[SOLVED] Help me choose a UPS?

KLynnB

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I'm not technically proficient so please treat me gently but also like a bit of a dunce. Based upon the advice of a few people I know and by doing a lot of research here in these forums, I had a custom gaming computer built late last year. It has been worth every penny I paid for it. However, I live in a neighborhood where the power can be sketchy, particularly during thunderstorm season. Right now, I've got the computer and the monitor plugged into surge protectors. Each one is plugged into a different outlet with nothing else on it. A while ago, my power flashed off and my computer did NOT appreciate it. When I rebooted it, it took me to the BIOS. That scared me a good bit although it seems to be functioning fine now.

Long story short, I think I need a UPS. I've started looking at them but frankly, I'm overwhelmed trying to figure out what would be the best fit for my system. Would you all mind giving me some advice? Here are my system specs:

Case: iBUYPOWER Lian Li LANCOOL ONE Tempered Glass RGB Gaming Case
Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Processor (16x 3.5GHZ/64MB L3 Cache)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 CROSSHAIR VIII FORMULA - WiFi 6, ARGB Header (2), USB 3.2 Ports (1 Type-C, 11 Type-A), M.2 Slot (2)
Memory: 32 GB [16 GB x2] DDR4-3200 Memory Module - G.SKILL Trident Z (RGB LED)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 - 10GB GDDR6X - MSI Gaming X Trio (VR-Ready)
Power Supply: 850 Watt - CORSAIR RM850X Black - 80 PLUS Gold, Fully Modular
Processor Cooling: NZXT Kraken X63 280mm ARGB Liquid Cooling System
Primary Hard Drive: 2 TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD -- Read: 550MB/s, Write: 520MB/s - Single Drive
Secondary Hard Drive: 500 GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD -- Read: 540MB/s, Write: 520MB/s - Single Drive
Sound Card: 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card: Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Operating System: Windows 10 Home - (64-bit)
Case Fans: 3x [Silent] be quiet! Silent Wings 3 PWM 120mm Black Fan

My monitor is a 32-inch Samsung Odyssey G7.

Thanks!
 
Solution
CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD, here at Newegg. I bought it to power my old Ryzen 7 2700X system, and it's still going strong on my ThreadRipper Pro 3955WX system. My friend has the same ThreadRipper Pro system, and he bought the same UPS, on my recommendation. It's going strong for him too.

This UPS has two important features:
(1) It is compatible with active PFC power supplies, which not all UPSs are. I don't quite understand why, but something about the way that an active PFC power supply works can trip a UPS that isn't compatible with active PFC. (The purpose of active PFC is to reduce harmonic distortion, i.e. feedback from the power supply back into the house's electrical wiring.)
(2) It outputs a true sin wave rather than an...

mikewinddale

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CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD, here at Newegg. I bought it to power my old Ryzen 7 2700X system, and it's still going strong on my ThreadRipper Pro 3955WX system. My friend has the same ThreadRipper Pro system, and he bought the same UPS, on my recommendation. It's going strong for him too.

This UPS has two important features:
(1) It is compatible with active PFC power supplies, which not all UPSs are. I don't quite understand why, but something about the way that an active PFC power supply works can trip a UPS that isn't compatible with active PFC. (The purpose of active PFC is to reduce harmonic distortion, i.e. feedback from the power supply back into the house's electrical wiring.)
(2) It outputs a true sin wave rather than an approximated step wave, which contributes to compatibility and stability.

Even if your power supply isn't active PFC, you should still get an active PFC-compatible UPS anyway so that you can reuse the UPS with a future system that might have an active PFC power supply. I checked your power supply manufacturer's page, and it doesn't mention active PFC. But even if it isn't active PFC, you should anticipate the fact that someday in the future, you might get an active PFC power supply. My Ryzen and ThreadRipper systems both have Seasonic power supplies, and they are both active PFC.

This CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD model can output up to 1,000W, which should be plenty to feed your 850W power supply plus several more devices.

To quote the manufacturer's page:
. . . the CyberPower PFC Sinewave CP1500PFCLCD provides battery backup (using sine wave output) and surge protection for . . . systems requiring active PFC power source compatibility.

Sine Wave Output
The UPS generates energy that is identical to, or cleaner than the utility company’s power grid. Benefits include low total harmonic distortion, minimal electrical noise, and optimal line clarity.

And another nice feature:
The CP1500PFCLCD uses Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) to correct minor power fluctuations without switching to battery power, which extends battery life. AVR is essential in areas where power fluctuations occur frequently.
 
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Solution

KLynnB

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KLynnB

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Apr 3, 2021
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CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD, here at Newegg. I bought it to power my old Ryzen 7 2700X system, and it's still going strong on my ThreadRipper Pro 3955WX system. My friend has the same ThreadRipper Pro system, and he bought the same UPS, on my recommendation. It's going strong for him too.

This UPS has two important features:
(1) It is compatible with active PFC power supplies, which not all UPSs are.
(2) It outputs a true sin wave rather than an approximated step wave, which contributes to compatibility and stability.

Even if your power supply isn't active PFC, you should still get an active PFC-compatible UPS anyway so that you can reuse the UPS with a future system that might have an active PFC power supply. I checked your power supply manufacturer's page, and it doesn't mention active PFC. But even if it isn't active PFC, you should anticipate the fact that someday in the future, you might get an active PFC power supply. My Ryzen and ThreadRipper systems both have Seasonic power supplies, and they are both active PFC.

This CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD model can output up to 1,000W, which should be plenty to feed your 850W power supply plus several more devices.

To quote the manufacturer's page:


And another nice feature:

That is excellent information! Thank you so much! Edited to add: That's not a bad price either.
 

mikewinddale

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I'll add that the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD comes with nice software too. The manufacturer's page says to use PowerPanel Business, but I installed PowerPanel Personal, since I don't need remote management. Anyway, the software makes it very easy to set up conditions for system shutdown or hibernation. With just a few clicks, I set up my UPS to automatically instruct Windows to hibernate whenever the UPS has less than 10 minutes of battery left.

You just connect the USB port on the UPS to the USB port on the computer and install the software. Set the software up, and voila.

I'm sure APC has nice software too. But I only have experience with CyberPower's software, and I like it.
 
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InvalidError

Titan
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This UPS has two important features:
(1) It is compatible with active PFC power supplies, which not all UPSs are. I don't quite understand why, but something about the way that an active PFC power supply works can trip a UPS that isn't compatible with active PFC. (The purpose of active PFC is to reduce harmonic distortion, i.e. feedback from the power supply back into the house's electrical wiring.)
Properly designed APFC circuits are perfectly capable of coping with "approximation sine wave" input, they just switch to plain boost without PFC when they detect non-sine input. I have never had any issues with any of my PSUs PFC or otherwise using approximation UPSes.

I've only had two "pure sine wave" UPSes and they have one horrible drawback: their conversion efficiency appears to be significantly worse. In my book, sine wave output is actually a minus.

I have owned two CyberPower UPSes and both of them failed: they over-charge their batteries and once the battery fails after a few years, they are unable to read battery voltage below 24V and detect that the battery is dead, so they keep pumping current to charge their dead batteries and the UPS ends up getting quite hot from ~50W going into the battery only to get dissipated as heat since the batteries are cooked. Based on my sample size of two, CyberPower UPSes are potentially dangerous garbage.

Anyway, the software makes it very easy to set up conditions for system shutdown or hibernation. With just a few clicks, I set up my UPS to automatically instruct Windows to hibernate whenever the UPS has less than 10 minutes of battery left.
You can do all of that from Windows' advanced power plan configuration, no need tor aftermarket software.
 
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KLynnB

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Properly designed APFC circuits are perfectly capable of coping with "approximation sine wave" input, they just switch to plain boost without PFC when they detect non-sine input. I have never had any issues with any of my PSUs PFC or otherwise using approximation UPSes.

I've only had two "pure sine wave" UPSes and they have one horrible drawback: their conversion efficiency appears to be significantly worse. In my book, sine wave output is actually a minus.

I have owned two CyberPower UPSes and both of them failed: they over-charge their batteries and once the battery fails after a few years, they are unable to read battery voltage below 24V and detect that the battery is dead, so they keep pumping current to charge their dead batteries and the UPS ends up getting quite hot from ~50W going into the battery only to get dissipated as heat since the batteries are cooked. Based on my sample size of two, CyberPower UPSes are potentially dangerous garbage.


You can do all of that from Windows' advanced power plan configuration, no need tor aftermarket software.
Is there a UPS you would recommend?
 

InvalidError

Titan
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Is there a UPS you would recommend?
I'm currently using an APC RS1000G for my main PC and a couple of smaller APC UPSes for LAN, telephony adapters, cordless phone base, etc. Only had one of them fail on me so far (aside from battery replacement every 5+ years) and it was 12+ years old at the time, getting a little overdue for replacement.

As for which model I'd go with, that would be whatever the current mainstream 1500VA equivalent is since you need enough headroom to accommodate the RTX3080 high transient peaks with headroom left over for the monitor and whatever other accessories you may want to have on backup power.

My CyberPower UPSes fried their batteries within three years, very disappointing from batteries that got deep-cycled only once or twice in their whole life and have seen maybe 2-3h of on-battery time from momentary brownouts. The 1000PFCLCD is still powering my ~50W living room PC, still reports that the battery is at 100% charge, but immediately goes to low-battery alarm when power dips and shuts down after 1-2min.
 
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KLynnB

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I'm currently using an APC RS1000G for my main PC and a couple of smaller APC UPSes for LAN, telephony adapters, cordless phone base, etc. Only had one of them fail on me so far (aside from battery replacement every 5+ years) and it was 12+ years old at the time, getting a little overdue for replacement.

As for which model I'd go with, that would be whatever the current mainstream 1500VA equivalent is since you need enough headroom to accommodate the RTX3080 high transient peaks with headroom left over for the monitor and whatever other accessories you may want to have on backup power.

My CyberPower UPSes fried their batteries within three years, very disappointing from batteries that got deep-cycled only once or twice in their whole life and have seen maybe 2-3h of on-battery time from momentary brownouts. The 1000PFCLCD is still powering my ~50W living room PC, still reports that the battery is at 100% charge, but immediately goes to low-battery alarm when power dips and shuts down after 1-2min.
Thank you. That is very helpful information.