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  • Yuriman - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I'd argue that most home PCs without discrete graphics card are more in the 125-175w range, and many of those with lower end discrete cards (e.g. 1050 Ti) are still coming in under 200w, yet it's rare to find any company offering power supplies that cater to this market. Maybe the casual-use desktop is dead in the ATX form factor? Is everyone using NUC / micro PC / laptops instead?
  • Yuriman - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I can't imagine power supplies being particular efficient in machines which idle at 5% of their total capacity, and torture test at less than 40%.
  • A5 - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    To answer your last question - yeah, the casual-use desktop is basically dead for home users. The big OEMs all still make some for businesses and the few people who want them, but they also right-size the PSUs on custom-order.
  • Jhlot - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    Exactly I am a light gamer (1050 Ti class) at this age and with time constraint of having young kids. I want a gold rated modular 300w supply at a reasonable price. They don't exist.
  • leetcrew - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    why even care about the efficiency rating on such a low draw machine? the difference between base 80plus and 80plus gold is 10% efficiency at 50% capacity. this is a delta of ~20W at load. if you live in the US, you would have to play for ~400 hours before you paid another dollar on your electric bill.
  • t.s - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link

    Well, he is not like you sir. And I glad we still have someone like that around.
  • DanD85 - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    Because the maximum efficiency of a psu can only be reached when it runs at 50% load.
  • Yuriman - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    A 65w CPU + 75w video card + system components would be just over 50% load for a 300w unit when loaded. Case in point, my 5 year old Core i5 system with 1050 Ti draws between 150 and 175w while gaming.
  • StevoLincolnite - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link

    Don't forget that Ram, Motherboard, Hard/Optical drives, USB devices and so on all consume power as well.
  • t.s - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link

    Don't forget that Ram, Motherboard, Hard/Optical drives, USB devices and so on all consume < 30 watt.
  • t.s - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link

    I mean, all the peripheral on your example is not something that will make the system spent, like 150W
  • 1_rick - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    Well, that makes something like this model overkill for a lot of people, then. Just as an example, I have a Corsair CX-430 PSU, an overclocked Ryzen 1600X, and a GTX 950. During a GPU stress test, it will pull a bit under 250 watts. CPU stress tests are somewhat lower--I think under 200W. It idles well under 100, and normal usage is probably 120-160W.
  • mjeffer - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    This is one of my annoyances whenever building a new system. It's really hard to find a high quality, low wattage PSU that would represent your true needs. Most major vendors only go budget on low wattage or it's impossible to find someone who's done a teardown to see if it is made with quality parts because reviews are usually only done on grossly overpowered PSUs
  • KAlmquist - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link

    I've been happy with the Seasonic SSR-360GP, but sadly it appears to have been discontinued. I guess the Antec EarthWatts EA-380 is worth a look.
  • Manabu - Monday, December 18, 2017 - link

    It is getting harder and harder to find high quality low wattage PSUs with enough cables. I'm using 6 sata and 3 ide and 1 6-pin vga cable (gtx 650 ti). My overclocked system draws up to 250W (measured at the wall) with linpack AVX2 and Furmark, but more normal high load is like 150-175W. Thus I would want a 350W psu for a good margin and efficiency.

    Instead I had to buy a 450W 80+gold psu (electricity here is expensive and it runs 24h/d). Previously I used a 420W 80+ bronze psu for 6 years and before that a 400W 80+ psu for 5 years. Power ratings are creeping up, but at least efficiency too. Still, if power ratings continue to go up efficiency for my loads will go down.
  • jhapp - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    People need reliability, not 3D graphics. I always buy PNY/Quadro high resolution 2D cards which run about 10 watts per monitor. 3D video cards are expensive and energy wasting. Add them to the long list of things people don't need but think they do because of media hype, like hi-res tvs, or hybrid cars, ethanol, E85, smart phones, cell phones, ...
  • Jimios - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I'd like to see you play a modern game with a 10W 2D Quadro.
  • MadAd - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    With CPUs providing basic graphics these days I dont think the average user would buy a 3d card unless they actually had an app demanding it, eg for me Planetside 2 wouldnt even work without a serious graphics card, otherwise I wouldnt bother and just use the onboard.
  • Dr. Swag - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    But if you want to play video games...
  • LukaP - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    Even if you dont, iGPUs exist, on both sides...
  • Kitsunemimi - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    >People need reliability, not 3D graphics.
    Yeah, because all this "gaming" nonsense and those GeForce video cards are so dumb and pointless.

    >long list of things people don't need [...] because of media hype, like [...] smart phones
    I agree that the reason why effectively the entire mobile phone market has converted to smart phones within the span of a mere few years is none other than "media hype".

    >cell phones
    Are you high?

    >3D video cards are expensive and energy wasting.
    >people don't need [...] hybrid cars
    What a joke.
  • wolfemane - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I own a hybrid for the simple fact I only have to stop at a pump once a month vs once a week. I didn’t get one for environmental reasons, social status, or media hype. I got one because my family needs a car and I’m sick of paying for gas. And before you get all high and mighty again, it cost no more than a similar size car with a similar package.
  • DanNeely - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I'm not quite breakeven with the payment on my Accord hybrid at current prices/commute length; but probably will be after I move next summer (planning on a better but more distant location). Even if current prices/miles driven stay the same I'll break even about 1.5 years after my car's paid off and net $400/year afterwards. I kept my previous car for just under 11 years before something not worth the cost of fixing failed and forced a replacement (I was hoping for 2-3 more years out of it); so I should come out ahead by a good margin over the lifetime.
  • Yuriman - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I picked up a used Insight around 4 years ago for 3 grand. Averaging between 65 and 85mpg, put 75,000 more miles on it with nothing but a set of tires and some oil changes. According to records I got from the previous owner, it's still on its 17 year old factory hybrid battery. From a value perspective it's hard to beat. Even compared with an economy car like a Civic or Corolla, this car has paid for itself in gas alone.

    New hybrids often don't have much premium over their non-hybrid counterparts, and seem to have, on average, better reliability, so I don't think the original comment holds any weight.
  • MrSpadge - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    And I always wondered who's buying those low end Quadros. Have fun saving money with them over the "expensive 3D cards". Oh, and never use iGPUs - they have the 3Ds as well!
  • AntonErtl - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    Actually my PC without discrete graphics card (MSI Z170A-Pro, Core i5-6600K @4GHz, 16GB RAM, 3 SSDs, DVD drive) idles at 22W, and the peak power consumption I see is around 70W (still below the 20% point of its 400W PSU); and I measured the current into the PSU, i.e., these numbers include the PSU losses. I have a discrete graphics card lying around (Radeon 6770); the game I play runs nicely with the iGPU, though, so I did not put it in the box. With this card, the power consumption would be still less than 200W.
  • hybrid2d4x4 - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    "The optimal power range for a typical home entertainment/gaming system usually is within 400-600 Watts"

    Please stop regurgitating this kind of nonsense. The optimal range is as low as 120W for integrated video systems and up to ~300W for top-tier single card. There's the 1% that will overclock and/or run multiple vid cards, and these are the only people that will ever stress this kind of PSU to even 50%.

    As a point of reference, my i5 4670, GTX1060, 4x4GB DDR3, 1 SATA SSD + 1 HDD system idles at 40W, and uses a peak of 220W measured at the wall. Typical gaming is 170-200W. I'm using a 400W Platinum PSU, and feel like this is a bit overkill for this system.
    For a workstation with IGP, I would want a gold/plat 200W PSU, but nothing like this exists thanks to these articles normalizing the 500W-800W PSUs for normal consumers. Please stop it!
  • fred666 - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    I agree.
    There is no reason to get more than 300-400W for the average user and this is including a stand alone video card and lots of peripherals. It's sad to see web sites such as Anandtech fall into the marketing BS of the power supplies makers.
  • t.s - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link

    average user using PC around 100-200W
  • sonny73n - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link

    I also agree.
    I fell for articles like this one and ended up with a 850W Corsair PSU. Even tho I OCed my i5 and my GPU, the power peak would never go above 380W.

    Fool me twice, shame on me... Well, almost.
  • sweeper765 - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link

    Using 8700k OC'ed, 2x8gb ddr4 1.35v, gtx 1060, 3 hdd, 2 ssd.
    I get 35-40 W idle and about 270W max load.
    So even 300W would be enough, though ideally for efficiency would be 550W. No need to go higher.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, December 9, 2017 - link

    The optimal range for total system power is just 300 watts with a top-tier card? Yeah, right.

    There are two other reasons to have extra capacity in a PSU:

    1) Capacitor aging

    2) Lower loads on higher spec units tend to be quieter.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, December 9, 2017 - link

    Another thing is that there are spikes in power usage. Sometimes transient spikes are quite a lot above the average power usage.
  • Manabu - Monday, December 18, 2017 - link

    1) Even with capacitor aging, there no need to buy a PSU more than double the max consumption of your system. So, a 300W PSU is indeed too low for a top-tier card, but a 550W one would already be more than enough. For my system with a mid-low range GPU with 250W max load (175W more normal high load) a 350W would also be plenty.

    2) There are platinum fanless 400W psus. Low wattage psus being noisier is just a reflect of this warped market that only valorizes high wattage psus. On the other hand, lower loads on higher wattage psus tend to be less efficient, so more heat in the ambient.
  • Alistair - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    No idle fan mode, no buy. This alone shows the cooling is poor, and the noise profile will be poor. Many other better choices. Shame Corsair for not including a standard feature nowadays.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, December 9, 2017 - link

    This site tends to not put enough emphasis on noise. However, at least it was the only one that called out Seasonic for its terrible performance in the 1050 model that could be "heard from rooms away".
  • Ken_g6 - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    Why should I buy a currently-$72 Corsair, when I can get either a $55 Seasonic FOCUS Plus after rebate, or a $60 Rosewill Capstone before rebate (other versions of which are an AnandTech Editor's Choice)?
  • oranos - Friday, December 1, 2017 - link

    hard to buy anything other than seasonic
  • airdrifting - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link

    Again there are better quality power supply for less money. Every power supply recommendation article on Anandtech has been crap so far leading me to believe you guys are just bunch of shills paid by those companies.
  • Kyt - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link

    There are better, yes. Some of us don't have access to all brands and models and when you are choosing between only 3 brands, you would want to know what you're getting and this is where this review becomes useful.
  • silverblue - Monday, December 4, 2017 - link

    ...or, perhaps these companies don't send over their hardware for testing. It might not be as sinister as you're making out.
  • quantumshadow - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    After a bunch of failed PSU from Corsair I decided to never buy it again. CX750 unable to hold two undervolted 1080ti's and Celeron. Shame.

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