CORSAIR CX550 $50

GO WITH KNOWN BRANDS. Especially when it comes to memory and power supplies. You may miss out on some real bargains by doing so, but what you will have on your side is consistency, and the reassurance that a big name brings to your build. And the warranty. Don’t forget the warranty.

The CX550 is potentially overkill for this build, because we’ve ended up drawing just under 200W. However, having a beefier power supply makes upgrading easier—affording plenty of room for more hungry CPUs, GPUs, and more storage. Note that this unit arrived a little late for our photography, so we used an RM650 for that, but swapped it out for the CX550 for actual testing.