Question Is this 650 VA UPS good enough for my system or not?

[crim_arge]

Good Day! I would just like to ask if this UPS in question is good enough to support my PC since I do not have any knowledge with regards to UPS, currently running a Ryzen 5 5600G, 32gb RAM and RX 580 alongside 6 LED Fans on my PC

Here is the link to the UPS in question: https://pcx.com.ph/products/secure-...NVjx0L5PP3pEG5JfzQoHpkoi5vRa8K8HnakotDeWl1a5n

Is the UPS good enough to support my PC and protect it against power surges or should I opt for a higher VA model?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

What is the make and model of your PSU and it's age?

 

[Aeacus]

Is the UPS good enough to support my PC and protect it against power surges

Nowhere near it.

On battery mode, it has square wave output. 😵
And it is 650VA/455W, so quite small.

UPSes can output 3 different kinds of waveform:
1. square wave - cheapest of the three. ONLY good for robust hardware, like power generators and motors.
2. simulated sine wave (aka stepped-approximated sine wave) - mediocre price. Good for most home appliances (e.g fridge, washing machine, lights).
3. true/pure sine wave - high price. It is the same as you get out of the wall socket. ONLY waveform good for sensitive electronics, like medical equipment, TVs, PC PSUs.

So, you want to have true/pure sine wave UPS. Simulated sine wave UPS may also work, but it may not. More of that below;


When looking for an UPS, there are 2 things to look out:
1. Output waveform (square wave, simulated sine wave and true/pure sine wave)
2. Design (stand-by, line-interactive and online)

From here you can read about the differences between output waveform,
link: https://suvastika.com/why-choose-a-sinewave-inverter-ups/

And here are explanations about the UPS design,
link: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272971

Waveform and design
For PCs, line-interactive UPS would be more than enough since PSUs can easily handle the 2ms to 5ms transfer time of line-interactive UPS.
As far as output waveform goes, true/pure sine wave UPS is best used. While simulated sine wave UPSes are cheaper than true/pure sine wave UPSes, PSUs with Active PFC aren't compatible with simulated sine wave. You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues. Here's what, how and why.

How do you know which PSUs have Active PFC and which ones don't?
Simple, every PSU that has 80+ certification (e.g 80+ Bronze or 80+ Gold) has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor_correction_(PFC)_in_non-linear_loads

What can happen when using simulated sine wave UPS with Active PFC PSU?
When simulated sine wave UPS switches over to the battery power, one of 3 things can happen:
1. UPS displays error resulting PC to shut down immediately.
2. UPS shuts down resulting PC to shut down immediately.
3. UPS switches to battery power resulting PC to power off from UPS (PC stays on).

Why it happens?
Simulated sine wave UPS produces a zero output state during the phase change cycle resulting in a power “gap”. This gap may cause power interruption for active PFC PSUs when switching from AC power output to simulated sine wave output (battery mode).

What to do next?
As stated above, your PC can run off from simulated sine wave UPS but be prepared when you face issues with it. When issues do rise, your best bet would be returning the simulated sine wave UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Wattage
As far as UPS wattage goes, you need to consider the power draw of your PC and monitors. Maybe speakers and wi-fi router too if you plan to plug those into the UPS as well. Though, printers, scanners and other such hardware (full list on your UPS manual) don't plug to the UPS since their startup power draw is way too much for UPS to handle and you can fry your UPS.

Taking PSU's max wattage as a baseline is good idea since it will give your UPS more headroom and you can get longer runtime out of your UPS. Also, at least one monitor is added on top of it. Depending on the monitor size, they use between 23W to 52W. For more accurate power consumption, i need to know your monitor make and model so i can look up it's power consumption. Wi-fi routers don't consume much power. For example, my Cisco EPC3940L consumes 12V at 3A which means 36W.

Good UPS brands to go for are CyberPower, TrippLite and APC. While there are other UPS brands as well, those three are the best out there.
Note: The more powerful UPS you have, the longer UPS can keep your PC running before it's battery is empty.

since I do not have any knowledge with regards to UPS

Though, it seems that you've greatly underestimated the cost of a proper, good quality UPS. Since UPS'es job is to keep your PC running when there's blackout by supplying good and stable electricity to your PC, they also cost a lot of money.

For example, i payed €230 EUR for one of my CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD (1300VA/780W, true/pure sine wave, line-interactive) UPS (specs) and i have two of them in use, one for Skylake build and another for Haswell build (full specs with pics in my sig). That makes ₱14,420.77 PHP in your currency while you are currently looking at ₱1,650.00 PHP UPS.

Since your PC is expensive, it's not easily replaced. Like it or not, if you want the protection, it's not going to be cheap. Though, if you want cheap and good UPS, you need to buy 2x UPSes; 1st the cheap one and 2nd the good one.

 

[crim_arge]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

What is the make and model of your PSU and it's age?

Currently running an AIGO Warrior AK600 and it's around 2 years old, planning to change the PSU alongside the UPS since I've had bad reviews with regards to this current PSU

 

[crim_arge]

Nowhere near it.

On battery mode, it has square wave output. 😵
And it is 650VA/455W, so quite small.

UPSes can output 3 different kinds of waveform:
1. square wave - cheapest of the three. ONLY good for robust hardware, like power generators and motors.
2. simulated sine wave (aka stepped-approximated sine wave) - mediocre price. Good for most home appliances (e.g fridge, washing machine, lights).
3. true/pure sine wave - high price. It is the same as you get out of the wall socket. ONLY waveform good for sensitive electronics, like medical equipment, TVs, PC PSUs.

So, you want to have true/pure sine wave UPS. Simulated sine wave UPS may also work, but it may not. More of that below;


When looking for an UPS, there are 2 things to look out:
1. Output waveform (square wave, simulated sine wave and true/pure sine wave)
2. Design (stand-by, line-interactive and online)

From here you can read about the differences between output waveform,
link: https://suvastika.com/why-choose-a-sinewave-inverter-ups/

And here are explanations about the UPS design,
link: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272971

Waveform and design
For PCs, line-interactive UPS would be more than enough since PSUs can easily handle the 2ms to 5ms transfer time of line-interactive UPS.
As far as output waveform goes, true/pure sine wave UPS is best used. While simulated sine wave UPSes are cheaper than true/pure sine wave UPSes, PSUs with Active PFC aren't compatible with simulated sine wave. You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues. Here's what, how and why.

How do you know which PSUs have Active PFC and which ones don't?
Simple, every PSU that has 80+ certification (e.g 80+ Bronze or 80+ Gold) has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor_correction_(PFC)_in_non-linear_loads

What can happen when using simulated sine wave UPS with Active PFC PSU?
When simulated sine wave UPS switches over to the battery power, one of 3 things can happen:
1. UPS displays error resulting PC to shut down immediately.
2. UPS shuts down resulting PC to shut down immediately.
3. UPS switches to battery power resulting PC to power off from UPS (PC stays on).

Why it happens?
Simulated sine wave UPS produces a zero output state during the phase change cycle resulting in a power “gap”. This gap may cause power interruption for active PFC PSUs when switching from AC power output to simulated sine wave output (battery mode).

What to do next?
As stated above, your PC can run off from simulated sine wave UPS but be prepared when you face issues with it. When issues do rise, your best bet would be returning the simulated sine wave UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Wattage
As far as UPS wattage goes, you need to consider the power draw of your PC and monitors. Maybe speakers and wi-fi router too if you plan to plug those into the UPS as well. Though, printers, scanners and other such hardware (full list on your UPS manual) don't plug to the UPS since their startup power draw is way too much for UPS to handle and you can fry your UPS.

Taking PSU's max wattage as a baseline is good idea since it will give your UPS more headroom and you can get longer runtime out of your UPS. Also, at least one monitor is added on top of it. Depending on the monitor size, they use between 23W to 52W. For more accurate power consumption, i need to know your monitor make and model so i can look up it's power consumption. Wi-fi routers don't consume much power. For example, my Cisco EPC3940L consumes 12V at 3A which means 36W.

Good UPS brands to go for are CyberPower, TrippLite and APC. While there are other UPS brands as well, those three are the best out there.
Note: The more powerful UPS you have, the longer UPS can keep your PC running before it's battery is empty.


Though, it seems that you've greatly underestimated the cost of a proper, good quality UPS. Since UPS'es job is to keep your PC running when there's blackout by supplying good and stable electricity to your PC, they also cost a lot of money.

For example, i payed €230 EUR for one of my CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD (1300VA/780W, true/pure sine wave, line-interactive) UPS (specs) and i have two of them in use, one for Skylake build and another for Haswell build (full specs with pics in my sig). That makes ₱14,420.77 PHP in your currency while you are currently looking at ₱1,650.00 PHP UPS.

Since your PC is expensive, it's not easily replaced. Like it or not, if you want the protection, it's not going to be cheap. Though, if you want cheap and good UPS, you need to buy 2x UPSes; 1st the cheap one and 2nd the good one.

Thanks for the advice, explanation and even providing links to increase my knowledge even further with regards the topic, I would keep into mind the brands that you have mentioned so that I could look into them further while searching for a UPS to use Your insights would definitely help going into the future!

 

[Aeacus]

Thanks for the advice, explanation and even providing links to increase my knowledge even further with regards the topic, I would keep into mind the brands that you have mentioned so that I could look into them further while searching for a UPS to use Your insights would definitely help going into the future!

You're welcome.

AIGO Warrior AK600

Oh my... crap quality PSU.

E.g, on the retail box of the PSU, there is stated;
"Supporting: latest dual core or four core Intel or AMD CPU".

But your R5 5600G is 6 core 12 thread CPU. 😀 So, you can't even use the PSU, based on what AIGO, themselves, are saying about the PSU.

And it doesn't get better.
Following on what else is said on retail box;
"The interior PCB of power supply uses 10Z thickness copper foil; the current is large and the circuit is of high stability."

Why there is 10 ounce (4mm) thick copper foil inside the PSU? 🤔 Also, last i checked, current can be high or low, and not "large". Then again, i don't call 240V high current. 1000V and more is high current.

"Multiple protection technology, such as OVP, OCP, UVP, SCP, OPP multiple protection."

Why say twice the multiple protection part? 🤔 Also, it's missing OTP (Over Temperature Protection). Probably to do with the following:

"Use for only non-tropical climate".

Last i checked, Philippines is a tropical country. 🤔

That PSU really is a joke and a half. 🤣

For others wanting to see the same, i found unboxing video of that PSU. While i don't understand a dime that bloke is saying, i can still read;

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLgCAnUFWxM


Speaking of proper PSUs;
Good PSUs to go for, are: Seasonic Focus/Vertex/PRIME, Corsair RMx/RMi/HXi/AXi, Super Flower Leadex Gold/Platinum/Titanium.
(My 3x PCs are also powered by Seasonic. I have 2x PRIME TX-650 units and one Focus PX-550 unit. Full specs with pics in my sig.)

And for your build, 650W PSU does fine. RX 580 is 185W GPU and if you add GPU transient power spikes to it, it may come out ~350W. Add 200W as rest of the system and you're looking at ~550W, making 650W PSU sufficient. 750W unit won't hurt either.

Do note: since PSU powers everything, it is the most important component inside the PC. And you do not want to cheap out on PSU.
Don't buy used PSU either.

 

[crim_arge]

You're welcome.


Oh my... crap quality PSU.

E.g, on the retail box of the PSU, there is stated;
"Supporting: latest dual core or four core Intel or AMD CPU".

But your R5 5600G is 6 core 12 thread CPU. 😀 So, you can't even use the PSU, based on what AIGO, themselves, are saying about the PSU.

And it doesn't get better.
Following on what else is said on retail box;
"The interior PCB of power supply uses 10Z thickness copper foil; the current is large and the circuit is of high stability."

Why there is 10 ounce (4mm) thick copper foil inside the PSU? 🤔 Also, last i checked, current can be high or low, and not "large". Then again, i don't call 240V high current. 1000V and more is high current.

"Multiple protection technology, such as OVP, OCP, UVP, SCP, OPP multiple protection."

Why say twice the multiple protection part? 🤔 Also, it's missing OTP (Over Temperature Protection). Probably to do with the following:

"Use for only non-tropical climate".

Last i checked, Philippines is a tropical country. 🤔

That PSU really is a joke and a half. 🤣

For others wanting to see the same, i found unboxing video of that PSU. While i don't understand a dime that bloke is saying, i can still read;

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLgCAnUFWxM


Speaking of proper PSUs;
Good PSUs to go for, are: Seasonic Focus/Vertex/PRIME, Corsair RMx/RMi/HXi/AXi, Super Flower Leadex Gold/Platinum/Titanium.
(My 3x PCs are also powered by Seasonic. I have 2x PRIME TX-650 units and one Focus PX-550 unit. Full specs with pics in my sig.)

And for your build, 650W PSU does fine. RX 580 is 185W GPU and if you add GPU transient power spikes to it, it may come out ~350W. Add 200W as rest of the system and you're looking at ~550W, making 650W PSU sufficient. 750W unit won't hurt either.

Do note: since PSU powers everything, it is the most important component inside the PC. And you do not want to cheap out on PSU.
Don't buy used PSU either.

yeah, main reason as to why I want to replace the PSU as well, since it's literally bad haha. trying to go for Corsair PSUs to replace my current one once budget comes around