Corsair RM Series
I have long recommended people buy good PSUs when building a new PC. If you use it for work, 8h a day or more, it is a requirement!
Not doing that may cause the PSU to only last a couple of years and be more expensive in the long run. I have a Corsair RM series that is now over 10y old and still works very well.
There are even some PSUs that do not have a Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV), so your PC can be damaged by current spikes if there are no surge protectors, which most people do not use. Every mid range or above PSU will have one, as will other features like over current protection or over power protection.
Short circuit protections (SCP), especially 12V rail only, are not enough to prevent damage to hardware. If you have a damaged GPU, a PSU with no Over Current Protection will sometimes allow motherboard damage through excessive current on the PCIe slot. This type of failure does not trigger SCP because there is some resistance but damage or fire inside the PC can occur. (I have had this happen)
I have also had a melting SSD and SATA cable due to the same issue, fortunately the motherboard was not damaged.
There is one NZXT Gamer Nexus video where they discuss case fires that would have not occurred with proper PSU protections like OCP or OPP. Steve and many people think that PSUs should not shut of in those kinds of conditions but it is not true. A properly designed PSU will instantly shut off - it will look like the PC does not want to turn on.
Right now, most renown brands are not using quality components on many of their cheaper lines:
- Bequiet!
- Cooler Master
- Corsair
- Seasonic
- XFX
We will go through some of these and also Fractal Design, which only seems to user higher end designs and very long warranties of 7 years even for the cheaper design.
Bequiet!
They have good PSUs but from what I can see only the PurePower versions are top quality. They are usually much more expensive than Corsar RM equivalents, which is a semi passive PSU that stays zero RPM until higher power requirements.
Look through the Cybenetics database but be advised they are quite expensive and don't seem to be on sale that often.
Cooler Master
CM is one of those manufacturers with PSUs of varying quality. You can find a very big range and Masterwatt Lite PSUs are reported as being notoriously bad. The quality of specific models can be quite good.
Keep in mind the part numbers. Names are very similar like "V750 Gold V2" and "MWE 750 Gold V2", but are quite different.
High quality parts, 10 year warranty:
- V750 Gold - P/N MPY-7501-AFAAGV (review)
- V750 Gold V2 - P/N MPY-750V-AFBAG (review)
Lower tier, for non critical systems:
- V850 Gold V2 - P/N MPY-850V-AFBAG (review)
This is every changing and may be outdated by the time you read this. Cooler Master is not something you should be looking at because they tend to focus on volume, not quality.
Corsair
Any PSU from Corsair RM series seems to be very well designed. You can check Cybenetics PSU database (
link here) for extensive testing certification done by Aris, one of the top people testing PSU today.
Corsair RM 750e seems to be selling for around 85€ frequently on many retailers. It should be enough to satisfy most builds and you should probably reduce power limit of the GPU if it is an issue. Even 450W through 12Vx6 power connectors is too much. So usually it is good to use lower power limits for RTX 4090 and 5090s.
Then consider going up or down that model stack.
The Corsair CX seem to be ok PSUs if you are on a budget but they seem to change revisions very often and the Cybenetics analysis doesn't seem to have tested protection features. I would advise against this.
Fractal Design
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| Fractal Design ION+ 560P - courtesy of 'The FPS Review' |
From browsing stores and a good amount of reviews, a better option right now seems to be Fractal Design branded PSUs. They are not the cheapest, going over $100 for ION+ models. The price is definitely worth it, as these have remarkable engineering and top quality components.
Some models for servers/build farms, with 10 year warranty:
For work or gaming machines, w/ 7 year warranty:
The ION Gold models are $20-$30 cheaper but feature some Teapo caps on the secondary, which Fractal clearly states in the spec sheet. Which is in itself, remarkable.
From other PSUs I've had, no problems have arisen Teapo and Fractal uses the 105ºC versions, as it should. I have had more issues with Nippon ChemiCon KZG over big time frames than with Teapo. If properly placed and kept cool, these haven't failed spontaneously.
These also have non-technical, smart tweaks like having a spec label on the back of the PSU. It is therefore very accessible to check and leaves the internal exposed panels with a very clean look.
Compared to most on this price range, Fractal seems to be innovating a lot and I can't recommend it enough.
Seasonic
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Seasonic S12-II 620W
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I currently do not recommend you purchase any Seasonic PSUs. I have had S12-II PSUs and M12-II PSUs that have been extremely reliable. But these PSUs and XFX ones derived from the same design
do not have a very important Over Current Protection!
I have found this out the hard way by damage to more than one component, despite Seasonic announcing they support the features.
Seasonic support is of no help and ignores missing protections on those parts, despite media analysis at the time that showed they were not active as they should (please see
this post for details, regarding M12-II Evo PSU)
Also lower tier models have been using worse components than these older series use and it seems only Seasonic PRIME series is still any good.
So, to have an example, right now the Core GX 750 PSU is around the same list price than Corsair RM series. It has significantly higher accoustic measurements and while capacitor choice is Teapo for the most part, Corsair uses some Japanese ones in specific places.
Given pricing differences and shaky quality control, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
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