will outperform any Seasonic. If you want the pinnacle of PSUs, you get that, and just ignore the wattage. Besides, would you really call the Prime the "pinnacle", when it lacks any options for multi rail OCP, and uses a super crappy fan? And because it's Seasonic, it will have worse QC than PSUs from larger companies. This is due to Seasonic outsourcing so much.
I followed Johnny recommendations on my second high end build nearly 10 years ago on my i7 extreme cpu build. Still going strong and didn't cheap out on the psu.
I've been using my two FSP Platinum PSUs for 5 years now. One reason even good PSUs blow is that people get the power from an interactive line UPS not an online one. Making the PSU overwork to correct for those stair voltage steps. Remember, these PSUs are active. They will constantly try to match the voltage peak and current to the same time for highest efficiency aka same degree. It'll be a constant of .99 or 1 on your watt meter. Use online UPS if you have to use one with these active PSUs.
He's always been a good source for finding out if a PSU is good or not. What he said about older type power supplies explains the issue with the one in my rig now. I just ordered a replacement not too long ago, just have to swap it in
If you live in a country where the power goes out when it rains. Then you know you need to have extra surge protectors running before you attache the PSU.
"An overworked capacitor is the same as an overheated capacitor." These things are good to know when it comes to why one should reserve money for the PSU. High ripple will work, but your mainboard could randomly die after 2 years.
So are all modular cables interchangeable between brands? I guess what im trying to say is there a standard like say usb where all connectors are the same?
I'd use something like a rotating variable filter or mask in front of the UV bulb so all the glowy bits would twinkle and shimmer and vary in intensity :D
Been using a Corsair HX1200i for a few years and very happy with it, love that you can see all the data in iQue and also control the fan, I run the fan at min rpm, it's only a few degrees difference but fans are cheap to replace and if running cooler will make the PSU last longer I don't mind changing the fan when it eventually fails. It's not true, the efficiency is not linear I can see in iQue W in and W out + efficiency graph and under 100W the efficiency falls below 80% so at idle it not very efficient.
Another thing that I consider is if you always have a heater in operation it makes no sense to care about energy "waste" converted to heat in the same area you're paying to heat anyway.
The two components in your system that you should never cheap out on are your motherboard and your power supply. Both are directly connected to every other component in your build, and both will give you random instability that you can't troubleshoot (at best), or will fail spectacularly and wreck who knows what else in your system when they do.
@@Zarrx having decent electric service I never use a surge protector. I rely on my PSU to filter and regulate the current my systems run on. That's it's job after all. Although I did lose some equipment a while back due to a lightning strike. No computers but I lost a network switch. Likely due to poor isolation between the primary and secondary. Or rather non-existent isolation. Cheap wall warts are cheap.
@@Zarrx Modern, high-quality power supplies have a lot of the same protection features that are built into high-end surge protectors and power line conditioners. Over/under current protection, over/under voltage (surge/brownout) protection, line filtering, etc. I wouldn't use your PC's power supply as a surge protector, but high-quality power supplies can and do pick up the slack of surge protectors (within reason). So to answer your question: Yes it could have been a crappy surge protector, but a quality power supply would have probably saved his components.
My old Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750 80 PLUS Bronze (TX750) that I bought in 2013 became unstable this year. It still works but it makes my PC power off at random times. I replaced it with an EVGA 750w PSU and it no longer powers off randomly.
Didn't know he's working for Corsair now. He helped me determine if my ~6 yr. old FSP Raider 650W was dying and causing reboots during games. Was already eyeing the CXM550 as a replacement and now no more reboots.
Second rate capacitors and really mediocre 12V ripple already as new (would say FSP overrated it by 100W) aren't good starting place for longevity. www.hardwaresecrets.com/fsp-raider-650-w-power-supply-review/2/ www.hardwaresecrets.com/fsp-raider-650-w-power-supply-review/8/ Again that CX550M is equally far from good with some cheap caps and failure to meet hold up time of ATX spec and lacking protections: www.hardwareinsights.com/corsair-cx550m-farewell-group-design/7/#Conclusion-and-evaluation That model was clearly devised by some bean counter looking for way to get more profits by using brand image to sell substandard crap. Would treat it with some derating and replace before five years. Unless your PC use is at most hour or two per day.
I had dual 6990s for a while, with both of them switched to the alternate BIOS 1.1kW or higher from the wall was more than possible. Eventually replaced them with a single 1080ti and now that 1200W PSU seems like complete overkill when it used to be mandatory so sometimes it even goes the other way.
I have an old power supply that can max out at 645 watts, but has a dial on the back plate (external) and you can control output on the fly. It also has a system demand monitor that shows how much the system is pulling and you just dial it to 15+ watts over the draw rate. It has no brand name on it as it was a custom creation and the case mount and SPU shroud have an odd bracket that cannot be put into any other ATX or microatx case. It's weird but absolutely silent. It has one giant fan that exhausts upwards instead of the rear panel. The case has a fan grid on the top of the case. The case and PSU came out of a private bank server room that ended use in 2006 and was manufactured in the USA in 2002. Lack of branding is weird but it's entirely custom and has been powering (with adapters) my gaming PC from 2009 to 2019 and as of this post, still in use on an Asus board, AMD Phenom II 1055T and a AMD Radeon R9 380G by MSI. It used to power an old MSI K9Neo board with AMD Athlon XP and AMD Radeon HD 5770. For a PSU that old to still be operational today with zero issues is madness. It just works.
One myth I would also like to have debunked if he is reading the comments... Haveing it always on vs turning on and off. I see several comments bragging how long the powersupplies have run, and many without even being turned off. But what I have heard is, that it's actually better for them to just run non stop than being turned on and off, as that puts a lot more stress on the components! Is there any validity to this? If there is, that could be why I never had a faulty PSU on my hands :)
Well when you turn it on, it heats up, components including solder joints expand. When you turn it off, everything cools off, components and solder joints contract. It is definately plausible as this effect does indeed shorten the life of electronics in other environments. For example, this effect caused the terrible solder in the Xbox 360 to fail.
I was actually debating which of those two PSUs in this video to get, either the SF600 Gold or Platinum, until I ready JohnnyGuru's review which said the SF600 Platinum basically has all the same high quality components used in Titanium PSUs but can't call it Titanium due to the SFX form factor, which made me go with the Platinum version in the end. Was a great decision. Literally never hear it (apparently the gold can actually get kinda noisy), and the easily flexible individually sleeved cables really come in handy in SFF builds when you have to get creative to get decent cable management. Not to mention an SFX > ATX adapter alone costs $10, which came in handy when switching cases.
Those SFX to ATX adapters are like 30 cents to produce. Silverstone supplies them with even their cheapest 300W SFX models. Not a big deal. Flexible cables sure are nice though.
I always thought efficiency rating just meant longevity. My 750 watt Corsair power supply is gold rated and it's powered my last 3 builds, and hopefully the 4th as well. I believe that I'm actually overprovisioned because the trend in electronics is smaller more power efficient components.
Bought an AX750 8-9years a go. The only part i have not upgraded through the years. It was not cheap but it's a high quality psu with 10years of warranty. Spending a bit more on a good psu is worth it imho
My Corsair AX 1200i, 1200W PSU was rubbish. Started to red-light shutdown on multi-rail (@ 14A according to their link software), switched to single and it still started to shut down. In the end the pc wouldn't even boot. Corsair got it back, and after 1 1/2 months hadn't got back with an answer to the supplier - ended up with the cash returned. You can be sure it's not going on another Corsair.
My take. Most important ripple. Meets voltage standard at rated current and ambient temperatures. Transient load response. Input power transient rejection. Circuit protection response. Power efficiency. In that order.
Man this guy was the last word on PSUs for a long ass time. I left the scene for a good amount of years and when I came back his site went to hell, I was wondering what happened to him. Didn't know Corsair hired him.
Damn, you weren't kidding about the site, it's all a bunch of javascript shit. Doesn't even have the review for my PSU anymore, although the thread it was linked in still exists. At least the forums still seem okay for now.
Thank you for clearing some things out for us old timers/OG's/90's kids about PSU Evolutions and that new PSU's has a linear efficiency compared to old topology that has a curved efficiency. I'm praying to God now that my VS550 80+ don't explode on my RX570 since you said newer graphics cards drinks power so fast that old topology can't keep up...
I think there are two main points in regards to overprovisioning, or getting a much bigger power supply than you technically need: 1) As was mentioned in this video, modern power supplies are now linear, rather than operating on a curve. It used to be that you wanted a power supply to operate at 50% load for optimum efficiency. Now that it's linear, it sounds like that no longer applies. Unless I misunderstood. 2) With the death of the using of multiple video cards, one of the biggest power consumers is gone. It used to be that you might want to add a second video card in the future, so you'd need a power supply large enough to accommodate that. That being said, you don't want to run your power supply at 90%+ all the time either, so you should have some excess. It's just nothing like it used to be.
@@averydangerouscat7381 Also, I don't know if it is or isn't still an issue, but I know power supplies used to produce less maximum power as they aged.
let me just say i love their RMi line, you can have HWInfo64 and RTSS display in-game on the OSD PSU stats like total system power draw, temperature, fan rpm efficiency etc. and their customer support is in my eyes 2nd to none, when i needed longer cables with more SATA connectors (bought more drives) they sent me cables from a higher model for FREE from the other side of the world. i dont buy PSUs often but when i do i really try to buy it from Corsair. but their monitoring app is poor, just use HWInfo64 and forget about iCue/Link or whatever that was.
I had a 600watt modular and a 1000watt modular. Put one of the 600watt cables into the 1000watt and hooked to my cases HDD dock and it melted the cables. HHD dock is now toast as the cables are melted. PC still works
Manny Calavera the jihn did anver this inderectly. Modern gpu switch power so quicly and run such high frequences that it does course coil whine unless the psu is state of the art and even then there sometimes is that whine.
I have to say they do have some good quality, and reliable PSU's. I bought a Gold AX650 650W in 2012 for my system, at the time was a GTX 650 Ti and an i3-3225. Since has been upgraded to an i5-3570k (oc'd to 4.0 @ 1.185v) and a GTX 970. This system has handled well with thousands of hours of gaming, and being on for up to a week at a time, before it's restarted and left on again. It even has survived a lightning strike that was so close to the house that blew the power, right after it made all the monitors and TV's flash brilliantly. Definitely on the list for the next up-coming upgrade.
Haven't the reviews on his site been done by OklahomaWolf for several years by now? I got the impression he was taking a hands off approach after signing with Corsair just for this reason.
Back in 2010 I was building two rigs and went with a review from TechGuru in choosing an XFX 550 and 750 Pro Bronze rated units. Both carried a 7 year warranty and I'm happy to say both are still going strong and metering out almost like when they were new. Sadly I'll have to go with another brand when I replace them as XFX has gotten out of the PSU game. So thanks for that review way back when John if you happen to be reading these comments...
Reminds me of building a car... People spend money on High HP motors and ignore the drive-train and blow out the axle after a few runs and potentially crashing the car.. The Power Supply is the drive train that supports it all. You got to have a quality PSU supporting all that expensive hardware.
My 1.5 yo Corsair CX750m started acting weird (coil whine, rattle and high fan noise). I don’t care for it anymore when it comes back from RMA so after some research I found Seasonic to be the oem supplier for their better quality units. Will be testing my luck with the Focus Plus PX750. Funny thing is before the CXm I had those crappy PSU’s that come with the case and never had an issue. Oh well... Thank you for this thoughtful video with the master himself 👌🏻
@@Eqpesan i just sent it back and bought a seasonic. never corsair again lol. first one had breaking sata connectors and the second a rattling fan. avoid the tx850m
one thing about Corsair is their warrantee - and just because of the service i have had - I would choose Corsair above any other - an honourable company
For a new Build I like to buy the PSU and Case first, since I consider them long term components, and I have them when the active components come in, and I am not cutting corners if the budget is running out. Better to cut the budget on GPU that will soon be behind the curve anyway. I have my RM850x just waiting for the rest of the components...
EVGA 550 G2 😋. It's Just a Plain Jane modular power supply with all Chemi-con caps and a 140mm ball bearing fan, all the while built like a tank. It was on sale for $89 on Amazon when I purchased it in April 2017.
I'm running an SF750 SFX PSU with an SSI-CEB dual socket MB inside a 19.5L Cerberus X case. The cables BARELY reach and the MB sockets are as close as possible to the PSU.
I liked the interview but wish it geeked out a little more. Like talking about brands of capacitors and shit. Are all Japanese Caps still best? And I'd like to know if he changed anything at Corsair. They made good PSUs to begin with but did he bring any recommendations with him?
I used to go by the HARDOCP reviews, ill have to check this guy out, I went with HARDOCP because they torture tested supplies in a hot box for 24 hours, pulled them apart and inspected every single component, tested the claims of the manufacturers and called them on them when they were false. They even caused a couple of power supplies to catch fire during testing - obviously those were a fail. Unfortunately the guy running it went to work for Intel.
Hardware secrets is also gone, there are some sites that test psu pretty good still around.
5 лет назад
I remember the days of the original IBM PC and AT and their clones. A fanless PSU would have made no sense because the fan in the power supply was the only driver of air flow in the case!
For the last several years I've liked Seasonic power supplies, and before that I was running PC Power and Cooling PSUs from before OCZ bought them. The only reason I replaced the PC P&C PSUs was because I needed more power and connections on the motherboards changed. While I have not had great luck with ThermalTake (I've seen a few fail, PSU only though, no damage to the computer components), I'll stand by the sentiment of stick with well known name brands even if you don't go expensive. They are typically far less likely to have any serious issues and really their lower end PSUs aren't that much more than the cheapest crap you can buy... although I personally would stick to mid-range or above. I absolutely love my current Focus 550W PSU. I don't think the fan has come on since I built the computer, and if it has I certainly haven't heard it. I've even had power flickers during storms that restarted my printer but my computers kept running and they aren't on batteries. That's something I remember seeing on my old PC Power and Cooling 250W Silencer and it's still impressive.
Bought my EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W P2 Platinum based on jonnyGuru. 5 years, several high end SLI/Crossfire builds and still flawless. 10 year warranty so won't be replacing it anytime soon :D Never cheap out on the PSU.
Many PSU's have died on me last 15 years, but i have 1 PSU that i've had for 11 years and its still working flawlessly, its a Coolermaster Realpower 520Watt, it must have over 10k operating hours.
I wish the companies would standardize their modular cables. Blew up three HDs by mixing up EVGA & Corsair cables. Yeah there was a little piece of paper in the box that said don't mix them, but the system was built at least two years earlier and I didn't remember that obscure warning. It was my fault, so I didn't ask for any replacements on the hardware, but I think if there is no standards, then they should have unique connectors, not just pinouts.
Actually that old method of weight still works if you look at the whole market range, not just the Corsair CX upwards. PSUs that Gordon mentioned, those no-name from somewhere that come with cheap cases, are still very light!
18:50 It absolutely is still true. Just look at the efficiency curve of any modern Corsair PSU. They max out at around 50% load. It's not as dramatic a difference as it used to be, but it's still a curve (his earlier comment about it being a flat line is nonsense).
Over-provisioning power supplies against your hardware *also* protects against bad power-factor situations that result in heavy voltage drop that would cause a supply that barely exceeds your system need to push into over-amperage ranges. It can effectively harden your system against some power fluctuations that would otherwise cause it to shut-down.
PSU efficiency not highest at 50%? Googled 'modern PSU efficiency curve' and every single example showed the peak at 50%. Can someone elaborate? What am I missing here?
I have been using the same power supply for over 10 years. I have upgraded twice and it’s still working not a problem. Never had a problem still going strong.
my issue that I have right now is with an HX850 corsair purchased in 2009 thing still runs great , its powering my R7 2700, 1070 TI build right now , its gone past its 7 year by 3 years , but when do I retire it ? I plan on getting a 3900X and I know overtime a psu is less efficient but is there a way for me to test the efficiency of my current 10 year old solider ? I dont mind purchasing another but I also feel bad about decommissioning a perfectly good working unit. Help Johnny !!
I have a PSU with over 10 years. Cooler Master 600 W, way way before all that jazz of gold, plus, silver and all that jazz. It has been used in all my systems till this day. I never got once a problem and I was even surprised one night with bad weather, electricity went out for like 1 sec and the power supply just saved my system and keep working. I clean my PC 2 times per year, I open my psu also and clean everything well inside. So, take care of your components and they last a life time. No need to spend 300 bucks on a PSU of course, unless you going to mine. For a normal usage, no need to go over board.
I choose a PSU with APFC, modular cables, 80 plus silver or better efficiency, silent fan, and high quality capacitors. Buy a high quality PSU even if it means skipping out on liquid cooling systems, going down a tier with your GPU and/or CPU, or settle for 32gb of ram instead of 64gb. You can always upgrade your rig at a later date and buying a midrange CPU instead of a high end mainstream CPU is not the end of the world.
So these power supplies can't detect all shorts, and it keeps sending power until eventually a bigger short occurs from melting, so wouldn't it be safer for power supplys to include a smoke detector, since they make them as small as 4cms
I had a Xion power supply before all these silver, gold labelling which heroically took the hit of a power surge that happened in my neighbourhood. I heard an explosion in the street (the transformer) then an explosion in my computer accompained with smoke... I panicked thinking that my motherboard was out. I have a fancy power bar with all these special coloured outlets and the thing just let the power surge go through. The PSU was the one which saved my motherboard.
@10:20 , yep that's why you don't use the FREE PSU's that come in cases , might be time to upgrade my old 10+ yr old corsair PSU's researched @ JonnyGuru for new topology , also interested in this software monitoring , still amazed the 500w in this pc has not died its pushing 24 hdd's 2x R9 290 ( unrestricted I know these can draw 300w ea have them limited to ~100w ea ) and an 4790K , remember buying up a heap of generic 500w PSU's from town and everyone popped just trying to run 1x R9 290 , disappointed in finding out PSU range is 0 - 50C , room is @ 20C and PC is idle with 52c air coming out , when under load it can be 70c ... @ 13:30 you mentioned something about longevity does this mean the newer topology might only last 2 years instead of 10+ the old topology ?
i've always followed jonny website.. however he never warned me high end psu's cables have a lot bigger wire gauge, 200 note psu and to hell with cable management.
Is a old seasonic bronze power supply still good? I have a single rail modular 850w-PSU and it doesn't come with all the fancy features like voltage monitor apps or fans that only turn on when it needs to ect.
Same OEM dosn't mean every psu looks the same under the hood, based on but not the final product. Almost all OEMs you listed are gone, think HEC dose the lower grade Corsairs, they use CWT or Flextronics for the higher end stuff exept the sub 1kw AX-series that is Seasonic.
