When upgrading their most gamers will first think about a snazzy new graphics card or a faster CPU. Their desires may lead them to an extra stick of RAM or a new sound card, perhaps a multi-speaker set-up. The one thing that is guaranteed to be languishing right near the bottom of their wish list is a new PSU. The power supply unit is the unsung workhorse of the PC. Without this big box of electronics, cables and fans nothing would run in your machine and all those hundreds of pounds of kit would be about as useful as a paper umbrella.

So why on earth would anyone think about spending good money on something that you get for free in a new PC, or if disaster strikes can be had for around a tenner? Because although it sits at the back of the PC and has the most thankless tasks in the whole system a good PSU can mean all the difference between happy gaming and abandoned gaming.

For the last few months my PC has been plagued by a host of problems. From games crashing in their first few seconds to new CPUs crashing the machine during the boot up process I was reaching the end of my tether. I had swapped out everything, tried friend's equipment, prayed, un- and re-plugged more times than a gypsy caravan and generally done everything I could to try to remedy the situation. I came to the conclusion that my PSU was to blame and went about looking for a replacement.

I had bought a cheapo number which, although it gave me more Watts and did solve one problem, did not seem to be up to the heavy load demands that my rather full box was making. I used a very handy site to find out what was the minimum wattage a new PSU would need to be for my box. After weighing up price considerations I decided to get a Thermaltake Silent 420W. It had all the requisite electronics in place, including Active Power Factor Correction, which sounds impressive if baffling, (something to do with stopping leakage). The price was under forty pounds, which is good in the world of performance PSUs, (I've seen one that goes for well over a ton). This would give me 420 Watts of power along with two integrated cooling fans which vary their speed according to need.

Swapping out PSUs is a simple case of un- and re-plugging things and takes no more then a couple of minutes. Forty odd quid and a few minutes work and what a difference was made to my gaming happiness. All those problems I had getting certain games to run vanished; I was back in fragging heaven. Next the new CPU was slotted in and it too ran beautifully. My overall system stability was greatly improved as well, with random crashes and the occasional unexplained lockup dwindling into bad memories. The variable fans did tend to vary their way up to the max, making more noise then the last PSU, but this is something I am more then happy to put up with, especially as the difference is slight. Another thing I was less than totally impressed with was the exhaust from one of the fans blows into the inside of the case, and due to the design of my one this means a stream of warm air blows gently over my CPU. Not ideal by any stretch, but fortunately my cooler can handle this with no difficulties, in fact as mentioned in my review, the CPU is overclocked and works just fine.

The peace of mind a new PSU has brought me is well worth the money spent. If you too are plagued by inexplicable crashes and obstinate programs that refuse to work even though they should, it may not be your game or drivers that need updating, it may be that power supply you hardly even knew was there. I am not convinced that this particular supply would be your best choice though as it does have a few deficiencies, namely noise and that crazily placed 2nd fan. When spending this kind of money on something so anonymous I would prefer to be free of these problems. But then again the kind of problems that spending this kind of money has cured were far worse.

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By Sam Gibson