PSU Efficency Standards V running cost savings?

[area51]

Hi might have been asked before?

Between Bronze.Silver.Gold.Platinum what would you say how much Electric saved between them?
Bearing in mind any time you invert something there is a loss so know there will be some loss.

So say how much would a platinum save you over a bronze for same size Psu.

But also guess there are more variables to add into Equation like loadings?
As some what i read up on needed X amount to run efficent.

Also guess some designs are more efficent that others.

One im running atmo is an Enermax Revolution Silver 85+ 1050watt ERV1050EWT

Looking at building a 2nd pc with old board and bits to run on Linux or Windows etc if can get main one to run dual boot with 2nd SSD?
So curious on what to get as found another one of these along with a Gold one and a few other silvers in bigger and smaller.
This ones been good got 2nd hand few years back.

Other pc will be either I5 2500.6870 or 5770 GPU probably another water loop if find rest of bits to complete one? so would be pump and say 6 fans.one DVD writer 2 max and not much else.
Other board i have is ASUS Rampage 775 DDR2 6600 CPU(Nostalgic build?)
How much power would they need?

Many thanks in Advance.

 

[Dalandius]

Looked up power supply standards and found https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/blog/80-plus-platinum-what-does-it-mean-and-what-is-the-benefit-to-me.
You can say you are losing an extra 10% from best to worse, the more power you are using for longer the more you could save. Mostly it is not going to be a large amount unless your using a lot of power for a long time. For example 10% of 600W over 8 hours is a lot more than 10% of 200W over 4 hours.

The benefits of using a higher standard power supply is the power delivery should be better with better quality components and with less wasted power it should have to cool itself less so be quieter.

 

[flea.rider]

in the big picture .. it's pennys .. cents .. less than a light bulb uses ..

 

[tamzzy]

actually you'll find that it is correct. yes, efficiency is a bell curve, but that's not the point. ALL PSUs will have similar bell curves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus#Efficiency_level_certifications


as you can see, the percentage difference (and absolute wattage) we're dealing with here, is miniscule in the context of a home computer.


ok, so we say, extreme example, 20% difference between best and worst at 10% load, seeing as 80+ don't test 10% loads until 80+ titanium.
your computer draws 50w at 10% load...that's 10w difference...
how many hours does it take to spend 1kWh? 100h
if we say something more reasonable say 10% eg between bronze and platinum - that's 200h
if we're talking difference between gold and platinum - that's 500h before you save 1kWh
higher efficiency PSUs will not save money, just cost more...


what's more important is the internal components

extreme example:
My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Kolink Continuum 850W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply= £114.95
• 1 x Antec HCG Gold 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply= £119.99

Total: £246.04 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​

kolink is 80+ platinum...but i guarantee most people will pick the seasonic/antec 80+ gold instead...why? better internals.

 

[EsaT]

One im running atmo is an Enermax Revolution Silver 85+ 1050watt ERV1050EWT

Wouldn't expect more than 75% efficiency most of the time PC is running because of insane oversizing.
In fact even 70% might be tight call for the time you spent writing that message.
Oversized PSU is like that big gasoline guzzling V8 in car used for city traffic.

in the big picture .. it's pennys .. cents .. less than a light bulb uses ..

Only if your light bulbs are old incandescent ones.
Because of insane oversizing that PSU likely wastes 15 unnecessary watts compared to properly sized modern PSU just when reading this forum.

 

[area51]

so what would be a reasonable size for a psu then?

My old Alien/Delinware pc had a Newton 1000w psu(Delta Fame)not sure why unless thought would be ahead of Nvidia Cooking my 8800GTX with dodgy driver.
Still have that psu but didn't look like would fit into my Lian li case PC 60 so sat there but thinking of chopping leads to use for a psu to power 12v car audio job?

Been reading the posts re Kolink and yes Seasonic would be on my list instead.

 

[flea.rider]

Wouldn't expect more than 75% efficiency most of the time PC is running because of insane oversizing.
In fact even 70% might be tight call for the time you spent writing that message.
Oversized PSU is like that big gasoline guzzling V8 in car used for city traffic.


Only if your light bulbs are old incandescent ones.
Because of insane oversizing that PSU likely wastes 15 unnecessary watts compared to properly sized modern PSU just when reading this forum.

ho hum .. an 850w psu will not use 850w unless the pc needs it .. say the pc needs 638w then it will draw 638w if the pc needs 462w it will draw that .. it does not run at 850w all the time
so your not wasting that much .. yes it will be more efficient at converting the 240v but like I said pennys

 

[JasonM]

This is a good read and has some calculated figures.

https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/blog/80-plus-platinum-what-does-it-mean-and-what-is-the-benefit-to-me

 

[pastymuncher]

ho hum .. an 850w psu will not use 850w unless the pc needs it .. say the pc needs 638w then it will draw 638w if the pc needs 462w it will draw that .. it does not run at 850w all the time
so your not wasting that much .. yes it will be more efficient at converting the 240v but like I said pennys

I look forward to his reply to you because he knows that very well. What he was talking about was efficiency. More often than not a high powered psu will be less efficient at low loads than a psu half the wattage, especially a older one such as the op's.

Op, if this is for the pc in your siggy a quality gold rated 550w psu would be more than enough. A gold rated 550w unit is all that I use and during gaming my pc (in siggy) pulls anything between 122w and 278w (depends on the game). The very maximum I have managed is 378w and that was only by using OCCT's psu torture test so was a one off. One thing I would say though is to stick to a gold rated unit as they are very fairly priced now. Anything above gold rating commands too much of a price premium that you will never see in electricity savings. A lot of bronze psu's are of a ancient design and personally I would like to see the basic white 80Plus rating and bronze 80plus ratings ditched. With the drive towards efficiency gaining more and more speed we should not be using what are often very poor quality, inefficient psu's to power our systems.

 

[flea.rider]

if he's planning on upgrading over the next 2 yrs .. then I would grab an 800-850w psu ..
a 850 silver gold is middle ground .. .. I know I use 200-250w at idle which is close on 25% not great but seeing as I game most of the time with everything o/c it will hit 500w+
so well within the sweet spot of 50-70%
I also know I pay £100 a month for electricity but there are 4 pc's in the house plus hob+oven rest of stuff so not to bad in my book

 

[EsaT]

This is a good read and has some calculated figures.

https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/blog/80-plus-platinum-what-does-it-mean-and-what-is-the-benefit-to-me

While having lots of correct data, there's also selling of oversized PSUs in that:

...If we’re merely surfing the Internet, even a PC with a high end graphics card installed may only consume 200W...
...so I’m using the PC for usual work stuff (email, Internet, etc.) using an average of 200W for 8 hours of the day.​

Any email stuff, web surfing, MS Office is idling for PCs of todays processing power.
And for now typical hobbyer PC without components of the past that's going to around 50W power draw.
Separate sound card, HDDs for mass storage etc would be things which could add dozen to two of watts to that.
Getting to just 100W draw would require either awfully lots of extra parts, or some actual load.

a 850 silver gold is middle ground .. .. I know I use 200-250w at idle

So you've built a space heater.
Because no PC is going to eat that much power idling unless it's also some file server with dozen and half of HDDs.

 

[pastymuncher]

if he's planning on upgrading over the next 2 yrs .. then I would grab an 800-850w psu ..
a 850 silver gold is middle ground .. .. I know I use 200-250w at idle which is close on 25% not great but seeing as I game most of the time with everything o/c it will hit 500w+
so well within the sweet spot of 50-70%
I also know I pay £100 a month for electricity but there are 4 pc's in the house plus hob+oven rest of stuff so not to bad in my book

How on earth can you pull that much at idle? That means that for the most part your pc pulls more at idle than mine does while gaming (main game I play has my pc drawing up to 224w at the wall). Sitting here typing this now my pc is drawing 82w at the wall and that's with a dozen 120mm fans, 4x 200mm fans, 2x fan controllers, pump, temp monitors and a few leds running on top of the spec in my siggy.

 

[flea.rider]

How on earth can you pull that much at idle? That means that for the most part your pc pulls more at idle than mine does while gaming (main game I play has my pc drawing up to 224w at the wall). Sitting here typing this now my pc is drawing 82w at the wall and that's with a dozen 120mm fans, 4x 200mm fans, 2x fan controllers, pump, temp monitors and a few leds running on top of the spec in my siggy.

ok 14 fans .. 2 pumps oclocked 1700 at 3.9ghz oc vega 64 at 1700/1150 ..2 fan controllers 4 ribbons of rgb plus the normal 4 hd's 2 ssd's .. and as read from hwinfo....
could be 50w either way just saying ..

 

[area51]

I look forward to his reply to you because he knows that very well. What he was talking about was efficiency. More often than not a high powered psu will be less efficient at low loads than a psu half the wattage, especially a older one such as the op's.

Op, if this is for the pc in your siggy a quality gold rated 550w psu would be more than enough. A gold rated 550w unit is all that I use and during gaming my pc (in siggy) pulls anything between 122w and 278w (depends on the game). The very maximum I have managed is 378w and that was only by using OCCT's psu torture test so was a one off. One thing I would say though is to stick to a gold rated unit as they are very fairly priced now. Anything above gold rating commands too much of a price premium that you will never see in electricity savings. A lot of bronze psu's are of a ancient design and personally I would like to see the basic white 80Plus rating and bronze 80plus ratings ditched. With the drive towards efficiency gaining more and more speed we should not be using what are often very poor quality, inefficient psu's to power our systems.

Thanks for that yes had read somewhere about amounts needed to drive psu to reach an efficent state as in guess similar to an engine needs to reach a RPM range to run efficently either side is a minus!
But also guess some have a greater plato than others with circuit trickery?
And yes know that no psu draws anywhere near maxium current unless running in class A like we used to have in Audio/HIFI.(Great for keeping the take away/dinner warm!)
My sort of main thing wondered about what gave in a way maximum bang for least amount of £££'s in the meter!
Plus i would have thought by now they'd have psu's that can run very efficently at low draw like for browsing/idle as some people have pc as logged into places but idle and either not for punishing draw lods or use switching circuits to handle that if that makes sense?
As esp these days with leccy bills resembling the amount for a medium towns?
They will have to change soon has household usage is going to change as one won't be having Gas boilers as there going to do away with domestic gas will be heat pumps why they are chewing everyones ears for smart meters! as be then will be able to say bye as switch areas off so more 'un'important people can have your share!

Yes could put replacement in this case or in other?
Have another board and cpu to install ASUS Maximus Extreme V with a 3770K which think would be similar draw or less than one in there now? but hoping to whizz it up a bit?
Have a Delta 120mm fan which draws 2.4amp for use mid board on GPU also how much power does Laing D5? pump draw its vari speed one.

guess the old 775 drew a lot more still have a few boards thinking about a bit of yesteryear building? have some new Velicitraptor HD's but stick SSD's in instead!

 

[area51]

What would be a good PSU? semi modular is ok as always need the 24pin and extra power plus GPU.
Looked at some EVGA's

 

[chrcoluk]

From what I understand is the following.

At low load all psu's dont have great efficiency.
My PC uses a fair amount of electric over a month but most of it is at low/idle loads.
Higher efficiency PSU's give their biggest gains at higher loads e.g. during a game.

This discussion came up on a recent video that dude who does VRM analysis videos in one of his youtube discussion threads, the problem with the guy he only looks at hardware purely from a high end perspective and gaming/performance perspective, and a few of us who could see outside that narrow window seen criticisms with his approach.

e.g. he thinks there is no merit in p-state overclocking on ryzen2, and to prove his point he used a 1000w PSU. A 1000w PSU at loads of 100w is very inefficient. We asked him to test on a 300w PSU and he said he wont let such a low end part near his PC, and this is when the realisation kicked in he is so detached from reality that there was no reasoning with him, as in his world he is in the reviewer world where only high end components and ultimate performance matters.

e.g. I think there is more power savings to be made by not over spec'ing a PSU than switching from say bronze to silver. On top of that the lower spec PSU is cheaper to buy. Yet people time and time again advise people to over spec a PSU.

 

[area51]

From what I understand is the following.

At low load all psu's dont have great efficiency.
My PC uses a fair amount of electric over a month but most of it is at low/idle loads.
Higher efficiency PSU's give their biggest gains at higher loads e.g. during a game.

This discussion came up on a recent video that dude who does VRM analysis videos in one of his youtube discussion threads, the problem with the guy he only looks at hardware purely from a high end perspective and gaming/performance perspective, and a few of us who could see outside that narrow window seen criticisms with his approach.

e.g. he thinks there is no merit in p-state overclocking on ryzen2, and to prove his point he used a 1000w PSU. A 1000w PSU at loads of 100w is very inefficient. We asked him to test on a 300w PSU and he said he wont let such a low end part near his PC, and this is when the realisation kicked in he is so detached from reality that there was no reasoning with him, as in his world he is in the reviewer world where only high end components and ultimate performance matters.

e.g. I think there is more power savings to be made by not over spec'ing a PSU than switching from say bronze to silver. On top of that the lower spec PSU is cheaper to buy. Yet people time and time again advise people to over spec a PSU.

Thanks for info/reply i guess it's the old chestnut need headroom as don't want to overdrive PSU and bet not many could handle being near 100%? before the white flags serverly waved with the accompaning pop of a fireworks display!

Remember in Car audio if over drove Amps could DC the speakers! so had bigger outputs than needed.

Would be interesting a real world reviewer going through total running costs and how the PC etc runs/works daily as the ultra fandango market is pretty small and shrinking as one with running costs but many don't have a bottomless pit/pocket anymore! also many are using other methods to be on the net and the market changes over the years as had with in car audio that market is pretty small now for one many cars it's all linked in with the ECU's so put a max bygreaves CD on and car goes into Limp mode!!!

 

[JasonM]

Thanks for info/reply i guess it's the old chestnut need headroom as don't want to overdrive PSU and bet not many could handle being near 100%?

I worked once with one of the x software developers on Concorde, he programmed the HUD and fly by wire, he also worked on weapons defence. His advice was to use a PSU that was double the peak wattage requirement of the computer.

 

[chrcoluk]

yeah by overspec I mean dont be ridiculous like buying a 1000 watt psu to power a ryzen 2600 and gtx 1060.

Ultimately my psu's are still over spec'd as I dont want to run them at 100%. But they are not overspec'd as people would typically recommend. I have a 600w powering a 1080ti and a overclocked 8600k.

 

[JasonM]

yeah by overspec I mean dont be ridiculous like buying a 1000 watt psu to power a ryzen 2600 and gtx 1060.

Ultimately my psu's are still over spec'd as I dont want to run them at 100%. But they are not overspec'd as people would typically recommend. I have a 600w powering a 1080ti and a overclocked 8600k.

It's ok, to be honest most of my PSU's are far to much wattage for my systems. My i7 8700 (non K) has a Seasonic P 760 in it, part of this reason why Seasonic replaced a 660 watt with a 760 watt. Also have home servers running Seasonic X650's when peak wattage on them is maybe 150 watt, bit crazy really. Going forward i'm going to look at lower wattage Seasonics, that said in the future i'm going to consolidate some of my servers with AMD threadripper setups, then my current PSU's would be more matched!