Buying high-performance power supply: a valuable acquisition, or a waste of money?
Power and performance of computers is constantly increasing. Because of these characteristics grows not only their own price, but also the costs of their use. 
Manufacturers of power supplies immediately respond to increased needs. Gigabyte company, working in several international markets, better known for its motherboards and graphics cards, announced a new family of power supplies Odin with a capacity of 550, 680 and 800 watts.
Experienced users and modders puzzled by searching the perfect power supply unit, guided primarily by a desire to have the best and most expensive components. But how is necessary such incredible power?
Power supply is a necessary component
Previously, power supplies are rarely mentioned in conversations about computer technology. We discussed, first of all, motherboards, processors, hard drives and memory. Power supplies are usually perceived as a necessary, but not too interesting component of the system. It was mentioned only when it was not included in the cost of case for the PC. But today, the power supply has become one of the most important parts of the computer, which should meet strong requirements as, for example, the motherboard.
Now the specifications of power supplies are exhaustive and rigorous, so that manufacturers of power supplies can only choose which version of the specification they will adhere. However, the specification should not be perceived as a system of quality assessment. As usual, the quality of power supply depends on the technical developments of producer and of the components they use for its production.
Be careful with power supplies without fans
Energy consumption of the computer largely depends on the scenario of its use. In order that power supplies meet the required power consumption of different scenarios, manufacturers produce models of varying power. This is an area in which the manufacturers can anticipate the users' wishes and go to meet them. The majority of model series power supplies start with a mark of 300 watts. For a long time difference between successive models was 50 watts. With increasing power to 500 watts the difference in power between neighboring models is also increased.
Another technical area in which they can think of something is the development of active and passive cooling systems. The choice depends on how this computer will be used. Power supply with active cooling, including at least one fan, also serve to cool the entire case, but have such a drawback as increased noise.
Those who use a computer for home theater or media center choose a passive cooling system for their power supply to reduce noise. Then they have to install one more fan in the computer or select the remaining components so that generates less heat. Otherwise the important components of the system can be damaged.
Best way to buy power supply
Famous market formula "faster, better, cheaper" is also applicable to power supply units, except for the fact that new models often do not allow to save, providing more power and functionality. Small but productive power supplies can now issue up to 2 kW of energy. In addition, the level of efficiency in power supplies continues to improve, so now we can use a large share of energy consumption.
Power supply is best to buy only after you accurately calculate power consumption of PCs beacuse it is more reliable than to trust in not always truthful labeling manufacturers. This can be done by summing up energy of all components. The processor typically consume from 35 to 130 watts, motherboard memory - 25-50 watts, for disk drives usually need 15-20 watts each, and video cards - 30-200 watts depending on the chip and the specific card. Then you need to add another 30% as a margin of safety. If you plan to add more of any components, you should increase the power budget, while not forgetting that the efficiency of the power supply decreases with increasing load.
Super-power units are too expensive, so we recommend to buy such high-end power supply only when it is really needed. For example, such a purchase would be unwarranted for the new quad-core processors, power consumption of which varies greatly depending on the power-saving technologies (like SpeedStep and Cool'n'Quiet), which also can to enable / disable individual nuclei.
The main goal of power supply manufacturers should be not to create the most powerful models, but to increase efficiency. Of course, there are users who really need the 600-watt power supply, but their share is very small. In general, if you know something about the power supply and able to perform simple calculations, you can save money at purchase and continuous using.
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