Just installed a new 850W Gold vs old bronze 550W. Running Cinebench and getting small but consistent difference +60-ish points. GPU GTX 1070, CPU 5600X.

 

Rather than looking at points, you should be looking at power consumption vs performance. A well designed 650 watt gold rated PSU will give you base Platinum performance. Think of the Apple, Dell, HP & Lenovo Server/Workstations and how they were designed. Maximum performance for long periods of time and, stability.

The main/motherboard VRM design can also be a limiting factor.

 

There is a reason good PSU costs more money, investigate.

 

I've never underestimated the importance of PSU but I saw it black and white. Either works or not. When it doesn't work as it should, you get all kinds of errors but I never thought that it makes any difference in performance.

 

It's never black or white. Either all components are operating/functioning efficiently or, they are not. This is why you can't just install any modern GPU in a system with an 4th to 8th gen i7/i9 CPU. The CPU becomes a bottle neck/choke point. This in turn leads to higher temperature which leads to system throttling at any stage that needs to cool down.

 

It shouldn't. The only reason can be temperature. If the PSU stays cooler itself and/or acts as a more powerful case fan, the overall temperature inside the case stays lower, and the CPU can boost longer.

The 5600X should reach a score around 11000 in R23 MC, so 60 points are 0.5%?