Is "PFC" important to have for power supplies?

[mkygod]

I searched through the forum and found a post on PFC "Power Factor Correction". Basically someone said it makes the PSU more efficient?

How important is this to have in a power supply? Does it have any effect on performance or reliability? Im having a hard time choosing a PSU because of this. From what i found loooking through NewEgg's site, only Thermaltake have PFC power supplies at a reasonable price ~50-70. It looks like theres about 10 dollar premium on Thermaltake models w/ PFC.

Enemax and Fortran only has PFC available in their top of the line PSUs, and it looks like none Antec's (including the TruePowers) have PFC.

So far ive narrowed it down to the Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480 w/ pfc, or the Fortran 350watt w/o pfc. They both have manual fan adjustments which is what im looking for.

 

[Blastman]

All modern psu?s have PFC. I think the ones that use just capacitors are classified as ?passive? PFC as opposed to the active ones that have a control circuit. Not sure about that though.

You need to look at the efficiency rating of a psu ?not the PFC rating. In this test an active PFC psu had a lower efficiency than the same model without active PFC. amdmb. Could be the result of the active PFC circuit using more power than the passive one.

The good active psu can raise efficiency to the mid 70?s? % ? where typical psu?s are around 65 -72% efficient.