Building a PC—Avoid wasting Money

[Miketoobluz]

Spending too little on PSU is far worse than spending too much. A cheap PSU can kill other parts before it dies itself. I have lost hdd in the past to bad PSU.
I may have too much power now but it let me upgrade parts without needing to worry about power.


But RGB & Gaming PC's are the same thing... PC only needs RGB to be a gaming PC... that is what seems to be case anyway.

PCIe5 nvme are a waste of money for windows drives. You won't notice a massive speed difference between PCIe3 & 5. Just an increase in heat. If they keep going the heatsinks needed to cool the nvme will look like mini CPU heatsinks. Why not just make one water cooling pump that does the CPU & nvme?

You need to move really big files around to notice any speed difference really.

I'll say. When I built this pc last year, I thought I'd save a few and use the old pc's psu. I didn't know the USB power was fluctuating and preventing my first win.11 download-error messages and restarts Whew!

 

[Colif]

I learned the hard way, Bad PSU killed about 4 hard drives. At time I blamed the drives but over time I have realised it was the PSU itself. That was years ago now. I had a no name PSU in a no name case.
Now, one of the 1st things I pick is the PSU. Often before CPU.

 

[Miketoobluz]

I learned the hard way, Bad PSU killed about 4 hard drives. At time I blamed the drives but over time I have realised it was the PSU itself. That was years ago now. I had a no name PSU in a no name case.
Now, one of the 1st things I pick is the PSU. Often before CPU.

Interesting, so many errors / fails from a psu. I feel like an expert who knows more and more about less and less!

 

[Colif]

PSU supplies power to other parts. If its not supplying clean consistent power then other parts can start to play up.

I had one blow up once, only as it was about 8 years old and past its use by date. I didn't realise that at time... I have learned much over the years