+80 power supply rating

[Wingfan]

exp. a 500w shohld be above a certain wattage to take advantage of the Gold rating?

 

Sorry noob question

[Meganter]

6 minutes ago, Wingfan said:

exp. a 500w shohld be above a certain wattage to take advantage of the Gold rating?

 

Sorry noob question

 

[martward]

If I understand your question correctly, I believe powersupplies are most efficient around 50% usage, but 80 plus means it is at least 80% efficient at 20%, 50% and 100% load.

[Eigenvektor]

Wikipedia has a table that shows the (minimum) efficiency a power supply must have at a certain load to be rated Plus, Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus#Efficiency_level_certifications

 

Ideally you want to size your PSU in a way that it is operating at optimal efficiency when the system is under "typical" load (e.g. while gaming). This means it'll probably be less efficient when the system is idle, but it isn't using as much power to begin with, so less efficiency won't matter as much.

 

You should also consider that a more efficient PSU is going to be much more expensive and the amount of power you save probably isn't going to offset that price premium any time soon.

[Wingfan]

1 minute ago, Eigenvektor said:

 

 

Ideally you want to size your PSU in a way that it is operating at optimal efficiency when the system is under "typical" load (e.g. while gaming). This means it'll probably be less efficient when the system is idle, but it isn't using as much power to begin with, so less efficiency won't matter as much.

 

You should also consider that a more efficient PSU is going to be much more expensive and the amount of power you save probably isn't going to offset that price premium any time soon.

I have a Corsair 1000w Gold, complete over kill, bought couldnt beat the price at $100.

[Eigenvektor]

2 minutes ago, Wingfan said:

I have a Corsair 1000w Gold, complete over kill, bought couldnt beat the price at $100.

If you got a good deal on it, there's nothing to worry about. A Gold rated one should be at least 90% efficient at 50% load.

 

My point is, buying a Platinum one for say $200 isn't going to be worth it in the short run, because it'll take you a long time to save enough power to make up for the price premium. It's only going to pay off if you keep the PSU around for some time.

[TheKDub]

1 hour ago, Wingfan said:

exp. a 500w shohld be above a certain wattage to take advantage of the Gold rating?

 

Sorry noob question

 

The "80+ Gold rating" is a power efficiency tier. 

 

While generally a higher efficiency power supply will be more reliable or higher quality, there are also some pretty bad units with high efficiencies. There are also some pretty solid units with lower efficiencies. 

 

By efficiency, it means if the system is consuming 100W itself, but the power supply efficiency is only 80%, it'll be drawing approx 125W (100 / 0.80) from the wall, whereas if it was 90%, it'd only draw approx 111W (100 / 0.90) from the wall. Higher efficiency = less wasted power. Less wasted power = less heat and lower electrical bill.

 

 

View the PSU Tier list here: 

 

This is a giant list of most power supplies ranked by their reliability, build quality, features, etc... The higher the tier the better. I wouldn't recommend anything of D tier or lower. (Which unfortunately my current PSU falls under D tier, though for reasons I don't entirely agree with.)