Hey all, yeah, it's the same guy with the PC troubles here. Unfortunately, I was mistaken when I said my PSU is 550W, and is instead 500W. Whereas I have a rough idea about Video Cards and CPUs and the such, I have almost no idea when it comes to PSUs. Can anyone recommend me a good manufacturer, or what is the price of 'quality' when it comes to PSUs?

Seasonic is top dog. But they are pretty expensive. Look at NZXT, XFX, and Corsair for lower prices but still good quality. Just steer clear of the CX line of Corsair PSUs, they have a bad reputation.

The price of quality is in the ballpark of 100 dollars, that's for a 750W with a bronze energy efficiency rating. You can spend as much as 200+ dollars for a 1000w gold rated seasonic.

The other thing you want to look at is the number of amps over the single 12v rail. Most GPUs require 42 amps or more.

Seasonic is worth the price. If you want as few headaches as possible go with them.

Corsair, Seasonic and Silverstone are all generally great units.

Don't know if it is the best brand, but Corsair is a good one and the only brand I have any experience with, also one of those places you shouldn't skimp on in a build is the power supply. In the current build I am doing the difference between a 500W power supply and a 750W power supply was like $20.

This is the one I went with, it's only $80. Also PCPartPicker is a good site to give you an idea of prices and where you can get the cheapest price.

I'm sure there are others who can give you more info on other brands.

Rosewill Capstone are good PSU's. They are made by superflower, who makes a lot of great units. It's 80+ gold and gets great reviews. I've had one for a few months myself and so far so good. And it comes with a 7 year warranty.

One more vote for Seasonic and Corsair. Some Corsair models are seasonic PSUs, only rebranded as corsair.

I'm a SeaSonic fan. My current PSU is an X Series, 650W.

Though I will say that I flipped it into hybrid mode for a bit and within that time period was the only time my current PC has ever crashed. Could have been a coincidence, but I keep it on normal mode now.

When it comes to PSU what you should look at is if it's 80+ gold or silver certified, not the brand.

The last thing you want is flaky power supply causing all forms of lags and stutters.

I'm very satisfied with my bequiet! (bequiet.com) PSU. They seem to use quality parts and also aim for very low noise. They are well known around here in germany, but I don't know if they are readily available elsewhere. Guess you can't go wrong with a seasonic either.

Seasonic, as has been said a few times. I've been using Corsair and have been happy with them as well.

You want to avoid cheap power supplies with inflated wattage values. Since a power supply will be something you rarely update, and is a pain to swap if you do cable management, paying the premium now is worth not having to replace your whole computer because your power supply took components out.

Over the years I've tended to stick with Enermax and Corsair. Both have given me very good results and no issues.

Antec and Corsair have both been good to me, I really can't say that I've ever had a power supply die on me and I've probably done about 50 builds between work and home.

I've had one PSU die on me in 10 years, so I feel like the fail rate is a bit exaggerated if you don't overload them.

Most importantly, you want a PSU that'll be running at 60-65% of its capacity while gaming. Running a PSU at 90-100% of capacity will certainly lead to failure - you don't drive your car at 200km/h all the time, and the same logic applies.

One thing you do get from brands mentioned above - good customer service if something does go wrong, and you know they aren't misrepresenting their capacity, something some cheap knockoffs tend to do.

its cool if you want to get a sense of what PSU to buy in the future.
But don't just buy one now out of the blue, cause that wont benefit your current rig at all.
If you're going to upgrade in the future, then that's when you buy the PSU.

My previous Corsair Gold something something lasted for about 10 years and it took me through overclocking and many different graphics cards. So I'll definitely vouch for their gold series. I've also only heard good about Seasonic but I'm sticking with Corsair.

Corsair uses Seasonic as an OEM, yours could have been one.

ThermalTake, Cooler Master, Corsair... Of course any of the OEMs that make power supplies for those companies (SeaSonic for example) are all good. Make sure it is at least 80 Plus Bronze certified. Try to go with Silver, Gold, or Platinum certified if you can afford it (higher 80 plus rating = better efficiency and performance)

Read this. It will explain everything you need to know. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025425/how-to-pick-the-best-pc-power-supply.html

Pretty much them same on Seasonic, but I have nothing bad to say about the "green" Antec's. Usually lackluster features but they have good components in them.

On cheaper builds I've used Antec NeoEco 620's and Antec Earthwatts 3xx's. They have been solid and ran hardware they had no business running... In my rig I had a NeoEco running twin 470 GTX's, i7 950, and all 6 dimm's filled. Left it like that for a year since no issues even when I OC'd for some benchmark fun.

Cheers, thanks a lot for the responses guys.