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500W Seasonic S12III 500 SSR-500GB3 80+ Bronze Power Supply $30 AR @Newegg
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Literal opposite of the truth.
The efficiency differences are miniscule.
Ratings apply to under load, meaning you'll need to use the crap out of your PC to get your money's worth.
Even then unless you live in Cali or some other high electrical cost, it's take you around 15 years to recoup the cost difference over a bronze unit in electrical savings.
It's marketing ploy. Ignore unless you're the 12% who would benefit.
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The difference between the lowest(80 Plus) and Gold is ~5% efficiency give or take a % depending on the load. Most users go overkill with their PSUs meaning they are rarely drawing anywhere near the total load it's capable of providing.
For instance, if your components pull 300W from a 600W power supply then an 80 Plus Bronze power supply may draw up to an extra 53W compared to an 80 Plus Gold power supply which will draw up to an extra 33W.
That's 20 Watts. If you take the average cost of electricity and assume the PC will be on for 12 hours a day, this amount to something like $10 a year. There could be an argument made for the reduced heats effect on prolonging the lifespan of the PSU, but most modern PSUs have such good dissipation that they can cool passively and only need the fan for load tests.
So in summary there are benefits to getting a Gold+ or above PSU and I'd recommend it for situations you know the machine will be running 24/7 like a dedicated server but saving $$$ is probably one of the least compelling reasons to do so.
Edit: For what it's worth I bought a Seasonic X-650 Gold in 2009 and it's survived 3 PCs of varying gaming overkill and is still chugging along strong. Their budget line might not have the same quality but IF/when this thing eventually dies I'll be going with another Seasonic.
Enough for what? Not everyone needs a super computer in the home office. This overkill for 90% of people with a home PC.
It's just the same people repeating what a review said. I'm not sure how many people that actually own these have really made statements.
After clearing out my reserves of EVGA bronze units from over the last couple of years in inexpensive builds for friends or shedding old parts in CL I have been shocked at trying to replace them at similar prices, and not in a good way.
500 is also a sweet spot, for the vast majority of people this covers a stock clocked CPU and a video card that has one power plug required with much more headroom than the 430 units.
Yes and it would be lower without government getting involved.