Used PSU at half the price to save the budget, worth the gamble?

Question

Rebuild budget is getting shredded by memory and storage right now, a 32GB DDR5 kit is sitting just under $390 and SSDs are all over the place, so I'm hunting savings anywhere I can. Local listing has a used unit, higher wattage than I need, going for roughly half of new. Seller swears it was lightly used. I never buy used stuff that sits in the load path, but the math keeps nagging at me. Where do you all draw the line on this?

burninWorrier · Accepted Answer

The discount buys you nothing you need to know: real age, how hard it ran, cap wear. A quality unit lasts 8 to 10 years but you cannot place a used one on that curve. A supply failing dirty can push bad voltage downstream and take the parts with it. The one part I never buy blind.

sarahj · Answer

I'll be the exception. I did buy used once, off a friend whose build I'd watched run fine for years, and it's been perfect. The difference was knowing exactly what it had been through.

alexc · Answer

cheap out on anything you want, just not the one box feeding all of it