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.

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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!!!

 

[area51]

Hi so would something in the say 600-850Watt be good or go lower? but head Gold level?

Was looking at some Corsair ones (have they sorted out there issues yet?) like the HXi do you need the i? is that the ones you can remote control/monitor etc? as the Cats hell with remotes as presses all the buttons then chews them to bits! lol then the dog cocks it's leg over them to finish them off!!! nothing like Teamwork.

you'd think by now though they'd have PSU's than ran efficently on low switching out parts till feel the draw then add in like a buffer as there all squealing about how good they are?

 

[area51]

Hi was reading through some posts with some mentioning about Seasonic with dodgey fan plus looks like lowered service life?
Would the 550 be ok or would 650/750 be better?
Or what else is recommended?

 

[area51]

There is, the 80 Plus Titanium has a 90% rating at just 10% output. But when you are only using 100 W from the wall or less, if your gold rated put is only running at 80% efficiently (it's probably better than that) a 10% difference compared to a Titanium which would use 90 W. That 10 W saving isn't much. For every 100 hours of usage you'd save 1 KWh or about 15p. Or less as 80% is probably being unfair to any decent gold PSU.

So if you left your PC on 24/7 idle/low usage for a year the max saving would be about £13.

Hi yes but one thing been wondering is? I have The Enermax 1000watt psu said silver rated but is meant to be pretty efficient with "PFC" thought that was a dodgey chicken shop?
Can't be using anywhere near 70% even i guess? so eyes open/on something lower wattedaged found a nearly new Seasonic Titianium @650 watt would that make a big difference to power saved? or would 850watt be better?
But guess you want a psu that runs more in the sweet spot for max efficentcy

 

[area51]

PFC has nothing to do with PSU's efficiency.
(in fact it increases PSU's power loss tiny bit)
Power Factor Correction makes sure PSU's current draw is sinusoidal and follows voltage and in same phase.
Without PFC current waveform would be distorted/out of phase with voltage.
Meaning some current would be just bouncing back and forth between power network and PSU.
(carrying that extra no work doing current causes transfer losses and needs thicker wiring to account it)

And that PSU is such grossly oversized for PC is your signature, that unless you've disabled power savings, I wouldn't bet on better than ~65% level efficiency when PC is idling/on desktop/you're reading this forum.

Hi it's just as it came not done anything with it if i can even?

 

[area51]

PFC has nothing to do with PSU's efficiency.
(in fact it increases PSU's power loss tiny bit)
Power Factor Correction makes sure PSU's current draw is sinusoidal and follows voltage and in same phase.
Without PFC current waveform would be distorted/out of phase with voltage.
Meaning some current would be just bouncing back and forth between power network and PSU.
(carrying that extra no work doing current causes transfer losses and needs thicker wiring to account it)

And that PSU is such grossly oversized for PC is your signature, that unless you've disabled power savings, I wouldn't bet on better than ~65% level efficiency when PC is idling/on desktop/you're reading this forum.

So what/which size would you say? Guess GPU is the main draw and i take it newer ones use less power like 1080's how about AMD ones? as later will change if find something better for right price mind did think about a 2nd 970 but even with this board think 2nd runs @8x so?

 

[area51]

ok answer your own question ...
1.whats the main use of the pc ? and how long is it on for
1a is it overclocked ?
2.if it's gaming and on for 3-4 hrs at a time what watt's are you pulling . ? hwinfo can help with this rough guide
3. do you use it for just web surfing ? ie: facebork and porn ..
4. is it really worth all the hassle to save £12-50 a yr .. ?

Well at the moment it's oc'd @3910mhz spends far too much of the day on! easily 12hrs a day could be 20+ at times.Emprty the trash can(emails)first then mixture of gaming and browsing rest of the time not been on BF4 for a while but hope to on Iron(*****)sight atmo which has some odd/weird things happen could be them well some get it also but stutter/jitter and hit reg going to pot often.

But old I5 board thinking of building another pc? and run on linux for browsing/emails etc as have another Lian li tower case and just about everything to build another one unless put old 775 bboards in it for a play?
As could just put third ssd in this one on linux instead? Third option is just to build a low power one with I5 and just use this one for gaming etc?

Might have an issue with this PSU though as when put it all together other night plugged tester into ATX lead and was getting bleeping from think was 12volt-? couldn't see clearly as unit faced towards board so looking at an angle at night with poor light but was was to right of 12v getting 12volt on molexs as checked earlier with multimeter but will have a nose in later when get back.

Have just bought an 850w Seasonic Prime ultra Titanium of someone still has a years shop warranty Been offered another one @650w for £100 which could use for lower power pc?

quite enjoy modding/making things and just reminded my to look for those big grommets for mobo tray as this Lian li pc A70 cable runs are a bit dire!

 

[area51]

How much difference between the Seasonic prime ultra Titanium and the Focus plus Platinum Won a 750w one on flea bay New for £67

 

[area51]

Besides notch better efficiency (crazy good down to very low loads) Prime serie has overal heavier component oversizing than Focus serie.
Titanium models particularly have some components sized up to twelve and half.

ATX specification requires 16ms hold up time PSU can provide power without mains voltage present.
PSU runs that time on charge stored into its primary/bulk capacitor.
Prime Titaniums have that capacitance enough oversized for 30+ ms hold up time.
So whole half wave (and half of next) of input AC can be missing without PSU caring a bit.

Hi cheers so smoother power delivery! so in similar to single phase motors and three phase or single cylinder to multi cylinder engines as always something going instead of waiting for it to happen!

The low loads is what want it for in a linux browsing pc

 

[area51]

Besides notch better efficiency (crazy good down to very low loads) Prime serie has overal heavier component oversizing than Focus serie.
Titanium models particularly have some components sized up to twelve and half.

ATX specification requires 16ms hold up time PSU can provide power without mains voltage present.
PSU runs that time on charge stored into its primary/bulk capacitor.
Prime Titaniums have that capacitance enough oversized for 30+ ms hold up time.
So whole half wave (and half of next) of input AC can be missing without PSU caring a bit.

hi well had pc to bits yesterday deloused water loop! and put the prime ultra titanium in plus modded mobo tray for cable runs!
Must admit impressed it's "Silent" odd one is you think it's switched off each time as fan starts up then die back but last night seemed to find game ran better didn't get freezes i was getting on one map in game and moved better. it's a 850watt one