What kind of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) do I need?

[mcRYSHER]

Hello, guys! So, recently I've been thinking about buying a UPS unit for my PC. I did some research and I am a bit confused because it appears that there are many to choose from and they seem to be very different from each other.

 

So, what I need is a UPS that will give me couple of minutes to shut down my PC in case of electricity blackout. And that's it.

 

My PC is 1200 watt PSU (CORSAIR HX1200i), Ryzen 3960x and a single 2080 Ti.

 

Can you guys please recommend me some solid UPS that fits my need?

[JoostinOnline]

Wait for some recommendations, but even the cheapest UPS's should have an ability to trigger a safe shutdown if they detect a power outage.

[minibois]

My go to brands are APC and Eaton. How long do you want to be able to run on the battery?
Your GPU uses about 230W at full load, CPU uses 100 - 420W depending on if you're idling or fully loading it. Rest would be about +100W.

But how long a UPS will run depends on what you are doing. Doing nothing will mean about 100-200W load, which can run a while, but doing a lot will drain the battery faster.

 

If I just look at the APC Back-UPS Pro 1200VA (230V version), you can see how long it will run:

 

meaning you get around 7 - 40 minutes out a UPS like this one. Depends on what you are doing on the PC.

Usually that gives enough time to turn off the PC, but if the power comes back during this time it will just continue running. Or you can look into connecting a USB cable between the devices (PC and UPS) so your PC gets a 'signal' to turn off. I know this works with servers/NAS devices, but not sure how well/if at all it works with PC's.

EDIT: oh and keep in mind you probably need to keep your monitor and possibly a network switch on the UPS too.

[Kisai]

31 minutes ago, mcRYSHER said:

Hello, guys! So, recently I've been thinking about buying a UPS unit for my PC. I did some research and I am a bit confused because it appears that there are many to choose from and they seem to be very different from each other.

 

So, what I need is a UPS that will give me couple of minutes to shut down my PC in case of electricity blackout. And that's it.

 

My PC is 1200 watt PSU (CORSAIR HX1200i), Ryzen 3960x and a single 2080 Ti.

 

Can you guys please recommend me some solid UPS that fits my need?

You need a UPS with a VA rating higher than the combined load of your system. So for most gaming systems, there is no viable UPS at all. 

 

It's not the same as a laptop battery where you'll get 2-3 hours out of a small LiPo battery. A UPS battery turns 120V power into 12V DC, and then turns 12V DC back into 120V power for your devices. This results in a lot of waste. So you can't draw a connection from having a 1000w PSU to a 1000w UPS, it's simply not a thing. Unless you're going to want to spend $2000 on a UPS, at most you're going to find a UPS that lasts about 3 minutes.

 

The other side of the problem is that most UPS systems will self-destruct if you overload them. They will be destroyed if you have your CPU and GPU running full tilt and the power is lost. The best you can get is 1500VA (850-900 Watts.) So if you are pulling 900+ watts already, you can not use a "desktop" UPS, you'd have to look at a data center style UPS (the ones that are as tall and weigh 100kg.)

 

On the other hand, at idle, you're likely not pulling more than 200watts. So what you want before you buy a UPS is to get a "kill-a-watt" energy monitor device, and max out each thing you intend to plug into the UPS and add it up. If it comes in under 800 watts you might get away with a 1500VA unit.

 

Notice the price jump when you go from 900w to 1200w:

 

You really have to weigh if it's even worth having, since most SSD drives aren't going to be killed like mechanical drives will when power is lost. You still want to protect your equipment, but a $300 to $1200 investment in a UPS that lasts only 5 years probably isn't worth the cost unless you have extremely unreliable power. Where I live, the power goes out roughly once every three months due to high winds, and one time I was using my PC in FFXIV and the UPS instead decided to keel-over instead of save it. So for me, all the money sunk into the UPS was wasted as the one time it could have saved it, instead destroyed the inverter and is now useless as a UPS.

 

There's other things to point out as well, you can't use surge protectors (as a way to get more outlets) with a UPS because it makes it less capable of detecting the load on that port. 

 

If anything, try and split your equipment between two UPS systems. One for all your networking gear, and one for "just the PC" itself. No accessories. That way you can save your networking kit and switch to your smartphone or tablet if the power goes out instead of having everything offline.

[Kisai]

19 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Wait for some recommendations, but even the cheapest UPS's should have an ability to trigger a safe shutdown if they detect a power outage.

UPS Inverters are destroyed if you put more equipment on it than it's rated for, so the "cheapest" UPS will just be destroyed instead of "shutting down"

 

You need a USB/serial connection to the UPS to have it shut the PC down, and if you regularly have stuff running that blocks shutdown (eg Notepad), it won't happen. Some of the latest models of APC UPS have a "cloud" service that connects to an ethernet port on the back to let you communicate with it that way, like other smart-home tech that needs an internet connection.

[mcRYSHER]

Kisai, thanks for a detailed answer! So, I guess there is no reliable ups for a powerful PC. On top of that they do not last long like you mentioned. This is what I was thinking about after having read about all those ups. So, I guess I'll just stick with my surge protector from APC. Thanks again, man! 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, mcRYSHER said:

Kisai, thanks for a detailed answer! So, I guess there is no reliable ups for a powerful PC. 

I'm not convinced your PC uses anywhere near 1200W.

 

You have an HX1200i, so Link or iCue can tell you how much power you really use.  What does it say?