PSU choice,which brand in Lebanon?

I haven't ever used an XFX product let alone have one fail on me so I'm not coming at this from a biased point of view. On the contrary, over the years on the many forums I frequent, the threads about PSU failures usually come with XFX PSUs. Many PSUs were failing, but I remember a lot of XFX units too. To consider XFX better than any of the other brands would be without warrant.

The 12V rails are what mostly power the GPU. You can have two PSUs of the same wattage but with different amps on the 12V rails. The one with the highest number of amps on the 12V rails is the one better suited towards hardcore GPU gaming.

Dude, do you know how many power supplies XFX has sold? WD has lots of fails on their green drives, but they sold 100million+ of them.
Also, you do realize XFX, and Corsair PSUs are manufactured by Seasonic right? Gigabyte is manufactured by FSP (Or was it FPS, I can't remember the name honestly) wouldn't recommend anything else except XFX in Lebanon, unless they're on a very tight budget, or if it's a last resort. Check JohnnyGuru.com, he's the best and most strict reviewer on the net. If he gives it a score above 9 or 8.5,consider it a beast PSU.

I agree on your point of some PSUs having larger 12V+Rails, however newer units use a new type of technology which merge multiple rails and run as a single rail.

I don't know why people think that running 2 power supplies are a standard. Running separate units is totally nit recommended and very very risky to do that.

We never said XFX is better than any other brand. Here in Lebanon, out of what's available, the XFX units are the best. If Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, Enermax, etc... were available in Lebanon we'd recommend those as well (if not more).

The issue of +12V rails is not a cause for concern anymore, as with the better quality PSUs out there, 98-99% of the power rating can be provided via the +12V rails. This means that the wattage of the unit is directly tied to the amps it can provide over the +12 rail.

70-80A on the 12V rail is too steep for anything less than 3 7970s / 780s / Titans.

I don't think using the amount of units sold is always a good indicator of the quality of the brand. Many OEM systems that are built are built according to a cost-profit ratio and not according to the durability of the specifications. That's why custom rigs might not always have the most sold parts in them. There is more detail to a unit than the amount of units it has sold, although I know there definitely can be a correlation between quality and pieces sold.

All I know is I've heard of a good fair amount of XFX units failing. If anything, they're practically just as reliable as many other brands.

I don't think 70-80 amps are good enough for tri-SLI Titans.

80Ax12V = 960W

Titan draws 250W.

That's 750W for 3 Titans if you're not OCing.

If you're OCing you're still below 960W probably but you will need more.

Anyways, LESS than 3 Titans and 70A-80A is overkill. e.g. 1 or 2 Titans.

A PSU loses about 30% of its power in the first year. You always buy a PSU with a wattage according to that information. You also have to take into consideration how many drives you have running. But either way, I was never aware a Titan withdrew that little. It's surprising.

Mosy OEM systems have custom made parts. Most of them don't use products that are sold in the market. For example, Dell uses their own board, case, and a PSU. Yeah, they don't manufacture the parts, but other OEMs like Lite-On or Foxconn manufacture the parts for them.

They mostly don't use products that are popular in the market.

Custom builds are THE ONLY thing that use parts that are being sold alot (unless they're built by a company and not an end user)


When were those things you heard? Most PSUs nowadays have low failing rates. XFX PSUs have like a 3 to 5 year warranty. When someone provides you with a 5 year warranty expect it to last you 10years+

Three graphics cards are totally not recommended as they don't scale well. Instead of spending money on 3 graphics cards, one can buy a sound card instead of a third card and have a better gaming experience.

70-80 amps are plenty for 2 cards. Newer cards use less power. You can build an entire gaming system on a 500-550W PSU. I'm surprised how people think that high end graphics cards are power hoggs. Newer graphics cards are more power efficient. And do not require such power.

GIGABYTE are good, but Thermaltake are better in PSU

yasamoka wrote

elie212 wroteGIGABYTE are good, but Thermaltake are better in PSU

Nope, sorry.

Why? On what basis do you compare PSUs? I think I'll take an 80Plus Bronze TT PSU over a non 80Plus GIGABYTE or even XFX ones...
But let's say both are of the same wattage, amps, 80Plus certificate; how do you compare?

@ILIA, totally agree with you. I would also get an 80Plus efficiency over brand. But let's say one is 80 plus bronze vs silver, with the bronze having a nice brand, I'd go with the brand. But that's just me.

It's not the failing rates that I am concerned about but rather what is causing them to fail. The big mistake many people make is buying power supplies that are sufficient. The power supply should exceed the requirements of the system since power supplies are most efficient and live the longest if they're used at 50% capacity. When power supplies are overused, the capacitors wear out quicker. It wouldn't be smart to but a 500W PSU just because your system will pull 400W at most. If putting pressure on your PSU to see how much it can handle is some sort of bragging right, then I don't understand it. This will wear out the capacitors over time. Some brands make stronger and longer-lasting capacitors, but the basic functionality of any PSU is the same across the board.

I was not aware that newer cards are pulling that little nowadays. It's been a while since I've invested in a GPU.

My specs:

DX79TO
i7-3820
16GB 1600 DDR3
2 TB WD 7200RPM
GTX 260

I haven't overclocked my GPU nor my CPU, but to skimp on the PSU is simply not something I will do. It is one of the most if not the most important unit in a system.

tt400 wroteIt's not the failing rates that I am concerned about but rather what is causing them to fail. The big mistake many people make is buying power supplies that are sufficient. The power supply should exceed the requirements of the system since power supplies are most efficient and live the longest if they're used at 50% capacity. When power supplies are overused, the capacitors wear out quicker. It wouldn't be smart to but a 500W PSU just because your system will pull 400W at most. If putting pressure on your PSU to see how much it can handle is some sort of bragging right, then I don't understand it. This will wear out the capacitors over time. Some brands make stronger and longer-lasting capacitors, but the basic functionality of any PSU is the same across the board.

Of course you get a PSU with headroom to promote lifespan. That's a given. But they age slower than you think. 30% is extreme.

My specs:

DX79TO
i7-3820
16GB 1600 DDR3
2 TB WD 7200RPM
GTX 260

I haven't overclocked my GPU nor my CPU, but to skimp on the PSU is simply not something I will do. It is one of the most if not the most important unit in a system.

CPU is 95W since it's similar to the 2600K in terms of being a quad core on the same architecture and similar clockspeeds, but I'll go with Intel's 130W.
GPU is ~182W.
Add in 10W / RAM stick, let's say, that's 40W.
A single hard drive, 12W.
Optical drive, 20W (blu-ray).
4 fans @0.36A, let's say, 16W.

Total = 130 + 182 + 40 + 12 + 20 + 16 = 400W

You do know that your maximal system power draw would barely break 400W when stress-testing to the max right? You'll be doing continuous writes to the hard drive, burning a Blu-ray disc at full speed, stress-testing the CPU with Prime95, stress-testing the GPU with, let's say, Furmark or OCCT (slaughtering it), performing reads / writes to the RAM at full speed (impossible with maximum FPU stress test). 1200W is overkill for such a system. That's all I'm saying.

I am aware my PSU is unnecessary for my system. I intended for it to be so for the reasons I mentioned before. I think it's always better to future-proof PC's as much as possible in all specs, but PSUs have specific reasons as well, and I made my decision. Buying a "sufficient" PSU is simply not advisable in my opinion, and I'm going to stick with that opinion until I see reason to change it.

I stated it a million times, we are NOT recommending "sufficient" PSUs. We are recommending one go for a PSU with a healthy 30% or so headroom.

Stick with your opinion, it's your opinion, but don't recommend others spend more than is necessary on overkill PSUs with crazy wattages that they're never going to use.

tt400 wroteBuying a "sufficient" PSU is simply not advisable in my opinion, and I'm going to stick with that opinion until I see reason to change it.

With all respect to your opinion, but this isn't philosophy! It's not about opinions, Yasamoka wasn't giving his opinion, he was stating the fact that 3*times bigger PSU than what is sufficient is really an overkill and you're burning your cash for no reason...