Recommendations for UPS?

PwnyTheTiger · October 8, 2021

Was gaming last night and a storm came out of no where which knocked the power for a brief moment, but enough to kill the power to my PC which scared the bejeezus out of me. I'm looking to purchase a UPS to run my PC and monitor but I have NO idea where to start or what it is I need exactly. In doing cursory research it seems most are surge protectors and battery backups in one, but the VA rating or wattage they supply is where I'm quite confused. I'm unsure what it is I should go for in terms of VA/Wattage though I'm sure overkill won't hurt I'm also not looking to spend more than I need to for my current setup with some room for maybe a GPU upgrade down the line. My system specs are below for ease and I'm positive the PSU is more than enough power for my system so I wasn't trying to match the power it puts out, but should I? The PC and my monitor will be the only 2 devices on the UPS. Besides that, brand recommendations also welcome. Any help or guidance from you fine folks would be appreciated.

LIGISTX · October 8, 2021

41 minutes ago, PwnyTheTiger said:

Was gaming last night and a storm came out of no where which knocked the power for a brief moment, but enough to kill the power to my PC which scared the bejeezus out of me. I'm looking to purchase a UPS to run my PC and monitor but I have NO idea where to start or what it is I need exactly. In doing cursory research it seems most are surge protectors and battery backups in one, but the VA rating or wattage they supply is where I'm quite confused. I'm unsure what it is I should go for in terms of VA/Wattage though I'm sure overkill won't hurt I'm also not looking to spend more than I need to for my current setup with some room for maybe a GPU upgrade down the line. My system specs are below for ease and I'm positive the PSU is more than enough power for my system so I wasn't trying to match the power it puts out, but should I? The PC and my monitor will be the only 2 devices on the UPS. Besides that, brand recommendations also welcome. Any help or guidance from you fine folks would be appreciated.

Honestly, for a home PC this isn't "worth" it. When you lose power, your going to lose all your networking as well, so any data in transit will be lost. Your PC turning off due to loss of power is not that big of an issue. Technically is can cause corruption but the likelihood is low.

You can get a UPS, but you would need a pretty expensive one to keep your PC on while its in a game. The wattage draw will likely be higher than any affordable UPS as most will not be able to output 400+ watts of power.

jde3 · October 8, 2021

As a sysadmin who's been through many data center fires.. I would NEVER recommend a UPS to any home user.

Personal experience with them... they catch fire.

PwnyTheTiger · October 8, 2021

17 minutes ago, jde3 said:

As a sysadmin who's been through many data center fires.. I would NEVER recommend a UPS to any home user.

Personal experience with them... they catch fire.

That's what I've heard and seen a lot of talk about in reviews, so that's sort of why I've been sketched out by most of them hence this post.

38 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Honestly, for a home PC this isn't "worth" it. When you lose power, your going to lose all your networking as well, so any data in transit will be lost. Your PC turning off due to loss of power is not that big of an issue. Technically is can cause corruption but the likelihood is low.

You can get a UPS, but you would need a pretty expensive one to keep your PC on while its in a game. The wattage draw will likely be higher than any affordable UPS as most will not be able to output 400+ watts of power.

I'm not trying to continuously game if the power goes out though either, mostly just want to make it so my PC doesn't immediately shut down like that. I know it's unlikely to cause permanent damage but considering my investment in the PC in the first place, I really don't want something to get borked if the power does go out if I can prevent it.