PSUs Don’t Default to Maximum Output
The rating for a given PSU is its maximum load rating, not its default load just plugged in and turned on.
Your computer might feel like a space heater sometimes—and it certainly adds heat to your home—but it’s not quite like a space heater in the sense that a 500W space heater is either going full bore or it’s not on.
Your PSU is like an engine that can be called upon to run harder if necessary but will idle when there is no demand. An 850W PSU doesn’t run at 850W every second it is on, it runs at exactly what the hardware demands. That demand varies between hardware configurations and even what you’re doing with a given hardware configuration.
Your GPU, to highlight a particularly power-hungry component, might only draw 50W while you’re fiddling around with work documents (or watching YouTube to avoid working on those documents) but 300W under load while you’re playing a demanding game.
Our point in emphasizing this is that you’re not automatically signing yourself up for a bigger power bill by installing a beefier PSU. Nor are you risking damaging your computer by putting too powerful of an “engine” in it.
Aside from small differences in efficiency between different size PSUs under different loads, there’s no real difference, and your components will only use as much power as they need.
Oversizing Is Probably Wise
The difference between what your hardware demands and how much extra wattage is still available is called “headroom.” If you have a build that only uses 450W under peak load but has an 850W PSU, then you have 400W of headroom.
PC enthusiasts can have pretty strong opinions about how much or little headroom you need. Opinions generally err on the side of more, and it’s almost always better to have more headroom than you think you need.
The price difference between a quality 500W PSU and a quality 700-850W, for example, is often as little as $30-40 or so. Considering how expensive a PC build is in the first place and how long you’ll use a good PSU, the difference is pretty trivial.
Especially trivial if you consider that future upgrades might require you to buy a new PSU anyway. It would be both a waste of money and an annoyance to skimp on the PSU today only to turn around and have to buy and install a new one next year because your new GPU is more demanding.
And, in the age of $1000 GPUs, spending a little more to support and protect your hardware investment isn’t a bad idea. Further, a high-quality PSU can outlive a PC build. You might refresh your entire build every few years to stay on top of gaming trends, but unlike the GPU, a good PSU can come along for the ride.
But Don’t Oversize to the Extreme
Oversizing with a quality PSU is a good way to semi-future-proof your build and skip buying a new PSU if you get a beastly GPU or otherwise upgrade components.
But there is a point of diminishing returns both in terms of efficiency and cost. You can read all about the details of the 80 Plus efficiency certification here, but suffice to say that running a PSU at a very low or very high load for its rated limit is inefficient.
Suppose you buy a super premium 1200W PSU. That PSU will be most efficient at around 50% load, or 600W, losing a few percentage points of efficiency with a very light load (20% or less) or a very high load (at or near 100%). So if your build idles at around 150-200W and only has a peak demand of, say 400W, you’re not only rocking ~66% headroom, but your idle load is at or below 20%.
Wasting a little bit of money on your electric bill because of that 3-5% inefficiency isn’t the end of the world. But good 1200W (and bigger) PSUs aren’t cheap.
You could have opted for a top-tier PSU with a lower wattage rating and, in the process, saved money up front and over time with that small efficiency gain. At that point, putting the extra $100 towards a better CPU or GPU is probably a much better use of your funds.
