I'm considering buying a new PC soon and have been watching the Techfast deals. I plan on picking one up when the price is right but I note that a lot of comments recommend replacing the power supply.
I have a good (but older) power supply in my existing PC - it's a Corsair HX620W.
Would it be wise to replace the cheap power supply for the Corsair or do power supplies wear out? Should I use the Corsair or buy a new one??
Thanks for any advice.
Would poor quality PSU's damage components over time though?
I'd Use the corsair in place of whatever Techfast supply. It's going to be a better power supply even though it's a bit older.
That said I'd keep the techfast one in case you have any warranty concerns as using your own PSU will probably void their warranty
Would it have all the necessary connectors for the new GPUs?
Yeah I think it should be right. Have a GeForce GTX 960 installed at the moment - do newer cards have different connectors?? I'll have to look into that.
GTX9XX series takes the same plugs as the 10 series. I assume same for RTX20XX or we would have heard something…
Yes power supplies lose efficiency over time, and capacitors reach a point where they blow, the best power supply ive had is seventeam was rated for 3 years, lasted 14 years, then seasonic x-750 lasted close to 10 years when it was rated for 5 years.
power supplies lose efficiency over time
Please explain. (Dirty fans / worn bearings aside)
From my dim understanding of electronics capacitors slowly dry out and stop working over very long periods. Someone else will probably correct me.
Leads to failure, not loss in efficiency.
@afoveht: Everything fails eventually, but components also degrade over time leading to losses in efficiency. Component quality also affect efficiency. Thats why you have bronze, gold etc. Sure if you have a super high quality titanium power supply it might lose 10% of its rating in a decade, but there is still a difference over time.
@garetz: No. You are just restating your first premise, not justifying it.
Electros deteriorate and fail. Decrease in capacitance will not cause inefficiencies; possibly instabilities which will quickly kill the PSU. Increase in ESR might cause some but if that happens it forms a runaway condition and the cap pops quickly.
No other solid state component in a common PSU will degrade over time unless it's a design flaw.
Simply turning a computer on and off leads to failure over time. Turn it on and things start to heat up and expand. Turn it off and things start to cool down and contract. Over time you get metal fatigue, then micro fractures of solder joints etc. That's when you can get intermittent hardware faults that are so hard to diagnose - esp if it's in the motherboard.
This is why we never turn off our workstation unless it's for safety reasons. It been humming along for >7 years.
Using same Corsair HX620w PSU which I salvaged from my old system. Currently running AMD Fury X with i7 4790k. No problems so far.
Also I always trust Corsair for Power supplies.
if you aren't overclocking, just use the one that comes with it
after that is blown, ask for warranty if under 12months , else swap to your corsair
after your corsair is blown, then only get new one
PSU/electronics do deteriorates usually with leaking/blown capacitors
inb4, someone says PSU blow up his entire PC in fire