Best PSU for gaming in 2025

The power supply unit (PSU) for any gaming PC has to be powerful enough to deal with the sustained loads gaming puts on it. It’s responsible for taking alternating current (AC) from the wall and turning it into a variety of direct current (DC) voltages to power your motherboard and everything connected to it. For games, it’s also essential to provide enough power over the PCIe rails to your graphics card, which will likely be doing most of the work. We’ve compiled a list of the best power supplies for PC gaming use, so your next rig will put out every last FPS that it can.

Our picks for the best power supplies for PC gaming in 2024

Our current guidelines for how much power you need to power a gaming PC is 750W at a minimum. That’s enough for a mid-range PC build with all but the top tier of graphics cards, able to power every component without overloading the PSU. Depending on pricing, you can often get the 850W version of quality PSUs for less, and that's what's happening here. The MSI MPG A850G is one of the newest and best options for an 850W power supply. It has fully modular cables, all in flat black, for easy cable routing. You get a single 24-pin ATX cable, two PCIe 6+2 cables, a PCIe 16-pin to double 6+2 cable, two EPS12V 4+4 cables, and one 12VHPWR cable. You also get three SATA power cables and two Molex/FDD cables.

These are more than enough cable connections for most gaming PC configurations. Your build will stay nice and tidy as you only need to plug in the cables you need for power, with the rest staying in the box. The addition of a native 12VHPWR cable means you can use the latest graphics cards without worrying about adapter cables, which have been shown to have issues in the past. This is a solid power supply unit at a solid price.

While our minimum recommendation is 750W, power supplies are more efficient when they’re not near the upper limit. The Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 V2 comes with 850W of 80 Plus Gold rated power capacity. That gives a little bit more headroom for extra hard drives or other accessories or for a more powerful graphics card. The gold efficiency rating means over 90% of the power from the wall is retained when converted to DC power, saving on your power bill and reducing heat output.

This fully modular unit comes with an ATX 24-pin cable, two EPS12V cables (4+4 and 8), three SATA cables, a peripheral Molex cable, and two PCIe 6+2 cables. These cables are black, flat, and easily routed around your PC case. It also has a 120mm hydro-dynamic fan for quiet cooling, and an increased maximum operating temperature of 50C, up 10C from the prior version. I’ve used several other Cooler Master PSUs, and they’ve been up to the task of every configuration I’ve put them against.

Sometimes, when you’ve got the itch to build a gaming PC, there comes a time for no compromises. If you’re using top-flight components, there is no reason not to use a top-tier PSU. The ‎MEG Ai1300P has 1300W of power capacity in an 80 Plus Platinum-rated unit that is smaller than most other ATX power supplies. With it only being 160mm long and 150mm wide, it can fit into smaller cases, and the fully modular cables make building a tidy affair. You get a native 12VHPWR cable, one 12VHPWR to two PCIe 6+2, and no less than six other PCIe 6+2 cables for multiple graphics cards. You also get four SATA power cables, one Molex, one 24-pin ATX, and two EPS12V (4+4 and 8). There are also two USB cables, one for an internal header and one for an external, which are used to connect to MSI Center for real-time power use monitoring.

Sounds like overkill, right? But remember, PSU performs better at around 50% load, so the more headroom, the better. This is the PSU I have in my personal gaming PC, which also has a 12th-gen Intel i9-12900K and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics card. It doesn’t miss a beat whether I’m using 100% of my GPU in a graphics-intensive game, or while touching up photographs. It can also be configured as single-rail or multi-rail through the software, in case you have one powerful GPU or need to power multiple. Not everyone needs a PSU of this capacity, for sure, but a good power supply can last through multiple builds, and with the 10-year warranty, this unit will.

While the general advice for buying a power supply is to budget for a mid-range unit, sometimes that’s not always possible. That’s not to say you can’t get an affordable, safe power supply unit. This Thermaltake Smart 500W is one of the few budget-orientated PSUs that we’d recommend. It’s from a reputable PC brand, it has 80 Plus White efficiency so it’s not going to turn into a toaster, and it has enough capacity to get an entry-level gaming PC up and running.

To do so at this price point, you miss out on some of the modern conveniences. You won’t get modular cables here, so every power cable is preattached and has to be hidden out of sight if you’re not using it. It has a decent 120mm fan to keep things cool while under load. You get only two PCIe connectors and a single EPS12V 4+4 connector. That makes it suitable for entry-level gaming only, but at this price, you get reliability without any frills.

Seasonic is one of the bigger names in the market and serves as the OEM for multiple other brands. The Prime TX-1000 is an in-house creation, with 1000W of capacity and an 80 Plus Titanium efficiency rating. That means 94% of the power from the wall will be converted into usable DC power for your computer, giving you lower temperatures inside your PC and a lower power bill. The fluid-dynamic bearing cooling fan can be set to off, or hybrid, giving options for cool, quiet operation when you don’t need the full capacity. It’s also got additional venting on the sides of the unit to pull cool air in while the fan is on.

The fully modular cables come with six PCIe 6+2, one 24-pin ATX, two EPS12V (4+4 and 8), four SATA in varying lengths, two Molex, and newer units have a 12VHPWR cable included. It’s great to see the latest GPU power cable included, as the 12-year warranty means this PSU will outlast your current gaming PC, and the next one, and possibly the one after that. You can also run the top-flight hardware with the 1000W of headroom, providing enough power for likely another couple of generational leaps in gaming hardware to come.

The German manufacturer, be quiet! is known for its quiet, cost-effective case fans and other PC accessories. One of those whisper-quiet fans, a 135mm Silent Wings 4, is used to cool the BN515 Straight Power 12, which has 850W of power capacity and a fully modular cable design. The funnel design around the fan helps bring in more cool air, keeping the hard-working power conversion circuits cool under gaming loads. It’s also 80 Plus Gold rated for efficiency and has a 5-year warranty.

The modular cable set has a native 12VHPWR cable, four PCIe 6+2 cables, a 24-pin ATX, two EPS12V (4+4 and 8), and four SATA cables. That’s more than enough for mid-range gaming PC use, and it even has enough cables for overclocking the CPU on motherboards with two EPS sockets. The cooling performance is improved inside the unit, as the circuit is wire-free on the DC side, giving more empty space for airflow to whisk away collected heat. This design also reduces signal disturbance, protecting your high-performance gaming PC components.

When building inside a smaller PC case, every inch of space is at a premium. That’s why SFX power supplies were created, to fit into the smaller cases while still providing clean, reliable power to your components. The Asus ROG Loki SFX-L is slightly larger than the smallest SFX units, but that enables it to have 850W of power capacity. You can actually get up to 1200W of power from one of these, but that’s more than most SFF builds require as you often use mid-range components to lower the overall amount of heat inside the case.

You get fully modular cables with a 12VHPWR, one 24-pin ATX, two EPS12V (4+4), three PCIe 6+2, and cables for SATA and Molex use. You also get an addressable RGB cable, which syncs the RGB fan on the Loki to the rest of the RGB on your motherboard. This is enough cables for even the most powerful Nvidia or AMD graphics cards, plus your M-ITX motherboard of choice. The ROG styling and the addressable RGB lighting are just a bonus on an otherwise great PSU.

For the entirety of PSU design, cables have come out of the power supply box in one place. That’s directly opposite where it comes in from the wall. Corsair’s RM1000x Shift changes that, by putting its modular cable sockets on the side panel instead. This makes things easier to plug in, as the previously-plugged cables don’t get in the way as much. You also get 1000W of power capacity from one of Corsair’s most popular PSUs.

You get fully modular cables to take full advantage of the side-mounted power sockets. That includes one 24-pin ATX, two EPS12V (4+4), one 12VHPWR cable that uses two of the PSU’s PCIe sockets, four PCIe 6+2 cables, four SATA cables, and two Molex cables. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the sockets are easily accessible, as putting that many cables into any gaming PC turns into a tangled mess on most PSUs.

You also get a 140mm fan to keep things cool, which takes full advantage of the fact this unit is fairly large. All the cables are also flat, which helps with cable routing. It’s exciting to see a different orientation on this unit, and I hope it spurs some other innovations in the market.

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What you need to know about buying a PSU for PC gaming

Picking the best PSU for your gaming PC depends on which components you will be powering. It should also align with your budget, although you can spend more to get a PSU that will last you through several changes of PC hardware if you desire. You also should take a look at the games you usually play and pick a PSU to suit the graphics card and CPU you need to run those games. I recommend at least an 80 Plus Gold rating and sticking to trusted brands, so you know they will be there for you if any issues occur. Cheaping out on the PSU is a bad idea, as a bad PSU can take your entire PC down with it.

That’s why I recommend the MSI MPG A850G power supply unit for most gaming builds. It has enough power for mid-range hardware and a native 12VHPWR connector for the latest graphics cards. If cost is your primary consideration, check out the Thermaltake Smart 500W, which will get entry-level gaming rigs running with trusted reliability.