stop buying bad psus let's get you the best power supply for PC 2023 hi welcome back to PC Builder I'm Jason now choosing the right power supply for PC in 2023 can feel overwhelming with jargon like 80 plus rating ATX 3.0 new GPU connectors and more that's why so many buyers they just give up and look for an 80 plus gold rated unit but 80 plus ratings they're actually total garbage and they should not be used to judge PSU quality but don't wor today we're going to break down the key things that you need to know to buy the best PSU for PC in 2023 and we'll give specific product recommendations for every budget level remember if you get value out of this video give it a like so it makes a huge difference to the channel and of course subscribe click that Bell icon that way you get notified when we release cool content with that let's jump into it this video is sponsored by updf PDF documents and images are everywhere but most PDF editors are limited or they cost a ton of money you need updf the affordable all-in-one PDF editor edit text and images quickly and easily on Mac PC and mobile platforms fill and sign PDF contracts and documents with ease or use updf AI powered software to convert image PDFs to text or even translate and summarize the PDF content don't overpay get updf for 61% off the annual license for up to four devices across all platforms using the link in the video description let's start off with a quick run through the base Basics now PC power supplies they come in two different sizes often called form factors the most common size is the ATX form factor and it's widely used in regular siiz pc builds using an ATX PC case or a microatx PC case then we have sfx size psus which are typically intended for many ITX small form factor builds remember to match your pck specs against your PSU to make sure it fits next up is PSU modularity that just means whether or not you can remove the cables from the PSU now a non-modular PC power supply it has all of its cables permanently attached a semi-modular PSU has the core cables permanently attached with some cables able to be removed and a fully modular PSU can have all of its cables removed given that most PC cases in 2023 have PSU shrouds modularity it's mostly for convenience and does not impact the quality of the unit now a quick warning on modular PSU cables like this while the connections on the device end are standard the connections at the PSU itself are not so never ever mix and match cables with other modular or semi-modular psus now some companies like cable mod offer replacement cables in different colors but those are designed for specific PSU models colored cable extension kits are available to either lengthen the cable itself or just add some cool color Aesthetics to your build including RGB cables but these plug into the end of the cables that came with the original PSU and not directly into the PSU itself hey hence the term extension now let's run through the different cable types first for the motherboard we have the 20 plus 4 pin adapter that typically attaches to the right side of the motherboard and at least one 4 plus4 pin EPS cable that attaches to the top left of the board note that some other boards do have additional connections for a second EPS cable and while most boards will run with only one EPS cable attached I do recommend getting a PSU that has enough EPS cables for your motherboard then we have SATA power CA which are used for older SATA drives but are also used by fan and RGB hubs some liquid coolers and really any other device in your PC that needs power some psus also still include the old Molex power cables though a few devices still use these now let's talk about the GPU power cables because this confuses a lot of people now first we've got the older standard pcie GPU cables in six pin 6 plus 2 pin or 8 Pin configurations virtually any GPU sold in the foreseeable future future will be able to use one of these or it's going to come with an adapter so they can be used now your GPU may need multiple pcie power cables and while some cables come with the ability to daisy chain the connections that means connect the same exact cable to the GPU more than once I generally recommend using a separate cable for each connection just to be safe do note that some psus like this be quiet unit come with more than one pcie cable that attaches to the same port on the PSU however this this is clearly two cables so go ahead and treat it as such next we've got the newer 12vt high power cables currently used by some Nvidia gpus though these gpus also have adapters to use the older standard cables for older psus as well the new 12volt high power cable is available on power supplies with pcie 5.0 labels like this intermax Revolution df2 and this B quiet unit the 12volt high power cables have quite a few issues so special care should be used not to bend the connection point for the 12vt high power cable and make sure it's fully seated one final Lo on cables many of them like the 4 plus4 EPs and 6 plus2 GPU cables require you to push two ends together and then insert them there's typically a little plastic lip on the cable connector that keeps them together as they're being pushed in however if you press the cable together incorrectly it can actually keep you from being able to insert the cable so just make sure that you've got it together correctly before trying to plug it in a especially in tighter spaces now let's talk about 80 plus ratings and why you should totally ignore them when buying a PSU that's right I said ignore them 80 plus ratings they were originally supposed to be a measure of power efficiency but not the build quality of the unit unfortunately over time they basically became a shorthand for many inexperienced PC Builders who just thought hey all I need to do is get an 80 plus gold rated unit and I'm fine but the reality is there is very little efficiency difference between the lowest 880 plus certification called 80 plus white and even the highest 80 plus certification called titanium and worse these ratings they don't address the quality of the unit itself and whether or not it has the necessary protections to ensure that your system gets the power it needs safely that's why we've recently seen a number of exploding psus that were gold rated well many bronze rated units have stronger build quality and protections I'll leave a link to a Gam Nexus video exposing how bad 80 plus ratings are in the video description if you want a deeper dive so if the 80 plus certification doesn't make a good power supply for PC what does well a number of factors go into it but to keep this simple it breaks down into three factors the first is how cleanly the unit supplies power in particular reducing something we call voltage Ripple the second is the quality of the PSU design and the materials used especially the capacitors or caps as are often abbreviated to ensure good operation and to reduce the risk of things going wrong and third are the protections present and working on the power supply to ensure that if something does go wrong the power supply handles it in a way that doesn't lead to a dangerous or explosive situation for example overcurrent protection for when the unit finds itself drawing too much current over temperature protection for when the unit runs too hot and short circuit protection in the case of a short circuit all the a link to an article that discusses these and other power supply Protections in more detail down in the video description if you want a deeper dive luckily people in the PC Community keep a list of units that have been tested by Third parties the most notable is the PSU cultist list sounds a little weird I know but it's the name of a group of power supply enthusiasts the PSU cultist list it breaks down psus into tiers based on design protection and build quality with a TI rated units being the best in F tier rated units being the worst the tiers include units ranked in this tier as well as in what we call low priority and speculative position for power supplies that don't have a full formal review or where information isn't complete but where enough is known to roughly place the unit in that tier I'll leave this list link down in the video description so what tier should you use in your next PC build or upgrade well no matter what I would never go below C tier and I always prefer to get a better rated unit if the price is about the same at the budget build level CTI tier is likely fine as we go up in component power draw and the price of the system increases we can think of going up a tier a little like insurance for mid-range price builds so I'm looking here for a b or a tier rated unit at the high end I would only use an a tier rated unit in a build with a high power draw GPU like an RTX 470 TI or RX 7800 XT or higher if I'm intending to heavily overclock the CPU or GPU then now would go straight for the a tier the easiest way to search the tier list is to use your browser search function and search each tier by the manufacturer until you find your unit so for the MSI MPG a 1000g we search for MSI and we find it immediately in the a tier under single rail for the EVGA g5700 watt unit we search EVGA and we find it in the B tier in a long list of similar power supplies made by EVGA note that sometimes a rating will only include certain sizes of a unit so pay close attention let's talk about how many watchs you need for your PSU the main challenges continues to be power spikes primarily from gpus these are called transients these transients have been measured up to nearly three times the rated GPU power draw over short periods of time now while psus should be able to handle quite a bit more than their rated load for a brief period of time many people report their PC suddenly shutting off when gaming or underload that's because the psu's protections detected too much power being drawn and it responded by killing power to the PC in order to protect your components now to avoid this and to give ourselves some room for future GPU or CPU upgrades the best way is to conservatively oversize your PSU note that the new ATX 3.0 psus are supposed to handle these transients much better but we haven't seen widespread testing of this to verify it so I would still conservatively oversized the PSU even for the new ATX 3.0 compliant models in 2023 I still feel that the best general advice for sizing your PSU is to take its rated draw of all the components in an application like PC part picker and then multiply that by 1.5 so for instance if PC part picker tells me my draw is 500 watts I multiply that by 1.5 and get a minimum size of 750 wat power supply now this is an estimate so if you get a weird number like 7 15 watts then I just round up or down to the nearest 50 watt Mark so in this case a 700 wat PSU minimum is likely fine and remember this is a minimum and you can always go up for those of you who watched our 2022 PSU guide you'll recall I discussed a possible extra amount of wage based on the rumored huge power draw of high-end RTX 4000 series gpus but that never really materialized so you can just disregard that old advice and use the 1.5 times the rate of draw regard regardless of the GPU a couple other quick buying tips there really is no functional difference between multi-rail and single rail psus so don't worry about it ATX 3.0 is the newer PSU standard and ATX 3.0 compliant psus started hitting the market in late 2022 but honestly older units are still fine especially at the budget level let's jump into our specific product recommendations all of which are going to be linked down in the video description of course we're going to keep that list up to date if things sell out or if new units come on the market that we really like so check those links out for pricing and availability in your region let's start off with the absolute top of the power draw here so these are units that exceed 1300 Watts not including 1300 watts and at this power draw you're like an I9 139k 1400k 4090 super heavy overclocking those kinds of Power draws out there and we're really concerned obviously about transi power Spike so i' also go ATX 3.0 as well as a tier rated on the PSU culus list I would not settle for anything less than that let's start off with the Corsair hx1 1500i now all these are going to basically be you know either platinum or titanium in terms of the ad0 plus ratings don't need to worry about this but this is a really good unit and I do like that you can actually plug a USBC into this and you control it with the IQ software this is a 1500 watt unit remember these psus are going to be much longer than your typical PSU so check your case compatibility $365 over at Amazon right now another one to take a look at is the be quiet dark Power Pro 13 this is a 1600 watt unit this is 80 plus Titanium on this one again the 80 plus ratings are kind of nonsensical the difference is very very small the thing I like about be quiet is they do prioritize Acoustics that's noise over everything else so this is actually going to be a very very quiet unit $429 all right dropping down in terms of overall wattage so these are going to be 12 and 1300 watt units you got a lot more selection here I'd still sayate a tier in on the PSU C this list let me give you a couple that are absolutely great ones the MSI mag AI 1300pc 5.0 so it's going to have that Nvidia connector basically for your GPU and it's ATX 3.0 this unit also looks really really slick if you have a PSU cutout this just really looks awesome with the dragon and the Meg on the side there right now $269 over at New Egg and that's after promo codes and discounts another one that we actually recently used the superflower leadex 7 XG is a 13 00 watt unit 80 plus gold again that doesn't matter but it's ATX 3.0 it's PCI 5.0 because so it has the 12vt high power cable on it we use this absolutely dead silent and it actually has a silent fan operating mode that I really really like right now it's down into the like $180 range two thumbs up another great one to look at is a Corsair rme 1200 so this is the rm1 1200e ATX power supply little bit smaller on the form factor here which I do like uh quite a bit on it after all the various discounts and everything selling for about $159 $160 over at New EG all dropping down to about 1,000 Watts so here I'm willing to go to either the B tier or the a tier on the PSU cultist list you're going to find a lot of builds need about 1,000 Watts by our calculations because we're pretty conservative in that we want to make sure that we're not blowing up our builds and we can find some deals in addition to lower power units of the ones that we've already taken a look at in those higher wattages which remember we'll leave link down in the video description let me sprinkle in a couple other models to look at I do like the MSI MPG a 1000g this is the older version of their kind of updated power supply $150 so and it's ATX 3.0 PCI 5.0 and we've used this in a previous build absolutely loved it this one also looks really really sick the enax revolution df2 the original DF the previous version not ATX 3.0 or PCI 5.0 that was a tier rated this is a b tier rated on the PSU cultural list still great unit you saw it on the desk next to me enax resolution 150 watt now there's different obviously PSU wattages of this I think this is a pretty good price so $140 for ATX 3.0 and pcie 5.0 also pretty quiet you can of course find some discounts out there if you're willing to foro ATX 3.0 or pcie 5.0 so basically you're buying a last gen power supply at these Wes the gigabyte 1000 UD is B tier rated overall good unit yes I know gigabyte had some exploding psus this was not this this was a actually good unit out there pretty quiet as well do like this one run $127 and finally I think one of my favorite deals right now has been the fantex amp V2 these are a tier rated on the PSU Cales and you can find them for as little as like $125 for 1,000 watt units and they go all the way down in terms of their wattage let's jump more into the mid-range now so this is going to be very solidly in the mid-range of builds this is 750 watts 8 50 Watts all the way up to basically 999 Watts because we just did 1,000 Watts separately and just note that all these units they have different sizes so this has a 750 watt it's got an 850 watt and it's also got a th000 watt at 750 watts you're typically looking to spend if you want a tier rated you're looking to spend just about $100 Us in the US market right now let's start off with a tier rated units I do like the Corsair rm750 quite a bit it's ATX 3.0 and it's pcie 5.0 really good units quite small I did full disclosure have a problem with a fan on one of these I got however turned out to be just kind of a one-off that typically happens in Hardware otherwise really really good unit I love this for $99 another unit I really am excited about is the pure power 12m the 750 wat one just snuck under $100 competing with that Corsair love to see competition out there this is a great unit be quiet always always focuses on Acoustics so if you want good power delivery with all the Protections in it and you want absolutely dead silent for $99 I love this this one also does come in other sizes as well up to 1,000 watts of course if you're looking for a deal especially during the holiday season on some of the closeout psus that aren't ATX 3.0 or PCI 5.0 so last gen psus take a look at deals like this cic Focus gx750 this is an a tier rated super good unit only selling right now for $95 $95 over New Again during the holiday shopping period I do expect pretty big discounts as they try and liquidate the rest of these psus and then finally I like The Cooler Master mwe gold 850 V2 right now selling for $95 now this is a b tier rated unit I'm fine with B tier usually you can see find this unit closer to about like 75 or $80 so if you're getting that good discount i' check out a unit like this let's jump into budget PSU now at the very budget tier you're basically looking to just get the Wat that you need c tier rating or better on the PSU cultist list and remember there's both a speculative list where we don't have all the information and then there's the generalist which is on top of that you want to pull something out of that first if you can but with the way that the PSU Market has been going in the US in particular over the last year at the budget level we've had to pull things off the speculative list but let's start with one we definitely know is C tier rated and has come back into stock at relatively good prices that is the MSI mag a550 BN now there's different wates this there's a 650 watt version as well not that much money now these are bronze rated that's not really the part that we're interested in C tier rated that's two thumbs up it's got all black sleeve cables which is super nice got a pretty good acoustic profile to it it looks really nice and it's only $50 now yes a year or two ago this level of PSU you could find for like 30 to $40 but all those prices have come up so if you find something around 50 bucks like this grab it similar the 650 watt unit only $10 more right now $59 often this does sell for $70 so there is a lot of price fluctuation remember to check out those links down the video description especially at the budget tier I will say we're also waiting for an update to the PSU cultist list for this fall fingers crossed we're going to add a lot more budget tier units to that kind of buy list then we have units more on the speculative list that are still pretty good that we've used the P proceed 600 watt so $52 right now over at Amazon and unlike in these pictures it actually has all black sleeve cables they've updated this PSU it works pretty well and honestly if you can't find anything else at the ultra budget level I would pick this one up let's jump through a couple of sfx power supplies let's start off with ones that are ATX 3.0 and PCI 5.0 so these are the ones with a 12volt high power connector just remember especially in a small form factor build don't bend that connection it's bad bad bad but if you're looking for it there's a couple of new units on the market like the Corsair SF 850l look for the L after it that'll denote this one the older one is just the SF 850 $130 right now I suspect we're seeing some early Black Friday deals I'm filming this at the very beginning of November typically more like $150 but overall very good unit most of these are going to be fully modular Aus roog Loki sfx L is another good one a little bit more expensive though $186 but this is typical of ausa's rag lineup for their psus they're often more expensive but they are very high quality they're all a tier rated on the PSU col Volus list if you're looking for a PSU that doesn't necessarily have that 12volt high power connector and you want to save a little bit of money you can find a still a tier rated on the PSU cultist list lean Lee SP 750 now note these psus we're going through come in various sizes 750 all the way up to 1,000 Watts right now $112 is a pretty good value and like I was saying you can get all of these in white as well as black typically for the sfx ones that way if you do have a glass side panel on your sfx build you do something like this and you get all the white cables and you don't have to get cable extensions saves you tons of cable management for those of you in slightly tougher markets out there The Cooler Master V sfx lineup again uh 750 850 and 1,000 watt units all pretty good they're a tier rated on the PSU culus though they're on the low priority list that means they have some small issues but not enough to knock them off the a tier list Cooler Master has a pretty wide Global reach so you can often find these we use the 850 watt the white one in our recent small form factor build do really like these right now not as priced competitive but I know in other markets they're much better priced remember everything is linked down in the video description so check those out for pricing and availability and new units coming into stock and of course if you got value out of the video give it a like this makes a huge difference to the channel and of course subscribe click that Bell icon that way you get notified when we release cool content and we'll catch you on the next one
