Is my 450w PSU too powerful.

Whiffle

Whiffle

Whiffle

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27 Jul 2009
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386
Hi,

I have just bought the SuperFlower 450w Gold PSU for a new Linux server (to be run headless):

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/supe...0-plus-gold-power-supply-black-ca-002-sf.html

My setup is based upon:

MSI mATX motherboard
G1840
2x4gb RAM
1xSSD
3x3.5" HDD
2 x 120mm fans
Dual DVB-T2 tuner (still to be bought)
Quad DVB-S2 tuner (still to be bought)

All I am going to be using if for is recording TV (via MythTV or TVH) and steaming media around my house.

The PC wakes up to record but goes into sleep mode whenever it is not being used.

I bought the above PSU, given it was gold rated, to save a bit of electricity.

However, I have just realised that it is perhaps too powerful for my system - should I have gone for the 350w version instead to get a higher load and thus better efficiency?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/supe...0-plus-gold-power-supply-black-ca-001-sf.html

They seem to be absolutely identical but for the wattage.

I don't really anticipate adding much more to the above system, other than perhaps a couple of extra hard drives in the future.

What do you guys think?
 
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As you will have to pay for returning it you would end up paying more so on that basis keep it.

However, I can see where you are coming from. This review (see page 5) shows peak efficiency to be at 80% (384.5w) with 94.5% efficiency. At lower loads this decreases dramtically and at 20% load (100w) efficiency is down to 82.2%. At the end of the day we are talking pennies in extra electricity costs so whether it's worth swapping it or not is up to you.

You could probably get away with a 200-250w psu but sadly OCUK, like several other retailers, are severely lacking in quality lower capacity psu's.
 
I've never really seen anything dramatically different in the realworld between what closely specced PSUs are drawing at the wall versus the load regardless of the efficiency ratings, etc. I suspect any differences will be swallowed up in margin of error on billing anyhow.
 
Probably is too powerful. Could've used a 200-150w (maybe less?) PSU and still have some headroom. However as others have said, it'll cost you more to send back and the efficiency wastage would take many hours (probably years of use) for it to break even/make it worth swapping it.
 
foster grant said:
Sleep Mode ?....didnt know people still used sleep mode , I stopped using that years ago.
Click to expand...

I've never had much joy with Windows and sleep mode in a desktop scenario - either plain not working or strange issues after resuming - sometimes taking an hour or more to manifest themselves for instance on one PC if sleep was never enabled it would happily churn out 100Mbit all day long over the NIC - after resuming from sleep it would slowly drop down to around 30-40Mbit max over a couple of hours and stick there until rebooted.
 
Rroff said:
I've never had much joy with Windows and sleep mode in a desktop scenario - either plain not working or strange issues after resuming - sometimes taking an hour or more to manifest themselves for instance on one PC if sleep was never enabled it would happily churn out 100Mbit all day long over the NIC - after resuming from sleep it would slowly drop down to around 30-40Mbit max over a couple of hours and stick there until rebooted.
Click to expand...

Yeah same here , I always found it would make my whole system slow and sluggish so I stopped using it , and no more sluggish PC :) ....and if I'm gonna be away from my PC I just shut it down .
 
yeh its probably overkill, but psu are a lot more efficient when you dont run them to the max, so if efficiency is what your bothered about keep it
 
My home server has a similar spec psu and a low power xeon in it. Definitely a little overkill, but I wouldn't worry about it, as long as it performs reliably.
 
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