PSU

[Incongruous]

Hi all.

I recently posted a thread about my new beasty machine I was going to create, well I am almost done creating but have hitched on a snag, what PSU should I get? I can get a deal whereby a 1000 watt supply will only be about seventy more coins more expensive than a 750, would it be reasonable to do so?

[Whacker]

Quality, not quantity.

First, power supplies degrade over time, just like batteries. You'll want to ensure that you pick a PSU that has enough power to handle your rig, and to handle it over the amount of time you want keep that PC. This is what most people use to gauge this.

Second, not all PSUs are built alike. Certain brands are generally better than others. PC Power and Cooling makes bulletproof devices that give wonderfully clean power and last for years, but you're going to pay out the wazoo for them. I personally have a Thermaltake this round which hasn't given me any problems so far. HardOCP generally gives fair, balanced reviews of power supplies, so it couldn't hurt to pick one that they liked.

A good mantra to live by when building PCs; "never skimp on a good PSU or quality RAM".

[Incongruous]

Thanks Whacker.

[Lemur]

HardOCP generally gives fair, balanced reviews of power supplies, so it couldn't hurt to pick one that they liked.

Does anybody pay attention to Tom's Hardware anymore? Man, I remember when they were the last word in computer parts. Now ... what happened to them? How did they fall so low?

Another great site for hardware roundups is Anandtech. Here's their case/cooling/PSU section.

[Whacker]

Does anybody pay attention to Tom's Hardware anymore? Man, I remember when they were the last word in computer parts. Now ... what happened to them? How did they fall so low?

Another great site for hardware roundups is Anandtech. Here's their case/cooling/PSU section.

Oh, so NOW you come back here! After abandoning us and we now have one of the worst assistant mods in the history of these forums!??!! (b&?)



Seriously though, Tom's Hardware was/is one of the absolutely most biased, unfair, sellout sites I've ever run across in my many years doing IT. It was bleedingly obvious that Intel was paying them generously to run favorable reviews of their products, likewise with Nvidia. It became so bad that for a year or so there, even the non-tech savvy people were starting to figure it out. I think these days the majority of people have figured them out, and as such the reputation there has suffered.

Anandtech isn't nearly as bad, however I have seen enough of what they do and also HOW they do reviews to effectively discount them most of the time. I still do read them occasionally to get their side of the picture, but moreso for informational purposes as opposed to decision-making.

In regards to the why and the how, generally what these review sites will do is they will accept some major advertising funding from a manufacturer and turn around and post a favorable review of their product(s). This is also the major controversy behind gaming review sites and how they work, as several journalists have outed this practice in recent years. As I mentioned, you will be hard pressed to find an article portrarying Intel in a bad light on Tom's Hardware, even back when they were floundering with the crappy P4 and losing soundly to AMD few years ago. How they go about doing this is they will "stack" the deck for the product they are looking to come out ahead. For video cards, one can determine this by looking at what games and benchmarks are being used, and also how they are configured. For processors, AMD has generally been stronger at certain types of computing than Intel, and vica versa. Many applications are also heavily optimized for Intel's SSE instructions, which often makes a world of difference in synthetic benchmark results. For gaming, the video card manufacturers figured out that reviewers loved using so-called "canned" benchmarks that ship with products, so they quite literally started optimizing their drivers specifically for the benchmarks that were shipping with the games, and not overall performance at all. Nvidia was caught red-handed with this back in the Quake 3 engine days, but I don't remember what game.

Etc etc etc.

"Stacking" CAN be hard to detect if you aren't looking for it and/or don't have the technical knowledge to see it, but it's still prevalant. Tom's Hardware lost all cred many years ago. Anandtech has a number of questionable practices when it comes to how they operate (specifically in terms of synthetic and "canned" benchmark usage). HardOCP generally seems to be fair and balanced, they use good methodologies for performing their tests, they're open about how and what they do, and I haven't seen much or any bias in what they do. I generally don't stay too on top of things these days, except when it comes time for me to get a new PC when I will do a marathon crash course for familiarity, so others may also have some good sites that they believe in that they can suggest here.

Hope this was helpful. If not, then go pound sand!!

[ICantSpellDawg]

how easy is it to replace a power supply? Just open pc, unplug, re-plug and use?

[Lemur]

No, the mobo has its connection, the video card has its connection, the hard drives have their connections, the DVD drives have theirs, etc., etc.

About the only thing that doesn't require a lead is the sound card, assuming you have one, which most modern gaming rigs don't. Recreational PCs are hungry beasts.