This is going to sound stupid, but what are the energy implications of "bigger" power supplies? It figures that the bigger a power supply is the more energy it will pull from the mains... But is that necessarily true? I mean, I know there are differences in the efficiency etc of supplies and it makes sense that if the components in a PC only draw X amount of power, then the PSU will only use X amount... Otherwise, what happens with the excess energy... Can anybody make sense of things for me?
A psu with 90% efficiency will pull 550w from the wall if the required load is 500. An 80% psu will pull 700w from the wall if the required load is 500. It's the components that make up the power load, not the psu itself.. it's just there to provide it. Nothing happens with the excess energy (there is no excess energy), bigger psus are just able to supply more if needed than their counterparts.
Good, that's what I thought. Even if I didn't make much sense when asking the question. I sometimes wonder how I've forgotten all my high school science classes. Too much tinkering with Windows Server... Thanks!
Required load is 500w 90% efficiency: 500/0.9 = will pull 555w 80% efficiency: 500/0.8 = will pull 625w Is my math wrong ?
Efficiency aside, a 1000w PSU will pull no extra from the wall than a 500w PSU, if you are only pulling 200w load That's my understanding of it
I use at full load about 50% of what my PSU can output but at 50% I get the best efficiency 93% @ 700w from my PSU that's one of the reasons why I went bigger the other was never worrying about what hardware I can use without changing PSU . It cost me more to buy and it is more than I need, but it costs me less to use. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/SuperNOVA_G2_1300/6.html
Will you get that RPGgamesplayer deal?, Imo that would save you more money, i7 920 OC'ed consumes at least 1x more power then highly Oc'ed 4770K + extra perf. up to 100% for sure, I mean I saw min 150%-200% vs my old Oc'ed q9450@ 3.6ghz.
I was really lucky (who knew being online so often would pay off), and I did get the deal. The machine feels VERY quick after build. The move to Windows 8 helps quite a bit I think, and knowing that it'll save me money is great news! I got a new PSU from Jonny Manc as well, and didn't know if it was worth me changing down to it (1250W to 750W).
I think that's only relatively true. I think I remember seeing a curve from a psu where at certain usage percentages, it's more efficient than others. For example <10% was like 82% efficient between 10 and 90 was 87% efficient and above 90% was lower again. The bronze/silver/gold/platinum rating is given to whatever is the lowest efficiency, I think.
Yea that makes sense, I was trying to put into words that a 1000w PSU doesn't necessarily mean it will cost more than a 500w PSU to run if your system only uses 200w The 1000w gold efficiency rated PSU could be cheaper to run than the 500w non-efficient PSU