Ultra Efficient PSU's

[Chernabog]

Hi,

I've pledged to save on some electricity and as I have two computers running for many hours a day (being used for homework and research), I thought one of the best ways to save a fair chunk would be to ensure they were running as efficiently as possible.

Neither have particularily hungry components (see specs below), but I will probably be overclocking mine to squeeze more life out of it.

I do game on mine but the majority of the time spent on them is just office type activites, surfing the web, excel and word. Basically both pc's need to be running as efficeintly as possible for at least the next three years.

My pc
Intel E4300 (stock)
Gigabyte P35 ATX Mboard
2 GB DDR2 (basic 6400 geil stuff, stock)
Gainward Nvidea 8800 GT (stock)
2 x 160 GB maxtor drives (RAID)
1 x 80 GB maxtor drive
1 x cd/dvd read/write (Toshiba)
480 watt Antex PSU (about 5 years old now)
Running XP Pro 32 bit

The wifes pc
AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ (stock)
Asus Micro ATX Mboard (an nvidea chipset)
2 GB DDR2 (basic corsiar stuff, stock)
ATI Radeon 3600 (stock)
2 x 160 DB maxtor drives (RAID)
1 x cd/dvd read/write (Gigabyte)
350 watt generic PSU (again at least 5 years old)
Running Vista Premium 64 bit

Thanks

C.

 

[Chernabog]

Thanks for the reply

Yeah I was thinking the same there for a while but economically, as long as I run the new PSU's for at least three years (and probably more like five years), then they purchase to power saved ratio should balance out in the end.

With regards to throwing away the olds ones, they would be recycled (the council here is very good) but granted, there is certainly a waste in energy for the creation of the new ones in the first place and in reclycling the old ones.

Overclocking saves on purchaseing an entire new rig, although a new rig could well be more efficient, but then we are back to recycling etc, more difficult for PCB's than PSU's.

Basically I think it comes down to the amount of time I could run the two power supplies for. So perhaps, I need ultra efficient, with a good waranty to ensure that they are likely to last the distance.

Alternatevily I could wait until the ones I have die and replace them at that point ...

As they say, its not easy being green

C.

 

[Chernabog]

I'm a student

Although I should be writing up an ecology report on how sheep graze on heather and an essay on Mendelian Genetics ... needed a bit of time out

Laptop ... good idea that, she's always saying she wants a mac so maybe ... would be considerably more expensive though.

Any ideas on how much I would get for the wifes pc (i'm guessing less than £100)?

Its a True 480p ... the older one not the mark II one, so I think its less than 80% efficient. Cant even find it on the antec website anymore ...