difference from gold or bronze power supply

[ianthegreat]

Im not sure if i posted this on the right spot but i wanna know what the real difference from the bronze certified and the gold certified corsair Power supplys.

 

[price_th]

The difference is in how efficient the PSU is at 50% load

 

[Rammy]

The 80Plus rating is entirely based on a power supply efficiency- ie. the difference between the input and output.

The specific difference between the two depends on your load capacity and input voltage so it'll vary from person to person. Generally if you are looking at PSUs of the same capacity and input wattage it's somewhere in the 5-7% range.
What that means is that in a scenario where you are using a 500W PSU and your load draw is say 400W, an 80Plus Bronze PSU might draw ~480W at the wall, and an 80Plus Gold might draw ~450W. That's a very rough example, again it's going to vary based on your power usage and input voltage, but it gives you an idea of the difference.

Efficiency is only one part of a power supply though, and I wouldn't recommend buying a PSU purely based on this logic. Additionally many units exceed their specs while others struggle to meet them at all. There's some good resources (and helpful people) on these forums who can help you pick a PSU if you are unsure but know your requirements. My personal suggestion would be to avoid Corsair in general. I have nothing against them as a company but it's really hard to recommend (m)any of their current lineup of PSUs. It'll depend where you are, as pricing is key, but often they are a bit overpriced or beaten for quality by alternative brands.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

To follow up on the difference between Bronze and Gold power supplies.

Bronze and Gold are just levels of efficiency at a particular output point (usually as mentioned at 50% load). It's pretty common that almost all PSU's are only at about 70% efficiency at lower loads (usually at idle when you might see sub 50w loads so who cares anyhow...). Anyhow, back to the ratings.

To be 80+ rated, you must have at least 80% efficiency at 20/50/100% load points.
To be 80+ Bronze, you must have at least 82/85/82 at 20/50/100% load points.
To be 80+ Silver, you must have at least 85/88/85 at 20/50/100% load points.
To be 80+ Gold, you must have at least 87/90/87 at 20/50/100% load points.
To be 80+ Platinum, you must have at least 90/92/89 at 20/50/100% load points.

To hit the holy grail of 80+ Titanium, you must hit 90/92/94/90 at 10/20/50/100% load points.

What does this all mean in the big scheme of things for your average user? Not a damn thing. Why? Because if you leave your computer on 24/7, when it's not in active use, the load is usually these days down in the 10% range anyhow, and you're out of your peak on the efficiency curve.

Obviously, for a large datacenter with hundreds of servers being loaded at least 50% 24/7, having a 10% increase in efficiency makes up for a lot of savings. And of course, having a decently rated PSU for thousands of computers for your average users would make a difference in the big scheme of things, but the problem comes in with the price per efficiency level.

Bronze level PSU's are pretty reasonable, you can get a 600w Bronze Seasonic for about $80 bucks. Meanwhile, you can get a 800w Platinum Seasonic for about $200.00. Double the price, for a 7% increase in LOADED efficiency (and 200w more headroom). If you were to be gaming 3 hours a day, 365 days a year, at 400w load, you'd wind up saving 7% of the electrical cost of 1.2kw/hrs. At 10c/kwhr, you'd be saving about .9 CENTS per day, or about $3.60 a year.

You're computer would be obsolete many times over before you recovered the difference between a Platinum and a Bronze PSU.

Gold vs Bronze is a little better, but not much. The price difference between a Gold Seasonic 650w and the Bronze Seasonic 620w is about $40.00. But again, only saving $3-$5.00 a year would still take a decade to recoup cost.

 

[stormflakes]

most hardcore gamers go for gold because it generates less heath which is better for an overclocked case
Others pick gold because it is more quiet ( cooler = less fans, etc )

only a small percentage tries to get it's moneys worth in powersavings and as stated above this might take a couple of year to earn back.

If none of the above interests you go for bronze i would say ( or compromise with silver )