Everywhere I look these days, it seems that more and more PSU's are certified 80 Plus. Does this mean it's more reliable than those not rated, or is there something I missed when reading websites?

80 Plus means that they are 80% (or more) efficient when under full load.
So yes, they are more reliable, but if you are looking for a new PSU, I would also recommend making sure that you check the current going through each of the rails.

Yeah in nearly all cases the 80+ rated psus are designed better than other non rated ones. If you don't know what else to look for, an 80+ rating and a decent wattaqe (for what you are using it for) will get you a good power supply

Cool. My current psu is an apower platinum 1200W (I'm on a carer pension, so spare cash doesn't come around all that often). But now I'm looking at being more conservative and only getting half of wot I had. I just hope 600W will b enuf for an i5/i7 when I finally upgrade.

if that apower is actually capable of more than 350-400w I will eat my hat.

Depending on the machine you want, get an 80+ certified 550-650w psu and you will be able to run almost anything on the market (excluding a GTX480 which needs a small nuclear power plant)

No, a GTX480 doesn't need a nuclear power plant, it runs so hot it has become self-sufficient, powering itself through a steady chain reaction

Well, I can bring with me to the next event, and u can test it for me. Seems to run my current box pretty well, but I thought an upgrade would b nice.



I couldn't afford a 480 even if i saved for a month lol.