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Please spell out the reasons(or advantages) to buy a modular power supply vs.non-modular power supply

I read a wikipedia article section on modular power supplies, but the community could probably offer more insight, in the form of experience which you might not find on wikipedia, which spells out exactly what are reasons why it makes sense or might be necessary to have a modular power supply.

On the other hand, are there situations where a non-modular PSU will supply power to your machine just as well as a modular PSU?

Does this question look acceptable to ask on Super User? If not, are there any edits to this question that will make it more on-topic? Would explaining whether I'm asking a hypothetical or real-world question change the acceptability of the question on Super User?

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  • It sounds like a shopping question worded to get comparison data on modular vs non-modular power supplies. The quote question does not seem like it would be helpful, since their are hundreds of hardware review websites, and your asking for what basically amounts to opinion about modular vs non-modular power supplies.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 11:00

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We generally aim for questions that are applicable to a wide audience, so it's better to keep this general rather than asking "Should I buy X or Y?".

In that case you might want to rephrase it slightly, asking for how to choose between a modular and a non-modular PSU, and why one would choose one over the other.

The title could perhaps be: "Why should I choose a non-modular power supply over a modular power supply?" or similar.

But apart from that I'd say it's fine.

Note that I have zero knowledge about the hardware details here, so I cannot judge whether this question makes sense from a technical standpoint.

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I would say that the question would seem to be on-topic, but I don't think it is really a good question because:

  1. The question is covered in countless forums and articles all over the internet where people have asked exactly the same thing.
  2. You haven't explained the other details in your setup. For instance, if you have a very small case that uses Mini ITX motherboards there's more reason to use one than if you have a full-size ATX tower due to the reduced space/airflow, but conversely there's also more danger of a some modular PSU not being suitable, due to the fact that they are sometimes longer.

Unfortunately if you modify your question to be more specific then there is a danger that it goes from being too broad to being too specific to be useful for anyone else.

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  • I am building a small server with a Corsair Graphite 600T case with 3 large fans. It has a ASUS sabretooth 990FX R2 motherboard, and 1 Socket AM3+ CPU that runs at 125W. I have 6 SATA III (6 Gbit/s) internal hard disks to power. Depending upon how many PCI slots I occupy with graphics cards, the power supply required could reach 1300W. It's been hard for me to find a "name-brand" (I think of Corsair, Thermaltake) 1200W+ PSU under $200 USD.
    – T. Webster
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 10:40
  • I have a new question, which isn't about modular vs. non-modular at all. There is an abundance of affordable, high-quality power supplies between 500W-850W. If I add components to the motherboard gradually over weeks, I may only need a 750W power supply now. After my budget allows for 2 more PCIe graphics cards, 16 GB more RAM, etc. then what if we combine the first 750W PSU with a second, 750W PSU. Is the practice of combining multiple power supplies reliable? Does its success depend upon whether a motherboard's specs explicitly support it?
    – T. Webster
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 10:50
  • To be honest I don't really have any experience building very large and powerful PC's so I don't know for sure. It looks like your Corsair 600T only has space for one PSU, so you would have the additional expense buying an even bigger case. But it seems there are actually quite a few full tower cases with 2 PSU bays, so I'm guessing that having 2 must work reasonably well.
    – James P
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 11:08
  • @mobilecomputing - what has your research shown?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 16:32

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