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PSU Overkill?

Hot Sauce

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 10, 2005
Messages
154
Is there any disadvantages of having a power supply that is much better than I need? I was planning on getting a 550W (which is more than enough), and then found out that the 650W was 5 dollars cheaper. Now I've just found out that the 750W is 10 dollars cheaper. Will the 750W have disadvantages of it's capabilities? More energy consumption, or something?
 
Brands please? Because if they're closely priced like that, it's more than likely a peice of shit PSU to begin with.

But to answer your question, having a higher capacity PSU basically gives you more headroom, meaning if later down the road, you do decide to keep that psu, the higher wattage on that particular psu will allow you to run an even higher-end computer
 
Corsair TX650W 650W ATX 12V 52A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan
$20.00 Mail In Rebate! $89.99 After rebate

Corsair TX750W 750W ATX 12V 60A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan
$40.00 Mail In Rebate! $85.93 After rebate

Corsair VX550W 550W ATX 12V 41A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan
$10.00 Mail In Rebate! $89.99 After rebate

What the hell.. I could've sworn the 650W was 5 cheaper than the 550W.
 
Corsairs certainly aren't crap.

And no, there's no real disadvantage if they'll be installed in a reasonably high draw (300+ watts at the wall under load) machine. The Corsairs have a very flat derating curve, so if you manage to load them past about 20% of their rated output they get up in to the 80%+ efficiency range, and from there it doesn't really matter.

It's not like having a PSU rated for 750 watts max output is going to draw 750 watts at the wall all the time or anything like that, which is what most people worry about when buying a PSU that's "more than they need", though I suspect you already know that.

Also, if you intend to keep a PSU several years through more than one build it is a good idea to buy "more than you need" initially because component degradation will drop its true available maximum output over time. If you buy a 750 watt unit now and only use ~400 watts at absolute max load, then re-use it in a new build in 4 years, it likely won't be capable of 750 watts, bu more like 675... but putting it in a machine with ~600 watts max draw won't have any ill effects. Similar degrading of the 550 watt rated unit could prove troublesome.

Of course, I'm exaggerating somewhat and oversimplifying to a degree, but you get the idea.
 
You get lower efficiency when you have a lot more power than you need. It's not huge though. Other than that, it won't hurt a thing.
 
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