Does higher wattage power supply equal to a higher electricity drain?

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Ghythybhy

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I was wondering coz i bought a new PC with a 1000 Watts Cooler Master 80+ Gold

What does 80+ Gold mean? .. -_-

Does higher wattage power supply equal higher electricity drain???? D: 😱
 
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I wanted to point out some things that nobody has mentioned and clear up some misinformation presented.

Having a 1000w instead of an 800w CAN be quite beneficial for your electricity bill AND your components.

PSUs work best at "average" (50%) load.

That means if you expect your "normal" usage to be 500w, you should be buying a 1000w.

PSUs always have their maximum efficiency in the 40 - 60% range so the 500w on a 1000w PSU gives you the biggest bang for your bronze/silver/gold/platinum buck.

A 1000w platinum running at 50% would be about 90% efficient which means that 500w internal would be pulling about 550w from the wall and only 50w would be waste heat inside the PSU.

On the other hand, if you had a 500w platinum PSU pulling...
no the wattage is an indication of the maximum it can supply to the components without becoming damaged or overheating. 80+gold means it converts ~88% of the power it draws in is converted into the current for the components, a 80+ silver or worse would convert a lower percentage of power drawn in and so to power the same components it would pull more electricity from the socket.
 
Does this 1000 Watts 80+ Gold gives me benefits like making our electricity bill lower than usual? i mean does it help with something? ..

80+gold means it converts ~88% of the power it draws in is converted into the current for the components ~what now? sorry XD kid here
 
No your bill is not effected by the efficiency. Lower efficiency causes more of the electrical energy coming in to be converted to heat rather that usable stepped down voltages. In that sense a higher efficiency is more economical. Your computer related energy use is related only to what components you have in the box and how they are being used. An over clocked system usually uses more than a stock system. A system that is on all the time will cost more to run than one using power saving features. The best you can do is figure the power needs of your system and add some for future proofing, then buy the most efficient model you can afford from a good company like Seasonic, Antec, etc. The only help a 1000 watt will provide over say and 850 watt is give you 150 watts more to use, if you need it. If you do not need the capacity save the money and buy a smaller or better unit.
 
A power supply only draws as much power as it needs to power the system. Older power supply designs were less efficient, often around 70%. Newer designs are pushing 90% efficiency.

80+ ratings tell you how efficient a power supply is. Here is a nice table to show you the required efficiency for each level
80plusbsg.png


As to the question if 80+ gold helps make the power bill lower, it does but only by a little bit. Lets say your system needs 500 W of DC power and do our math off of the 50% load efficiency for simplicity, that means an 80+ basic unit will need to pull 625 W, bronze needs 588 W, silver needs 568 W, a gold unit like yours needs only 556 W, and one of the new platinum rated units would only need 544 W, so while it does help with your power bill, the amount of money saved between a bronze unit and a platinum unit isn't much, so the answer to the question is yes but only by a little.
 
As others here have said, The power used is dependent on the system build. As a very rough estimate; the average computer build today is only ~200W, average gamer build is ~450-550, most duel card solutions use ~650-850W, and duel card overclock RAID monsters take anything from 850-1300W and possibly more for duel processor server style setups.

The wattage rating on your power supply indicates how much wattage is available to the system, and then the efficacy rating has to do with how much wattage is pulled from the wall compared to what is available to the computer. These higher end ratings also imply that they are made from better parts/design so that they may last longer as well, but that is not necessarily true.

I do not OC, and so 750W should be plenty for my i7 2600, and two 570's (I will add the 2nd one down the line as I am not made of gold yet lol), 3 fans, 3-4 HDDs, and a CD drive that is rarely used. If I were an overclocker, or running 580's then I would need much more power available, but as the max power for the system in SLi and a fleet of HDDs is only ~700W, my 750W supply is more than enough for the needs of this build (and likely the next build if PCs are not somehow extinct in 5 years).

Now, my old system had a 450W power supply, and was a C2Duo with a 9800. Even though my new build has a maximum power output of ~500W when going full tilt, I am actually expecting my power usage to drop compared to the old system because new hardware is more efficient. The old system idled at ~200W, while the new system idles at ~75-100W. The new system can do more work in less time, and overall less power used, so while the power may spike at a much higher point than the old system, the overall power consumed will be less (much less considering I rarely push the system except when doing a video editing project, or the rare game).

That being said, your power supply requires energy to run itself, and so you still want a power supply appropriate to your build. A 750W power supply is going to use much less power to run compared to a 1000+W power supply no matter the efficiency ratings involved. I would have gone for a 500-550W power supply for my rig (as that would be more than enough to run my system in it's current configuration), except that I want an SLi option in the future, and I would rather buy one power supply now that will meet my future needs, than to buy a small one now, and a bigger one later.
 
I wanted to point out some things that nobody has mentioned and clear up some misinformation presented.

Having a 1000w instead of an 800w CAN be quite beneficial for your electricity bill AND your components.

PSUs work best at "average" (50%) load.

That means if you expect your "normal" usage to be 500w, you should be buying a 1000w.

PSUs always have their maximum efficiency in the 40 - 60% range so the 500w on a 1000w PSU gives you the biggest bang for your bronze/silver/gold/platinum buck.

A 1000w platinum running at 50% would be about 90% efficient which means that 500w internal would be pulling about 550w from the wall and only 50w would be waste heat inside the PSU.

On the other hand, if you had a 500w platinum PSU pulling 500w (100% load) then your efficiency would likely be about 80% and you would be using 600w from the wall with 100w being heat inside the PSU (100% more).

That extra 50w pulled out of the wall gets tacked straight on your power bills AND it serves to break the internals of the PSU faster. Obviously, a PSU can rid itself of a constant 50w of internal heat more easily than it will a constant 100w of internal heat. The latter case is asking twice as much of the exhaust fan.

Nobody wants their internal cooling to have to work twice as hard.

It pays to plan how much you expect to draw off your PSU on a routine basis and try to buy a PSU that will keep that load at 40 - 60% of the PSUs maximum load.

Also, nobody else pointed it out, but another gain from buying a bigger PSU than you need is that your PSUs output will fall below your requirements less quickly.

It doesn't matter what the brand is, all PSUs internal components age. They age more quickly if you are drawing 100% of max than if you are drawing 50% of the max, but regardless they all age, even the awesome brands.

The PSUs maximum output can drop as much as 10% of max or even more per year (more especially if it is running at 100% load all the time).

If you get a 1000w and you only need 500w, it would take 5 years of 10% per year loss to maximum output before you would drop down to your 500w max need.

If you bought a 500w and you were maxing it out on day 1, at the end of year one you might already be down to 450w or even 400w max power for your 500w max system, potentially leaving you in danger of a variety of problems from damage due to lack of power to the computer not even being able to turn on and everything in between.

It is better to go larger than to go smaller. In any event, I would advise you to take the above into strong consideration when buying your next PSU.

- Edit - Clarity
 
Solution
Im calling bogus on the 50% load statement for this day and age, the difference in efficiency for a unit with any 80+ certification between 50% load and 100% load is insignificant. A platinum unit at 50% is 91% efficient minimum, at 100% load it still needs to be 89% efficient so for a 500 W load thats a difference between 62 W of waste heat for a 500 W unit at 100% load, and 49 W of waste heat for a 1000 W unit at 50 % load, for a system running 24/7/365 thats only a 114 kW difference over the course of the year, when the system used over 4.4 MW of power over the course of the year.


With lower 80+ certifications like basic 50% load can be up to a 5% difference, but for most bronze units and above the difference if efficiency between 50% load and 90% load will only be 2 or 3% and the amount of over head necessary to get your load down to 50% of the PSUs capacity would cost you almost as much as moving up a level of 80+ certification which would save about the same amount of power.

One major issue with oversizing your PSU is that 80+ ratings do not take into account idle states, in general an idling gaming system will only be at 10-15% of the PSUs capacity where it is far less efficient. If your system is only 150 W at idle and you get a 1 kW unit its only at 15% so even a platinum unit is probably only at about 85% efficiency in the very best case(based on the new Seasonic platinum unit), but a 750 W unit would be at about 20% where any silver or better rated unit would end up being more efficient than the platinum 1 kW unit, and since a system spends most of its time at idle this can add up to a lot more than the slight difference in efficiency at full load.
 

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Idle temps efficiency dropping down into the 70% efficiency range is not so bad since they are idle temps. 86% efficient at 50% load for a 1000 is still 14% of 500 inefficient (70w waste heat). 72% efficient at 100w is 28% inefficient at 100 (28w waste heat).

I would rather save an extra 4 - 6% of 400 - 600 at my expected max load when the waste heat will be at its highest point. I would buy the extra PSU for the privilege too.

At least it is something to think about, rather than just ignoring the concerns.
 
"Does higher wattage power supply equal higher electricity drain???? D:" No electricity drain is a factor of how much power you computer uses/PSU efficiency.

"Does this 1000 Watts 80+ Gold gives me benefits" - Yes the Gold rating means there is less wasted energy.

"No your bill is not effected by the efficiency." - NOT TRUE - of course it is - just like your more fuel efficient car goes farther with less gas - your computer will work longer on the same amount of energy drawn from your outlet.
-Bruce
 
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btw i always/almost use my pc everyday 24/7 or 20 hrs a day does that give me some benefits?

btw i'm thinking of future buying another 6970 for dual so yeah...

Anyway i understand a lot today about psu's xD THANKS 😀
 

A good brand psu that isn't defective isn't going to lose anywhere near 10 percent power per year.
 
They most certainly can.

It depends on a lot of factors, but it isn't at all certain that it won't happen.

If it is a top mount case and the computer is on 24/7 and the load is close to max load then 10% or more is quite possible even for a good brand.
 
Where are you getting the 10% from? The PSU calculator?


Capacitor aging while present is negligible in a good unit built with good capacitors rated for 100k hours at 105C considering the temps inside your PSU are generally below about 60 C which significantly extends the life of the capacitors, less so for 85 C caps as its closer to their rated temps but still extends it. Also, with good units which are overbuilt initially often by about 20% that gives you a while before its just barely able to do what it claims on the label, and quite a while before it can't do what most people would load it up to.


If a PSU really lost 10% per year that would mean that all PSUs would be pretty well dead at the end of 5 years, especially bad units and systems running their PSU near max load. I would say that realistically an average unit loses up to 5% per year with most losing less than 3% otherwise none of those almost 10 year old P4 based systems used in offices should still be alive.
 


The key word here is CAN. Will they? In the vast majority of cases NO.

How many people run their computers at max load 24/7?
 
Office computers that I have seen tend to have load at around 50% and weak video cards if they even have them, most of the time without even having fans on the video cards just with regular heat sinks. Something like the average 4350 or 5450.

Thus there isn't much heat to suck into the PSU in the first place.

Even then, 10 years is the exception more than the norm for office computers in my experience. I have many years as a network admin and almost all the computers I have seen on my networks were 5 years old or less.

Even then, there were many PSUs that failed at the 2 or 3 year mark.

I wouldn't plan on most PSUs making it much past the 5 year mark regardless of conditions. If they do make it past then it would be great, but I wouldn't make decisions with 6+ years as the assumption.

5% per year may be more average than 10% per year, but even that often ends up causing problems sooner than 6+ years.
 


This. This times a million. Finally a person who actually understands what efficiency, power and energy mean.
 


Either that or you both think something is insignificant when it isn't.

What is the point of even moving from bronze to platinum if higher efficiency isn't what you want to achieve in the first place?

Also, why would manufacturers even discuss "average" "50%" loads on their marketing materials if they expected you to be using it at 100% load more often, or potentially all the time?

The simplest and easiest explanation (Occams Razor) is that the manufacturers know better than you and the person you quoted do about these sorts of things.
 
Maybe I missed the point here. It was asked if a higher efficiency PS would save money. And does a lager PS use more electricity than a smaller one. Not exactly a simple question(s). To the point however, efficiency as claimed by the manufacturer is taken from measurements at 20%-50%-100% and it varies with load. All modern PS have poor efficiency at idle (1%-10% load usually). The simple answer to Ghythybhy's first quest is that at a given load a more efficient PS will draw less power to deliver that wattage. As to the second issue of size, he needs to consider that a properly sized PS will operate most of the time in it's most efficient load ranges (20% to 100%). An over sized unit will possibly not. Having a 1000w unit operating at a low load percentage may be more costly than a smaller unit of equal efficiency where the load represents a higher capacity percentage. Lastly one must wonder how long any possible savings in use will take before the break even point is reached for the difference in price between units.
 
Gold and platinum levels really went meant to help the average consumer, they were meant to help power companies and large corporations running hundreds of machines. A 2% efficiency difference on a single gaming machine is about 20 W max, that doesn't help the average consumer but a corporation running 500 office computers means they could be saving close to 1kW by using gold rated units over bronze rated units and that adds up a lot more, and between several hundred corporations saving 1kW adds up to the power companies saving quite a bit of power. Never assume your home consumer actually matters to anyone, you make up a tiny fraction of the computer market, gamers make up even less.


As for the Occams Razor comment, most of the push for better standards is done by the marketing department rather than the engineering departments because it looks cooler and helps sell more units. Always be aware of who from a company is trying to convince you something is better, because marketing really doesn't understand the engineering side of it, they just know what will sell well.
 


You need to follow your own advice and buy better PSU's for your office :lol:
 


Most network administrators don't have purchasing authority nor are they even invited a lot of times to the meetings when the DELL, HP, or other sales people show up on site.

I didn't have a choice in what I was supporting.

Also, most of the time (in my experience) companies don't tell their network admins to hand pick every computer part for every user individually. They buy something like DELL GX 260s or 620s or other computers targeted at office workers in shipments of 40 - 80 computers at a time. This allows for efficient use of things like Ghost Imaging for rapid deployment of hardware.

Most computers from those companies don't come with Seasonic PSUs. Instead the computer shipment just comes with a box of 10 or 20 extra PSUs of the same kind that is already in the computers that way a failed PSU can be switched out in 2 minutes and the person be operational again pretty quickly.

It is cheaper for DELL to give people a bunch of spare sucky ones that it is to give them good ones in all the computers and DELL are better protected on the downside with the sucky ones + spares.

Nice try, though.

As for gold/platinum/etc, it helps everybody when energy is used more efficiently. It doesn't just help power companies and businesses.

If a power company has to increase generation rate on their end and then spend all this money on increasing capacity it shows up in power bills. If people can use energy more efficiently they can supply the same amount of power on their end and we get more on our end out of it.

Also, people and businesses aren't that different in their power expenditures on a percentage basis. If it is cost effective for an individual to buy a platinum PSU instead of a bronze then it is cost effective for a business to buy 400 platinums instead of 400 bronzes. Not that it matters, because last I checked most companies don't use platinum PSUs or anything other than standard DELL low end PSUs. They get more savings by not even needing video cards in most their computers, ie: the biggest power sucker in the average person's home PC. Excel and Word work just fine on integrated graphics chips.

In any event, businesses hate to waste money and thus any problem a home user would experience related to PCs is magnified many hundred times at a business. An extra expenditure for an individual may be $20, and for a business it might be $10,000. For managers getting bonus checks, saving 10k could be worth a 2k bonus check so they are incentivized to do it when they can.

Also, it would be a tremendously bad marketing department that knew nothing of engineering. Marketing and Engineering departments tend to sit down at the same table pretty often and discuss back and forth what will and won't fly from both sides. Most every company that wants to succeed in the business world is already on this page, especially in highly technical fields.

Before you ask, yes I do indeed have a degree in Business Administration.
 
Something that may surprise you, a large number of dell and HP PSUs these days are 80+ certified. Dell has 26 models that are 80+ gold, and 16 models that are 80+ silver, far from your average crap, in their good current office machines HP puts good units that are 80+ gold and Bronze certified.
http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDetail.aspx?id=26&type=2
http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDetail.aspx?id=41&type=2

Things have changed a lot since the era of the GX260, dell PSUs are actually decent these days and HP has quite a few decent units for their better models, but your after home desktop still gets a POS with no APFC from HP, but the mass production units sold to offices and schools get good 80+ units stuck in them which adds up to quite a bit saved.
 


Nice try? You should run for political office with your long winded speeches :lol: You wasted your time as I know that network admins don't have purchasing authority and was only joking. and before you ask, yes I do indeed have a B.A. which in most cases is equal to B.S.But we digress, that and business comps have nothing to do with the OP. Here's a quote from someone who knows more about power supplies than you, even with all your degrees.
"A quality power supply (like a PC Power) easily lasts 5 to 7 years. The fan is usually the first thing to die."
JonnyGURU
Marketing? They don't give a crap about engineering they say whatever THEY think they can get away with, which most of the time is total B.S.
 
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