Quote Originally Posted by Warsaw View Post
To be honest, I've found that all these recommendations to "not cheap out" on PSUs to be bogus. I had a Rosewill in this machine that lasted me six years under heavy load and sparse cleaning, and I have had no-name ones last me longer. Just read the reviews and you'll do fine.
How many systems have you built using cheaper PSU's? I've built 8 or 9 systems with cheaper PSU's because the client I was building them for wanted to keep costs down as much as possible, 3 or maybe 4 of those have crapped out in 2-4 years of usage. Out of the other PC's I've built, admittedly only 6 or so, with good quality PSU's none have crapped out (again though, two of them are only a year or two old).

The PSU is a very critical component, it's never happened out of the ones I've had that have failed but a failed PSU can fry the rest of your components as well. It's also something that you can't really replace with a cheaper version when it goes out either, so better to spend an extra $30-$50 initially.