Whether you’re running a budget gaming rig or a cutting-edge beast build, you need a power supply. Regardless of your needs, we’ve done our best to make sure that you’re covered. We’ve selected seven of the best power supplies for gaming on the market; any of which could earn the crown of best PSU depending on what you need.
If you’re worried about things like the best PSU brands or PSU reviews, don’t worry: we have you covered. We’ve mainly picked PSUs from the top two brands on the market: Corsair and EVGA. There’s also a surprise pick in there, but we aren’t going to spoil it here.
In addition to individual power supply reviews, we’ve also written a detailed buying guide at the bottom of the article. If there are any questions you have about buying PSUs, we have you covered there. You don’t need to know everything already: just be willing to learn.
best 650W PSU
EVGA SuperNova G3 650W
- Wattage: 650W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold-Certified
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 7 Years
best budget
Corsair CX450
- Wattage: 450W
- Efficiency: 80+ Bronze
- Modularity: Non-Modular
- Warranty Period: 5 Years
best quiet
be quiet! BN618 Straight Power 11
- Wattage: 650W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 5 Years
best fully-modular PSU
Corsair RM750x
- Wattage: 750W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold-Certified
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 10 Years
best semi-modular PSU
EVGA 650 GQ
- Wattage: 650W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold-Certified
- Modularity: Semi
- Warranty Period: 5 Years
best 1000W
Corsair HX1000
- Wattage: 1000W
- Efficiency: 80+ Platinum
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 10 Years
best SFX
Corsair SF600
- Wattage: 600W
- Efficiency: 80+ Platinum
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 7 Years
Table of Contents
1. EVGA SuperNova G3 650W
The best 650W PSU is also our best PSU for gaming
- Wattage: 650W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold-Certified
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 7 Years
- Full modularity
- Respectably high wattage, warranty, and efficiency
- Perfect for most gaming rigs
- Slightly pricey
The EVGA SuperNova G3 should offer all the features you’re looking for in a power supply. The wattage and efficiency are both high, there’s a lengthy warranty, and you have full modularity. Unless your rig has seriously insane power requirements or you need whisper-quiet operation, this is most likely the best choice for you.
The only real downside is the price, which is a good bit higher than your typical budget PSU. Rest assured, though: you’re definitely getting your money’s worth here.
2. Corsair CX450
The CX450 wins the crown of best budget power supply
- Wattage: 450W
- Efficiency: 80+ Bronze
- Modularity: Non-Modular
- Warranty Period: 5 Years
- Good PSU despite being very cheap
- Backed by a strong warranty
- Great wattage for budget builds
- No modularity makes cable management harder
The Corsair CX450 is our top budget power supply thanks to its great pricing and warranty. The Bronze Certification is also nice to have, especially when compared to many lower-grade PSUs in the same price range.
This will be a perfect PSU for ATX and Micro ATX budget builds. However, we highly recommend stepping up to Semi-Modular if you’re a new builder, or using a smaller MATX/ITX case in your build, as the Non-Modularity here will make for a tougher build process. This should only cost you roughly ~$20 more. That being said, this gaming PC power supply is still good, so you can pocket that if you’re building in a Mid-Tower case or larger.
3. be quiet! BN618 Straight Power 11
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the BN618 is the best quiet power supply
- Wattage: 650W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 5 Years
- Whisper quiet and fully-modular
- High efficiency and wattage
- Slightly pricey
For whisper quiet operation, you can’t really do much better than be quiet!’s BN618. be quiet! as a brand is focused on providing the quietest possible fans and cooling solutions, and their expertise is fairly well-demonstrated here.
In addition to low noise levels, the PSU itself is pretty comparable to our best overall pick, complete with 650W wattage and 80+ Gold certification. The only real downside is a shorter warranty period versus the EVGA front-runner, as well as a higher price of roughly ~$20 on most days.
4. Corsair RM750x
The RM750x is our pick for best fully-modular PSU
- Wattage: 750W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold-Certified
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 10 Years
- Whisper quiet and fully-modular
- High efficiency and wattage
- Slightly pricey
Corsair’s RM750X PSU is ideal for power users who want the best building experience and have a rig with higher-than-average power requirements. (These will generally be high-end, overclocked gaming rigs.) There are a ton of benefits here, including a Zero RPM fan mode for quiet operation at low power usage, and an incredible 10 year warranty, which blasts the competition out of the water. In fact, Corsair is the only company to offer a 10 year warranty on any of our picks.
The only real downside worth noting, aside from the slightly higher price than the EVGA frontrunner, is that the cables are a little stiff. For some reason, Corsair’s modular PSU cables are a little stiffer than most other PSU providers, and nobody knows why. Still, that’s not enough to stop this from being one of the best PC power supplies.
5. EVGA 650 GQ
The best semi-modular PSU is EVGA’s 650 GQ
- Wattage: 650W
- Efficiency: 80+ Gold-Certified
- Modularity: Semi
- Warranty Period: 5 Years
- High wattage and efficiency
- ...at a great price!
- Semi modularity is fine
- ...except in SFF/ITX builds
If you want to save some cash, have a good building experience, and aren’t building an SFF/ITX PC, this is the PSU for you. The EVGA 650 GQ is our pick for top semi-modular PSU, thanks to its stellar wattage, efficiency, and pricing. You also have a fairly good 5 Year Warranty attached, which is more than can be said for budget-oriented Semi-Modular PSUs.
Semi-Modular is generally just as good as Fully-Modular unless you’re building in an ITX or particularly small Micro ATX case. As long as that isn’t the case, there’s no reason not to snag this one.
6. Corsair HX1000
Corsair’s HX1000 is the best 1000W power supply
- Wattage: 1000W
- Efficiency: 80+ Platinum
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 10 Years
- Stellar wattage and efficiency
- Fully-modular and quiet most of the time
- Very high price
- Cables still stiff
Perhaps unsurprisingly, our pick for top 1000W PSU is none other than Corsair’s HX1000. It’s an enthusiast’s favorite thanks to its high wattage and efficiency, as well as stellar warranty and modularity. Even if your build doesn’t come anywhere close to using its full wattage, you’ll also enjoy the benefits of Corsair’s Zero RPM fan mode, which keeps fans slow or inactive at low power loads.
The only downsides are the high price (the highest on this list, actually), and the persisting cable stiffness problem. The cable stiffness is barely an issue, but it’s the one area where Corsair doesn’t meet or exceed the standards set by its competitors, which makes us think it’s an intentional handicap of what is ultimately our best modular power supply.
7. Corsair SF600
The best SFX power supply is another Corsair favorite
- Wattage: 600W
- Efficiency: 80+ Platinum
- Modularity: Full
- Warranty Period: 7 Years
- SFX form factor makes it perfect for SFF PCs
- Excellent wattage, efficiency, and modularity
- Strong warranty
- High price
Last but not least, our pick for top SFX PSU is… another Corsair power supply.
Hey, sorry: it’s not our fault that Corsair and EVGA make most of the best PC power supplies in the industry. This isn’t personal bias speaking: these two are legitimately just the best PSU brands out there right now.
Focusing on the SF600 itself, you have a standard 600W wattage paired with a truly stellar efficiency, modularity, and size. This is, beyond a doubt, the perfect PSU to use in a smaller PC build, especially HTPCs and ITX PCs. The main downside is a disproportionately high price compared to its wattage, and a slightly-shorter-than-Corsair’s-usual-but-still-better-than-most warranty period. Umm… that’s to say it is 7 years and not 10 years.
How To Find The Best Power Supply (PSU) For You
There’s more to buying a PSU than grabbing the biggest number and going home. Each number means something, and you’d be surprised at how little you actually need for a functional gaming system, especially with modern hardware.
We’re going to break down each of the main power supply specs below and what they mean to you.
Wattage
Wattage refers to the capacity of the PSU in question. This is the first spec to look at when buying a power supply of your own, but it can be tough to pick if you aren’t sure what you need.
If you aren’t sure what your system’s power draw is, use a wattage calculator or a tool like PCPartPicker to find estimated power requirements. Once you have that, you’ll typically want to bump up by 50-100W to ensure you have plenty of flex room, especially if you intend on overclocking your CPU and/or GPU. Naturally, this holds true if you plan on doing significant upgrades in the future.
Below, we’ll provide some general guidelines for each tier of PSU.
400W - 600W
400W – 600W power supplies are suited for most budget and mid-range PC builds. This applies especially if they are using modern CPUs and GPUs, which consume much less power than chips from 5+ years ago. If you’re buying a replacement PSU for an older system, or a system with used parts that are a few generations old, you may want to bump up even higher.
650W PSUs are generally regarded as the sweet-spot in this regard, capable of powering most mid-range systems with little issue.
700W - 900W
700W – 900W power supplies are most suited for high-end and server PC builds. Particularly old GPUs or particularly powerful CPUs (like the latest i9s and Threadrippers) also tend to require this power spec.
In some cases, it’s also worth buying these PSUs for much weaker systems, especially if they’re rated for quiet operation and high power efficiency. The less a high-efficiency PSU is being pushed, the quieter and cooler it will run.
1000W - 1500W
This tier and higher is overkill for all but the most extreme of scenarios, at least in terms of sheer wattage.
When combined with modularity and high efficiency, though, PSUs rated for this wattage are ideal for keeping temperature and noise levels low. We’ll explain a little more about efficiency in the next section.
Efficiency
Most mainstream PSUs come with an 80+ Efficiency rating, which indicates… well, the efficiency of the power supply. The better the Efficiency, the less power the system will consume on idle and during regular use.
To explain a little bit better, a 500W PSU with 0% efficiency would be running at its full capacity 24/7, regardless of what the user is doing. This would mean the same level of noise, heat, and power consumption while doing casual web browsing as playing games, which would be just plain wasteful.
Or put another way, if you have a 500W PSU with an 80+ rating, it’d use significantly less than its max power while you’re performing basic tasks.
Below, we’ll give a rundown of each of the 80+ ratings and what they mean.
80+
The most basic 80+ rating indicates a bare minimum of 80% power efficiency. However, this still means a lot of excess heat and power consumption compared to other tiers. The best cheap power supplies will at least have an 80+ rating.
80+ Bronze
The 80+ Bronze rating is a moderate step up, providing a minimum of 82% power efficiency. In some scenarios, this can even go as high as 88%, but usually averages around 85%. This is a marginal improvement over 80+, but will still release excess heat and noise.
80+ Gold
80+ Gold is the sweet spot that most consumers and manufacturers alike target. The minimum efficiency here is 87%, the peak is 92%, and the average is 89%. At this point, excess heat is mostly diminished as an issue, but noise levels will still be a little high.
80+ Platinum
80+ Platinum used to be the highest standard, starting at 89% efficiency and averaging 92% efficiency. This reduces excess heat to the point where it’s barely noticeable, and noise levels get fairly quiet here, too. This is ideal for quiet PC builds and SFF builds.
80+ Titanium
The latest and greatest 80+ rating is 80+ Titanium, which starts at 90% efficiency, peaks at 96% efficiency, and averages around 94% efficiency. This is realistically about as good as you’re ever going to get, but who knows: maybe in a few years we’ll have 80+ Diamond, with 100% efficiency.
Modularity
Modularity refers mainly to PSU cabling. Specifically, what cables can and can’t be removed.
Non-Modular
Non-Modular power supplies have no removable cables, which means that you’ll have a ton of excess cables in your case. This is particularly unfortunate in Micro ATX, Mini ITX, and SFF PC builds, where there is little room for cable management. This also makes for a much more difficult initial building process. You might need extra zip ties if you go this route.
Semi-Modular
Semi-Modular power supplies are the sweet spot for most people. Most cables are removable, except for the main motherboard power cable, which you probably didn’t need to remove anyway. However, it not being removable means it’s also not replaceable, which can be bad if the cable is damaged or you need a shorter cable for an ITX/SFF PC build.
This provides a much better building experience than Non-Modular, and is a recommended step up if you can afford the extra ~$20 or so.
Fully-Modular
Fully-Modular power supplies are the best, no question. Every cable can be removed and replaced, which means that only the necessary cables will be inside your build at a given time. Moreover, if you need shorter ones for an ITX/SFF build, you can replace them without worry. This also provides the easiest building experience.
ATX or SFX?
Fortunately, this is pretty simple. These refer to form factor.
ATX is the standard PSU form factor, and all except one of the PSUs listed above are in the ATX form factor. Get one of these unless you have a SFF PC build.
SFX is the SFF PSU form factor, making it ideal for Mini ITX builds and smaller Micro ATX cases.