80 Plus certification value

The 80 plus certification guarantees that the PSU meets certain levels of electrical efficiency at certain load levels. The base 80 Plus certification requires 80% efficiency at 20% load, 50% load, and 100% load. The more common 80 Plus Bronze requires 82%, 85%, and 82% at the same levels respectively. 80 Plus Gold requires 87%, 90%, and 87%. 80 Plus Platinum requires 90%, 92%, and 89% respectively.

Developing more efficient power supplies necessitates better design and the use of higher quality components. As a result, PSUs that do not meet the 80 Plus certification requirements (not having the trademark on the box is a huge negative, but it may simply mean that the manufacturer has not submitted the PSU for certification yet) are often of dangerously low quality. Many are falsely advertised, such as advertising an output power of 500 watts, of which 350 watts is located on the useless 5 volt and 3.3 volt rails; or worse, advertising an output power of 500 watts yet using rectifiers on the primary side which when combined will blow up at only 250 watts. Many of these PSUs come out of junk shops in Asia, avoid them like the plague.

At a minimum, a less efficient PSU will draw more AC power from the wall (in volt-amps) for a constant DC power load (in watts). This excess power draw must go somewhere, and that somewhere is into the PSU chassis as heat where it is hopefully blasted out of the back of the case.

Pricey PSUs from manufactures such as Seasonic aren't expensive because they have fancy box art or a brand name label on them. They're expensive because they're well designed, well built, and use high quality components. This ensures that such PSUs won't blow up or catch fire, both of which are surprisingly common with cheap PSUs.

If a PSU has an 80 Plus certification and the PSU manufacturer and PSU model are found on the 80 Plus website located below (some manufacturers have been known to place the logo on the box without authorization, in violation of trademark law) then it's probably a good enough PSU for most uses.

http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSupplies.aspx

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