STRMfrmXMN

I have to admit I'm perpetually amused by the "I'll never drive an electric car" holdouts, the ones who are convinced EV technology is fixed in stone and that sufficient gas stations will be available for all eternity.
 
Sorry to break it to you, but EV dominance is coming — and I normally hate to deal in absolutes. The laws are increasingly in place, the automakers have committed to transitions. Even if you could somehow vote in enough politicians to meaningfully undo zero-emissions policies (you can't), your favourite badge isn't about to have a change of heart and keep ICE vehicles around to please you. From the 2030s on, you'll likely have to buy an EV if you want a new ride.
 
No, they won't suddenly shut off the gas pumps, but the notion that you'll just keep buying used ICE cars for the rest of your life is optimistic at best. There will be fewer and fewer gas stations, and fuel prices may go up as demand shrinks. You'll see fewer repair shops that can service ICE vehicles, fewer parts and fewer viable used cars to buy.
 
That and the notion that most problems with EVs are permanent is, frankly, silly. There's already plenty of work underway on more environmentally-friendly batteries, recycling and repurposing. Don't like the range, weight or high typical prices? Those are already improving. And remember, EVs are net positives for the environment as long as the energy used to charge them isn't particularly dirty. Many EV issues can be solved in time; ICE's remaining problems are effectively permanent.
 
As it is, it's hard to imagine the performance and tuner crowds holding on to ICE for much longer. Combustion still wins in motorsport, but it's having a very bad time among enthusiasts. Congratulations, your Challenger Hellcat or 911 GT3 has lots of horsepower and makes loud "vroom vroom" noises... too bad it gets smoked by a Model S or Lucid Air in a drag race. There may well be a point where someone's big, bad ICE car can be dusted by someone fetching groceries in the family sedan.
 
You don't have to rush to buy an EV right away, but pretending that you can stave off an industry sea change is naive at best.

That's mint.

I think it's very narrow-minded to think that EVs are all downsides and that ICE cars are the be-all end-all. Why we haven't moved mail trucks to permanent hybrid of EVs yet is beyond me. They cut down on noise and localized pollution aplenty, they can be powered renewably, most require nearly no maintenance, and they're incredibly potent off the line. They're not without downsides, but we're still in EV infancy. Most people still refer to an EV's efficiency by its total range and not a real measure of consumption like MPG or liters/100 kilometers, and even that is variable, if you need further proof that this is still in early stages. I don't tell you my Subaru has 350 miles of gas range when someone asks about fuel economy. 
 
Anyways, here's my Subie! 
 

I think it's very narrow-minded to think that EVs are all downsides and that ICE cars are the be-all end-all. Why we haven't moved mail trucks to permanent hybrid of EVs yet is beyond me. They cut down on noise and localized pollution aplenty, they can be powered renewably, most require nearly no maintenance, and they're incredibly potent off the line. They're not without downsides, but we're still in EV infancy. Most people still refer to an EV's efficiency by its total range and not a real measure of consumption like MPG or liters/100 kilometers, and even that is variable, if you need further proof that this is still in early stages. I don't tell you my Subaru has 350 miles of gas range when someone asks about fuel economy. 
 
Anyways, here's my Subie! 
 

I think it's very narrow-minded to think that EVs are all downsides and that ICE cars are the be-all end-all. Why we haven't moved mail trucks to permanent hybrid of EVs yet is beyond me. They cut down on noise and localized pollution aplenty, they can be powered renewably, most require nearly no maintenance, and they're incredibly potent off the line. They're not without downsides, but we're still in EV infancy. Most people still refer to an EV's efficiency by its total range and not a real measure of consumption like MPG or liters/100 kilometers, and even that is variable, if you need further proof that this is still in early stages. I don't tell you my Subaru has 350 miles of gas range when someone asks about fuel economy. 
 
Anyways, here's my Subie! 
 

I think it's very narrow-minded to think that EVs are all downsides and that ICE cars are the be-all end-all. Why we haven't moved mail trucks to permanent hybrid of EVs yet is beyond me. They cut down on noise and localized pollution aplenty, they can be powered renewably, most require nearly no maintenance, and they're incredibly potent off the line. They're not without downsides, but we're still in EV infancy. Most people still refer to an EV's efficiency by its total range and not a real measure of consumption like MPG or liters/100 kilometers, and even that is variable, if you need further proof that this is still in early stages. I don't tell you my Subaru has 350 miles of gas range when someone asks about fuel economy. 
 
Anyways, here's my Subie! 
 

I think it's very narrow-minded to think that EVs are all downsides and that ICE cars are the be-all end-all. Why we haven't moved mail trucks to permanent hybrid of EVs yet is beyond me. They cut down on noise and localized pollution aplenty, they can be powered renewably, most require nearly no maintenance, and they're incredibly potent off the line. They're not without downsides, but we're still in EV infancy. Most people still refer to an EV's efficiency by its total range and not a real measure of consumption like MPG or liters/100 kilometers, and even that is variable, if you need further proof that this is still in early stages. I don't tell you my Subaru has 350 miles of gas range when someone asks about fuel economy. 
 
Anyways, here's my Subie! 
 

You clearly don't know how efficient I am.

You need to capture the WIM image of the drive, which I suppose is effectively cloning it. Ideally you could use something FOG Project or Microsoft MDT/WDS to capture it. Alternatively you can create your own WinPE image to use in order to capture it. https://www.anoopcnair.com/sysprep-capture-windows-10-image-using-dism/
 
Kind of a funny coincidence that you asked about this as now I'm the actual network admin (I really wasn't actually one despite my original post saying so, was more like a junior admin at most) having one of our techs build out a deployment environment.

The less, the better.
 
How much voltage supplied to your PSU's rails fluctuates. So (we'll use 12V ripple as an example) you want to be as little as possible, so that your 12V rail is not breaking the voltage of 11.9V or 12.1V too often. It's normal for all PSUs to have ripple. A very good PSU will generally have maybe 20 mV of ripple on the 12V rail, meaning you might see the 12V rail output 11.8V at some point and 12.2V at some point. It's not unusual to go up to 12.5V but it's starting to throw caution to the wind.
 
Extreme ripple causes wear and tear on your motherboard's electronics, to your GPU, to your hard drives, and who knows what else will die prematurely if you use a crappy PSU.
 

All the time I'll see people recommend PSUs based on efficiency. This, although fundamentally a good idea so that you don't end up with a stick and some chewing gum powering your system, shows that most do not understand what 80 PLUS efficiency implies. Let's get a couple myths out of the way:

- "A higher 80 PLUS rating correlates to better quality." Incorrect. Certain components in a PSU do need to be of a certain quality to achieve higher efficiency (typically MOSFETs and diodes), however, quality of soldering, certain capacitors, etc, can be forgone in achieving an exemplary 80 PLUS rating. Electrical performance can be ditched as well. I like to use the EVGA G1 as an example of this. It's made of above average componentry, performs lackingly, and achieves gold efficiency. Then there's the EVGA B2, which is constructed about as well, performs better electrically, and advertises 80 PLUS Bronze efficiency (it actually achieves 80 PLUS Silver efficiency but that standard has been given up by and large). The EVGA B2 is a better PSU than the G1, yet it wastes slightly more electricity. This will correlate to a marginally more expensive power bill (pennies on the dollar for most home users) but ensures you a better power supply for your money. If, however, you plan to run a very power-hungry system for several hours on end then a more efficient power supply can save a more noticeable amount of money, especially if used heavily during hours of the day where electricity is more expensive.
 
On another note: some brands will undersell their unit's rated wattage if it can achieve higher efficiency at lower loads, I.E. a brand may sell a 550W 80 PLUS Platinum rated unit that can actually output 600W+ but would have to be advertised at a lower efficiency rating if they were to sell it at that rated wattage.

- "Higher 80 PLUS efficiency keeps the PSU cooler." Not to any serious degree, but this is technically true. A less efficient PSU will waste more electricity and wasted electricity is turned into heat. This is not likely to have an appreciable impact on the temperature of your room or system however as your system doesn't really draw that much power, thus it's better to optimize your system's airflow before throwing an AX1500i in your system to minimize heat created by the power supply. Since PSUs exhaust heat anyways the temperature of your system's hardware will not be impacted to any noticeable degree. Different PSUs also handle cooling differently and 80 PLUS efficiency doesn't correlate to the size of the fan used or the heat-dissipation abilities of the unit.
 
- "Power supplies are most efficient at around 50% load." This is, by and large, untrue, and seems to be set in stone by many simply because the peak efficiency measured by Ecova's testing of just three load levels is at 50% always. Many manufacturers or reviewers test PSU efficiency at different loads and post charts online, if this matters to you, but many PSUs are more efficient at 60% load than 50% and many are more efficient towards 30%. Don't buy a PSU based on how efficient it will be with whatever hardware you have in it. Different topologies and different PSU platforms handle efficiency differently. This should be a non-issue and you should be looking at buying the best PSU you can get with your money.
 
- "If you have a 1000W PSU with an 80% efficiency then you are only going to be able to get 800W from your power supply." This is incorrect. If you have an 80% efficient 1000W PSU then, when putting it under enough load to max its output you are going to be drawing more power from the walls - not losing output from your power supply. In this instance, putting a 1000W PSU under max load with an 80% efficiency would mean you're drawing 1250 watts from the wall. Math goes as such:
                                                                                                X / Y= Z                  
                                                                                        1000W / .80 = 1250
                                                                                  1250W drawn from the wall

X represents the wattage you're using (say 350W with a Ryzen 7 3700X and RTX 2080 Super under 100% system load), Y represents the efficiency in decimals (an 85% efficient PSU would be .85), and Z represents your total system draw from the wall. For this calculation we're assuming that the PSU in question has exactly enough wattage to power the system at 100% load and is 87% efficient at 100% draw, making it an 80+ Gold efficient power supply.


So in our case with the 3700X and 2080 Super:
                                                                                               350 / .87
                                                                      = 402 watts drawn from your power outlet
 
Note, however, that efficiency is not consistent throughout the load of the power supply.

Power supplies are more and less efficient at different loads. They are also more efficient when connected to a more powerful grid, the 230V nominal, which you may use if you don't live in North America. Check that your PSU allows for operation under both voltages. Most modern ones switch operation automatically. Other, often older units, will have a hard switch at the back of the unit to switch to choose from either 115V or 230V (note, DO NOT SWITCH TO THE ONE THAT DOESN'T MATCH THE ELECTRICAL OUTPUT OF YOUR WALL OUTLET! This doesn't usually end well!). This graph demonstrates the efficiency curve of a 2011-era Corsair TX750 when plugged into a 115V AC versus being plugged into a 230V AC. Note the TX750 is an 80+ Bronze rated PSU.
                
                                      
 

If you live in the United States, for example, you are using a 110-120V (115 nominal) AC through a standard NEMA 5-15 socket. Your power supply may be more or less efficient than your manufacturer claims because they may advertise efficiency through a 230V AC, though standard 80 PLUS efficiency testing is done on a 115V AC. Note that these tests for efficiency are also done under very specific test environments and do not necessarily reflect real-world scenarios so you may achieve higher or lower efficiency than rated by the manufacturer.

And just to finish up let's go list the various 80 PLUS ratings and their efficiency at different power draws on a 115V and 230V AC as well as 230V AC redundant.
                                                                               
 
                                                                          
Note that Silver isn't really used anymore and the efficiency of a PSU that would achieve Silver certification would typically just be rounded up or down to Bronze or Gold. "230V internal redundant" refers to efficiency in a redundant scenario like in a data center. This guy from Dell explains it.
 
One last thing I want to make a little more hard-hitting here. 80 PLUS efficiency ratings were invented to save corporations and industrial services money in the long-term, not home users! A company with 1000 computers all consuming 100W for 10 hours a day will see a much greater benefit from having all 80 PLUS Titanium units in their systems than you likely would with your system. Don't spend tons of money trying to get a super efficient PSU when a PSU that's just as good, costs less, and achieves a tier lower 80 PLUS rating is drastically cheaper. 
 
Resources:
Ecova (formerly Ecos), the 80 PLUS certification founder (and located very near me in Portland!)
Wikipedia - There's more info here if you want to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole
Plug Load Solutions - A list of all PSU companies and how many different PSUs they have that achieve Ecova's various 80 PLUS standards.

All the time I'll see people recommend PSUs based on efficiency. This, although fundamentally a good idea so that you don't end up with a stick and some chewing gum powering your system, shows that most do not understand what 80 PLUS efficiency implies. Let's get a couple myths out of the way:

- "A higher 80 PLUS rating correlates to better quality." Incorrect. Certain components in a PSU do need to be of a certain quality to achieve higher efficiency (typically MOSFETs and diodes), however, quality of soldering, certain capacitors, etc, can be forgone in achieving an exemplary 80 PLUS rating. Electrical performance can be ditched as well. I like to use the EVGA G1 as an example of this. It's made of above average componentry, performs lackingly, and achieves gold efficiency. Then there's the EVGA B2, which is constructed about as well, performs better electrically, and advertises 80 PLUS Bronze efficiency (it actually achieves 80 PLUS Silver efficiency but that standard has been given up by and large). The EVGA B2 is a better PSU than the G1, yet it wastes slightly more electricity. This will correlate to a marginally more expensive power bill (pennies on the dollar for most home users) but ensures you a better power supply for your money. If, however, you plan to run a very power-hungry system for several hours on end then a more efficient power supply can save a more noticeable amount of money, especially if used heavily during hours of the day where electricity is more expensive.
 
On another note: some brands will undersell their unit's rated wattage if it can achieve higher efficiency at lower loads, I.E. a brand may sell a 550W 80 PLUS Platinum rated unit that can actually output 600W+ but would have to be advertised at a lower efficiency rating if they were to sell it at that rated wattage.

- "Higher 80 PLUS efficiency keeps the PSU cooler." Not to any serious degree, but this is technically true. A less efficient PSU will waste more electricity and wasted electricity is turned into heat. This is not likely to have an appreciable impact on the temperature of your room or system however as your system doesn't really draw that much power, thus it's better to optimize your system's airflow before throwing an AX1500i in your system to minimize heat created by the power supply. Since PSUs exhaust heat anyways the temperature of your system's hardware will not be impacted to any noticeable degree. Different PSUs also handle cooling differently and 80 PLUS efficiency doesn't correlate to the size of the fan used or the heat-dissipation abilities of the unit.
 
- "Power supplies are most efficient at around 50% load." This is, by and large, untrue, and seems to be set in stone by many simply because the peak efficiency measured by Ecova's testing of just three load levels is at 50% always. Many manufacturers or reviewers test PSU efficiency at different loads and post charts online, if this matters to you, but many PSUs are more efficient at 60% load than 50% and many are more efficient towards 30%. Don't buy a PSU based on how efficient it will be with whatever hardware you have in it. Different topologies and different PSU platforms handle efficiency differently. This should be a non-issue and you should be looking at buying the best PSU you can get with your money.
 
- "If you have a 1000W PSU with an 80% efficiency then you are only going to be able to get 800W from your power supply." This is incorrect. If you have an 80% efficient 1000W PSU then, when putting it under enough load to max its output you are going to be drawing more power from the walls - not losing output from your power supply. In this instance, putting a 1000W PSU under max load with an 80% efficiency would mean you're drawing 1250 watts from the wall. Math goes as such:
                                                                                                X / Y= Z                  
                                                                                        1000W / .80 = 1250
                                                                                  1250W drawn from the wall

X represents the wattage you're using (say 350W with a Ryzen 7 3700X and RTX 2080 Super under 100% system load), Y represents the efficiency in decimals (an 85% efficient PSU would be .85), and Z represents your total system draw from the wall. For this calculation we're assuming that the PSU in question has exactly enough wattage to power the system at 100% load and is 87% efficient at 100% draw, making it an 80+ Gold efficient power supply.


So in our case with the 3700X and 2080 Super:
                                                                                               350 / .87
                                                                      = 402 watts drawn from your power outlet
 
Note, however, that efficiency is not consistent throughout the load of the power supply.

Power supplies are more and less efficient at different loads. They are also more efficient when connected to a more powerful grid, the 230V nominal, which you may use if you don't live in North America. Check that your PSU allows for operation under both voltages. Most modern ones switch operation automatically. Other, often older units, will have a hard switch at the back of the unit to switch to choose from either 115V or 230V (note, DO NOT SWITCH TO THE ONE THAT DOESN'T MATCH THE ELECTRICAL OUTPUT OF YOUR WALL OUTLET! This doesn't usually end well!). This graph demonstrates the efficiency curve of a 2011-era Corsair TX750 when plugged into a 115V AC versus being plugged into a 230V AC. Note the TX750 is an 80+ Bronze rated PSU.
                
                                      
 

If you live in the United States, for example, you are using a 110-120V (115 nominal) AC through a standard NEMA 5-15 socket. Your power supply may be more or less efficient than your manufacturer claims because they may advertise efficiency through a 230V AC, though standard 80 PLUS efficiency testing is done on a 115V AC. Note that these tests for efficiency are also done under very specific test environments and do not necessarily reflect real-world scenarios so you may achieve higher or lower efficiency than rated by the manufacturer.

And just to finish up let's go list the various 80 PLUS ratings and their efficiency at different power draws on a 115V and 230V AC as well as 230V AC redundant.
                                                                               
 
                                                                          
Note that Silver isn't really used anymore and the efficiency of a PSU that would achieve Silver certification would typically just be rounded up or down to Bronze or Gold. "230V internal redundant" refers to efficiency in a redundant scenario like in a data center. This guy from Dell explains it.
 
One last thing I want to make a little more hard-hitting here. 80 PLUS efficiency ratings were invented to save corporations and industrial services money in the long-term, not home users! A company with 1000 computers all consuming 100W for 10 hours a day will see a much greater benefit from having all 80 PLUS Titanium units in their systems than you likely would with your system. Don't spend tons of money trying to get a super efficient PSU when a PSU that's just as good, costs less, and achieves a tier lower 80 PLUS rating is drastically cheaper. 
 
Resources:
Ecova (formerly Ecos), the 80 PLUS certification founder (and located very near me in Portland!)
Wikipedia - There's more info here if you want to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole
Plug Load Solutions - A list of all PSU companies and how many different PSUs they have that achieve Ecova's various 80 PLUS standards.

You clearly don't know how efficient I am.

When people see the micro ATX case my semi prebuilt uses and they're like DUDE UR COMPOOTER IS HUGE!
Somebody's never seen an ATX case before.... I can only imagine that they would faint.

There was a short period of time where Norton was actually decent and a big thing it had was great customer service. Now it's all sh*t. My Dad uses it. 
Oh don't worry, he also uses Avast free beside it!
And McAfee.
And Firefox with some no-duh-that's-a-virus-you-twat stuff on it.
 
I want to factory install Windows on that poor Dell. I want to take it in. Like a puppy....

My mom has an external hard drive hooked up to her iMac. She must be using up her entire 240GB hard drive internally, right?
 
Well, no, She's got 207 GB of the 240 free and she has about 20GB of "stuff" on the external 500GB hard drive.

Guise help.
My dojo has a Mac Pro (Mac Pro, not Macbook Pro) hooked up to an ancient CRT monitor. It has Leopard installed on it. 32 bit Leopard on a Quad Core Xeon Machine...
It actually has a dead hard drive so it just sits on the floor looking all sad because they don't know how to fix it...
 
I want to take it in and save it...

My Dad uses Norton. I cri everytim
 
My mom would've said "you had to buy a motherboard? See, if you had a Mac you wouldn't have to buy a motherboard."
 
My parents...

There's this guy from my dojo who used to work at Best Buy. He told me a few months ago that dual-core processors were "these really cool new processors that are super fast." Knowing enough about tech I decided to test him. I asked "Well, would my 2008 iMac (which I had at the time) be a dual core?" (It's a *CORE 2 DUO*) and he said "oh no way, these are like, brand new things. You'd have to buy a BRAND NEW computer to have a dual core!" I just let him go with it. 
 
Didn't have the heart to tell him that the dual core Pentium came out in like '97.....

Or people that buy a GT 630 over an R9 270X because they think they're getting a spanking good deal because it has 4 GB of VRAM....

"What's a desktop?"
 
I mean, I thought the name was pretty self-explanatory...

"Why build a computer when you can just buy one?"
Or
"So I'm planning on building a laptop soon...."

All the time I'll see people recommend PSUs based on efficiency. This, although fundamentally a good idea so that you don't end up with a stick and some chewing gum powering your system, shows that most do not understand what 80 PLUS efficiency implies. Let's get a couple myths out of the way:

- "A higher 80 PLUS rating correlates to better quality." Incorrect. Certain components in a PSU do need to be of a certain quality to achieve higher efficiency (typically MOSFETs and diodes), however, quality of soldering, certain capacitors, etc, can be forgone in achieving an exemplary 80 PLUS rating. Electrical performance can be ditched as well. I like to use the EVGA G1 as an example of this. It's made of above average componentry, performs lackingly, and achieves gold efficiency. Then there's the EVGA B2, which is constructed about as well, performs better electrically, and advertises 80 PLUS Bronze efficiency (it actually achieves 80 PLUS Silver efficiency but that standard has been given up by and large). The EVGA B2 is a better PSU than the G1, yet it wastes slightly more electricity. This will correlate to a marginally more expensive power bill (pennies on the dollar for most home users) but ensures you a better power supply for your money. If, however, you plan to run a very power-hungry system for several hours on end then a more efficient power supply can save a more noticeable amount of money, especially if used heavily during hours of the day where electricity is more expensive.
 
On another note: some brands will undersell their unit's rated wattage if it can achieve higher efficiency at lower loads, I.E. a brand may sell a 550W 80 PLUS Platinum rated unit that can actually output 600W+ but would have to be advertised at a lower efficiency rating if they were to sell it at that rated wattage.

- "Higher 80 PLUS efficiency keeps the PSU cooler." Not to any serious degree, but this is technically true. A less efficient PSU will waste more electricity and wasted electricity is turned into heat. This is not likely to have an appreciable impact on the temperature of your room or system however as your system doesn't really draw that much power, thus it's better to optimize your system's airflow before throwing an AX1500i in your system to minimize heat created by the power supply. Since PSUs exhaust heat anyways the temperature of your system's hardware will not be impacted to any noticeable degree. Different PSUs also handle cooling differently and 80 PLUS efficiency doesn't correlate to the size of the fan used or the heat-dissipation abilities of the unit.
 
- "Power supplies are most efficient at around 50% load." This is, by and large, untrue, and seems to be set in stone by many simply because the peak efficiency measured by Ecova's testing of just three load levels is at 50% always. Many manufacturers or reviewers test PSU efficiency at different loads and post charts online, if this matters to you, but many PSUs are more efficient at 60% load than 50% and many are more efficient towards 30%. Don't buy a PSU based on how efficient it will be with whatever hardware you have in it. Different topologies and different PSU platforms handle efficiency differently. This should be a non-issue and you should be looking at buying the best PSU you can get with your money.
 
- "If you have a 1000W PSU with an 80% efficiency then you are only going to be able to get 800W from your power supply." This is incorrect. If you have an 80% efficient 1000W PSU then, when putting it under enough load to max its output you are going to be drawing more power from the walls - not losing output from your power supply. In this instance, putting a 1000W PSU under max load with an 80% efficiency would mean you're drawing 1250 watts from the wall. Math goes as such:
                                                                                                X / Y= Z                  
                                                                                        1000W / .80 = 1250
                                                                                  1250W drawn from the wall

X represents the wattage you're using (say 350W with a Ryzen 7 3700X and RTX 2080 Super under 100% system load), Y represents the efficiency in decimals (an 85% efficient PSU would be .85), and Z represents your total system draw from the wall. For this calculation we're assuming that the PSU in question has exactly enough wattage to power the system at 100% load and is 87% efficient at 100% draw, making it an 80+ Gold efficient power supply.


So in our case with the 3700X and 2080 Super:
                                                                                               350 / .87
                                                                      = 402 watts drawn from your power outlet
 
Note, however, that efficiency is not consistent throughout the load of the power supply.

Power supplies are more and less efficient at different loads. They are also more efficient when connected to a more powerful grid, the 230V nominal, which you may use if you don't live in North America. Check that your PSU allows for operation under both voltages. Most modern ones switch operation automatically. Other, often older units, will have a hard switch at the back of the unit to switch to choose from either 115V or 230V (note, DO NOT SWITCH TO THE ONE THAT DOESN'T MATCH THE ELECTRICAL OUTPUT OF YOUR WALL OUTLET! This doesn't usually end well!). This graph demonstrates the efficiency curve of a 2011-era Corsair TX750 when plugged into a 115V AC versus being plugged into a 230V AC. Note the TX750 is an 80+ Bronze rated PSU.
                
                                      
 

If you live in the United States, for example, you are using a 110-120V (115 nominal) AC through a standard NEMA 5-15 socket. Your power supply may be more or less efficient than your manufacturer claims because they may advertise efficiency through a 230V AC, though standard 80 PLUS efficiency testing is done on a 115V AC. Note that these tests for efficiency are also done under very specific test environments and do not necessarily reflect real-world scenarios so you may achieve higher or lower efficiency than rated by the manufacturer.

And just to finish up let's go list the various 80 PLUS ratings and their efficiency at different power draws on a 115V and 230V AC as well as 230V AC redundant.
                                                                               
 
                                                                          
Note that Silver isn't really used anymore and the efficiency of a PSU that would achieve Silver certification would typically just be rounded up or down to Bronze or Gold. "230V internal redundant" refers to efficiency in a redundant scenario like in a data center. This guy from Dell explains it.
 
One last thing I want to make a little more hard-hitting here. 80 PLUS efficiency ratings were invented to save corporations and industrial services money in the long-term, not home users! A company with 1000 computers all consuming 100W for 10 hours a day will see a much greater benefit from having all 80 PLUS Titanium units in their systems than you likely would with your system. Don't spend tons of money trying to get a super efficient PSU when a PSU that's just as good, costs less, and achieves a tier lower 80 PLUS rating is drastically cheaper. 
 
Resources:
Ecova (formerly Ecos), the 80 PLUS certification founder (and located very near me in Portland!)
Wikipedia - There's more info here if you want to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole
Plug Load Solutions - A list of all PSU companies and how many different PSUs they have that achieve Ecova's various 80 PLUS standards.

All the time I'll see people recommend PSUs based on efficiency. This, although fundamentally a good idea so that you don't end up with a stick and some chewing gum powering your system, shows that most do not understand what 80 PLUS efficiency implies. Let's get a couple myths out of the way:

- "A higher 80 PLUS rating correlates to better quality." Incorrect. Certain components in a PSU do need to be of a certain quality to achieve higher efficiency (typically MOSFETs and diodes), however, quality of soldering, certain capacitors, etc, can be forgone in achieving an exemplary 80 PLUS rating. Electrical performance can be ditched as well. I like to use the EVGA G1 as an example of this. It's made of above average componentry, performs lackingly, and achieves gold efficiency. Then there's the EVGA B2, which is constructed about as well, performs better electrically, and advertises 80 PLUS Bronze efficiency (it actually achieves 80 PLUS Silver efficiency but that standard has been given up by and large). The EVGA B2 is a better PSU than the G1, yet it wastes slightly more electricity. This will correlate to a marginally more expensive power bill (pennies on the dollar for most home users) but ensures you a better power supply for your money. If, however, you plan to run a very power-hungry system for several hours on end then a more efficient power supply can save a more noticeable amount of money, especially if used heavily during hours of the day where electricity is more expensive.
 
On another note: some brands will undersell their unit's rated wattage if it can achieve higher efficiency at lower loads, I.E. a brand may sell a 550W 80 PLUS Platinum rated unit that can actually output 600W+ but would have to be advertised at a lower efficiency rating if they were to sell it at that rated wattage.

- "Higher 80 PLUS efficiency keeps the PSU cooler." Not to any serious degree, but this is technically true. A less efficient PSU will waste more electricity and wasted electricity is turned into heat. This is not likely to have an appreciable impact on the temperature of your room or system however as your system doesn't really draw that much power, thus it's better to optimize your system's airflow before throwing an AX1500i in your system to minimize heat created by the power supply. Since PSUs exhaust heat anyways the temperature of your system's hardware will not be impacted to any noticeable degree. Different PSUs also handle cooling differently and 80 PLUS efficiency doesn't correlate to the size of the fan used or the heat-dissipation abilities of the unit.
 
- "Power supplies are most efficient at around 50% load." This is, by and large, untrue, and seems to be set in stone by many simply because the peak efficiency measured by Ecova's testing of just three load levels is at 50% always. Many manufacturers or reviewers test PSU efficiency at different loads and post charts online, if this matters to you, but many PSUs are more efficient at 60% load than 50% and many are more efficient towards 30%. Don't buy a PSU based on how efficient it will be with whatever hardware you have in it. Different topologies and different PSU platforms handle efficiency differently. This should be a non-issue and you should be looking at buying the best PSU you can get with your money.
 
- "If you have a 1000W PSU with an 80% efficiency then you are only going to be able to get 800W from your power supply." This is incorrect. If you have an 80% efficient 1000W PSU then, when putting it under enough load to max its output you are going to be drawing more power from the walls - not losing output from your power supply. In this instance, putting a 1000W PSU under max load with an 80% efficiency would mean you're drawing 1250 watts from the wall. Math goes as such:
                                                                                                X / Y= Z                  
                                                                                        1000W / .80 = 1250
                                                                                  1250W drawn from the wall

X represents the wattage you're using (say 350W with a Ryzen 7 3700X and RTX 2080 Super under 100% system load), Y represents the efficiency in decimals (an 85% efficient PSU would be .85), and Z represents your total system draw from the wall. For this calculation we're assuming that the PSU in question has exactly enough wattage to power the system at 100% load and is 87% efficient at 100% draw, making it an 80+ Gold efficient power supply.


So in our case with the 3700X and 2080 Super:
                                                                                               350 / .87
                                                                      = 402 watts drawn from your power outlet
 
Note, however, that efficiency is not consistent throughout the load of the power supply.

Power supplies are more and less efficient at different loads. They are also more efficient when connected to a more powerful grid, the 230V nominal, which you may use if you don't live in North America. Check that your PSU allows for operation under both voltages. Most modern ones switch operation automatically. Other, often older units, will have a hard switch at the back of the unit to switch to choose from either 115V or 230V (note, DO NOT SWITCH TO THE ONE THAT DOESN'T MATCH THE ELECTRICAL OUTPUT OF YOUR WALL OUTLET! This doesn't usually end well!). This graph demonstrates the efficiency curve of a 2011-era Corsair TX750 when plugged into a 115V AC versus being plugged into a 230V AC. Note the TX750 is an 80+ Bronze rated PSU.
                
                                      
 

If you live in the United States, for example, you are using a 110-120V (115 nominal) AC through a standard NEMA 5-15 socket. Your power supply may be more or less efficient than your manufacturer claims because they may advertise efficiency through a 230V AC, though standard 80 PLUS efficiency testing is done on a 115V AC. Note that these tests for efficiency are also done under very specific test environments and do not necessarily reflect real-world scenarios so you may achieve higher or lower efficiency than rated by the manufacturer.

And just to finish up let's go list the various 80 PLUS ratings and their efficiency at different power draws on a 115V and 230V AC as well as 230V AC redundant.
                                                                               
 
                                                                          
Note that Silver isn't really used anymore and the efficiency of a PSU that would achieve Silver certification would typically just be rounded up or down to Bronze or Gold. "230V internal redundant" refers to efficiency in a redundant scenario like in a data center. This guy from Dell explains it.
 
One last thing I want to make a little more hard-hitting here. 80 PLUS efficiency ratings were invented to save corporations and industrial services money in the long-term, not home users! A company with 1000 computers all consuming 100W for 10 hours a day will see a much greater benefit from having all 80 PLUS Titanium units in their systems than you likely would with your system. Don't spend tons of money trying to get a super efficient PSU when a PSU that's just as good, costs less, and achieves a tier lower 80 PLUS rating is drastically cheaper. 
 
Resources:
Ecova (formerly Ecos), the 80 PLUS certification founder (and located very near me in Portland!)
Wikipedia - There's more info here if you want to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole
Plug Load Solutions - A list of all PSU companies and how many different PSUs they have that achieve Ecova's various 80 PLUS standards.

You clearly don't know how efficient I am.