PSU over wattage = bad?

[cyco]

Is it bad to have more Watts than needed on a PSU?

[blade995]

Is it bad to have more Watts than needed on a PSU?

 

 

 

Simple answer: No.

[JoeDaStudd]

Is it bad to have more Watts than needed on a PSU?

 

As blade955 said the answer is no.

 

The worst that can happen is you end up spending a few $ (or ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã) extra a year on your electricity bill. Generally the higher wattage the PSU is the more room you have for upgrades/additions. However a solid 620W PSU can out perform a cheaper lesser quality PSU which has higher wattage.

[ClareJonsson]

The last two posts were correct, and it's actually better to have a PSU watt rating as high as you can afford.

 

 

 

The PSU will not supply more watts than the components in your PC requires, the watt rating is how much it can supply in total. A 400 Watt PSU won't be permanently supplying 400 watts, it will be able to supply up to 400 watts.

 

 

 

What is bad if your PSU is under rated, i.e. if all the components in your PC requires a total of 400 watts and you only have a 350 watt PSU, then the PSU will be strained and eventually burn out.

 

 

 

Another misconception is that buying a PSU rated at 500 watts uses up more electricity than one rated at 400 watts, both PSUs in the same PC will use up the same amount of current as it's the components in your PC that use the juice not the PSU, the PSU only supplies what the components require.

 

 

 

Hope all that made sense :).