When I occasionally have to buy a PSU for my main computer, I find myself spending around 100eur on one. The PSU is a place where I don't tend to save cash, since good quality usually ensures that if your PSU dies some expensive parts don't die along with it.1 - Don't buy OEM
OEM, "no brand" or cheap PSUs are built with very cheap components, with Premier and Antler branded ones being a good example of bad durability. As a rough estimation, 99% of them don't deliver their rated power. On top of that, circuits are bad so efficiency is low and failure rate is high, especially after about two years, if you use the PC a lot.
I completely gave up on OEM units when they started literally kiling components on most PCs that I assembled, including ones from friends and family. Usually the bad quality capacitors start to give up and even a little surge in the power grid has more severe repercursions than they would when the PSU is good and new. When I got lucky, only the PSU died, when I didn't, a motherboard, CPU, graphics card and even RAM went to the garbage bin.
I managed to repair some of these failed cheap PSUs, usually costing me as much as the PSU did to replace them (10-15eur), with Rubycon or Panasonic ones:
After this, I haven't had one fail on me yet again - they were repairs worth every single penny.2 - Buy a surge supressor!
As I mentioned above, the most damages that I've had happening to me are due to cheap PSUs and power surges on the power grid. Power surges are easily avoidable with a surge supressor or a decent UPS. Since the surge supressors are cheap and readily available, that's my pick for most jobs. Most of the time they are hardware savers, even for expensive PSUs.
Some manufacturers don't include the magic MOV in their PSUs, so it's up for the one in the surge supressor to protect the hardware. A good example is this 600W Zalman PSU, reviewed by Hardware Secrets.
Manufacturers may argue that the MOV has an expiration date but having one is always better for the careless buyer and is a massive fault, given the high price of these units.
Like the missing MOVs on PSUs, the one in the surge supressor also has an expiration date, so be sure to pick up one that warns when it needs to be replaced by a new supressor - usually by an LED.
3 - Choose one with good caps
With the enormous amount of hardware review websites that exist today, it's not hard to have a look inside most PSUs before buying them.
What I consider most critical, as outlined in the first point, is the quality of capacitors, since 95% of the time, they are the first components to become damaged:
This is what's called a leaky capacitor and it's the first problem, mostly exhibited by bad quality Taiwanese capacitors. Cheap brands use them exclusively. You also need to look inside of branded PSUs also, since some make use of them.One notable example is LC Power, which uses almost only Teapo, a known bad capacitors brand. In spite of this, I have never seen an LC Power with leaky caps, so either Teapo has improved recently or LC Power is doing such a good work with the circuit design that it places very little burden on the capacitors, hence allowing them to last many years.
A very recent Xbitlabs review of three Asus branded power supplies shows that two of them have known bad caps, LTec and CapXon(I've had very bad, multiple experiences with these), while the most powerful one has capacitors from Chemi-con, which you may recognize from many Asus motherboards. Notice that the reviewer highlights the Chemi-con caps:
Widely reputed KZH series capacitors from United Chemi-Con are installed at the PSU’s output. Expensive PSUs make use of the KZE series as a rule, but the KZH series differs with even lower equivalent resistance, which means better filtering of high-voltage pulsation.
Look for good brands then, it won't be hard: most reviewers will notice them accordingly. One site I have as a reference is Hardware Secrets (www.hardwaresecrets.com), since the PSU reviews from Gabriel Torres are definitely among the best you can find online.
A good starting point to know if you're looking at good or bad caps is this link from: badcaps forum.
Mostly, look for:
A slightly enhanced list is available from Hardware Secrets, although I only have experiences with the ones above, hence it's what I recommend.
Happy hunting.
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