You have to cringe when an item that is required by some regulations is then picked up by marketing and bandied about. Please set PFC aside as a nice to have.
As to power supplies, I have dozens and dozens of them I've picked up from compgeeks, but I follow my rule of tacking on 100 Watts to what the PC totalled out to be. So far, so good and its been years of service at a great price.
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AP550W&cat=CAS is all of 28 bucks and 7 or 8 bucks ground shipping. I have a few Apower units and for the buck its nice. Remember that I don't dare pull 550W from any 550W supply!
In closing, I've fitted a few PC Power and Cooling units as well. They are their own brand of cool quality, but are pricey.
Bob
No. I don't think so, but here it is anyway.
I have a cheap power supply in my computer and I want to get a "The best one I can", but PC Power and Cooling is just too much money for me. If you had to make a second choice what would it be? I'd like a nice big one for now and the future, meaning not just that I'd like to be able to deck out this system, I would, but I'd like as well to be as able as I can down the road to put a whole new system in my Lian Li pc 61...new mobo cpu video the works etc. and still be able to supply the new hardware which has greater power requirements and then deck it out. No neon tubes. Just the best hardware I can get my hands on. Ha ha. Impossible?
In other words generally I'm looking at 550 watts according to what is generally available today?
I've looked at some reviews, and frankly I'm not sure I'm seeing it all and my head is turning to mush, so I just want to get the "take" of someone who knows.
Can you just use the same criteria you use to determine that you consider PC Power and Cooling as a brand name to be the best to tell me who is second?
...and third..
On paper.
How critical is power factor correction in a power supply for a home pc.
It seems to me that it is supposed to clean up the signal to the pc parts which is something I'm looking for, but in other places all I get are is it's just more efficient as far as power consumption is concerned.

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